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IRS Targets Tea Party Groups applying for non profit status

eeyore1954

Philosopher
eeyore1954
Joined
Jun 9, 2006
Messages
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There have been complaints from Tea Party groups applying for Tax exempt status recently. They said they have been singled out and there were great delays. The IRS denied this. Until now.

I saw this first here in a CNN article.

Responding to a flurry of complaints from conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, the Internal Revenue Service admitted Friday it made "mistakes" in the last few years while trying to process those requests.
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The article said the IRS made mistakes but for some reason it left out this piece of information

Organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.
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More information from The Tax Prof Blog
After months of denying that the IRS has been targeting tea party groups for special scrutiny, Lois Lerner, Director of the IRS's Exempt Organizations Division, admitted that the IRS had been giving additional scrutiny to applications for tax-exempt status from goups with the "Tea Party" or "patriot" in their title. She denied there was any political motivation and blamed the practice on a low-level employee in Cincinnati.
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I guess I could see why the IRS might not like the tea party groups...
 
I would find this bad if it turns out to be handing them differently than other political advocacy groups.
 
jj said:
I would find this bad if it turns out to be handing them differently than other political advocacy groups.
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They said they singled out groups with Tea Party or Patriot in the application.
 
and it turns the IRS was trying to handle an influx of politically-oriented groups (3,400, twice the usual) but were not picking on the teaers. They neglected to mention this little tidbit

In all, about 300 groups were singled out for additional review, Lerner said. Of those, about a quarter were singled out because they had "tea party" or "patriot" somewhere in their applications.
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So they were looking at a bunch of groups, and since political groups often skate the edge of the law for tax-exemption, they get a little extra scrutiny.

FYI: the number of Tea-groups that were denied tax-exempt status = 0

FWIW, the head of the IRS is a Bush appointee.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/irs-apologizes-targeting-conservative-groups
 
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Myron Proudfoot said:
and it turns the IRS was trying to handle an influx of politically-oriented groups (3,400, twice the usual) but were not picking on the teaers. They neglected to mention this little tidbit



So they were looking at a bunch of groups, and since political groups often skate the edge of the law for tax-exemption, they get a little extra scrutiny.



FWIW, the head of the IRS is a Bush appointee.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/irs-apologizes-targeting-conservative-groups
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To really know the details we would have to see what other groups were looked at, how many were just randomly selected out of the 300. What other words they were looking for to select groups for review, what percentage of groups with tea party/patriot in the application were selected, etc

FYI: the number of Tea-groups that were denied tax-exempt status = 0
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Number of Tea Party groups that were hassled strictly because Tea Party was in the name => 75.
 
I know a fellow who started a non-profit tax protest group in the 90s. He got investigated every which way by the IRS pretty much immediately.

I think somebody at IRS believed that the Tea Party is primarily a tax protest group and gave it the same treatment.
 
Nevermind, grumpy today, time for a some fresh air.

ETA: I see that now Ben, fair enough.
 
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Number of Tea Party groups that were hassled asked to explain their purpose under the existing tax code strictly because Tea Party was in the name => 75.

FTFY
 
Myron Proudfoot said:
Number of Tea Party groups that were hassled asked to explain their purpose under the existing tax code strictly because Tea Party was in the name => 75.

FTFY
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In light of the fact they were selected only because they had
conservative tags in the name I would consider it hassled.
 
eeyore1954 said:
They said they singled out groups with Tea Party or Patriot in the application.
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eeyore1954 said:
But at least they say they didn't do it for partisan reasons!?
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I think that was just poor wording in the IRS statement. I took it to mean that they're not supposed to be partisan, but that someone (a bad apple, or a few bad apples) violated that policy by doing just that.
 
Myron Proudfoot said:
FYI: the number of Tea-groups that were denied tax-exempt status = 0
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I think that fact argues against your position here.

Ordinarily, the groups flagged for closer scrutiny by the IRS are flagged for cause. IIRC, I heard that 75% of them have problems that lead to their tax exempt status being denied.

If anything, this argues that having the words "Tea" or "Patriot" in the organization name is not a good reason to flag them for closer scrutiny.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
I think that was just poor wording in the IRS statement. I took it to mean that they're not supposed to be partisan, but that someone (a bad apple, or a few bad apples) violated that policy by doing just that.
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I believe it was a few bad apples. I don't think it came from orders high up in the IRS or from some authority outside the IRS.
 
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