Which would send up a red flag to you? (No pun intended)
The below message was sent to me by Dr Nancy Bonus of the San Fernando Valley ACT for America chapter. She has given me permission to post it here. Her own organization ran into a similar problem with the IRS in trying to obtain non-profit status for their "Protecting American Values". Finally, they joined a class action lawsuit by the American Center for Law and Justice.
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Dear friends and loved ones,
As you probably already know, when we were trying to set up our non-profit, "Protecting American Values" the IRS dragged its feet and did everything it could to prevent us from being approved. This went on for nearly two years. They harassed us with continually needing additional information and basically having us jump through hoops when what we sent in should have been sufficient.
We finally had to join a class action lawsuit that the American Center for Law and Justice - Jay Seculow's organization - had launched against them for the treatment we and others who had patriotic names for their groups (particularly tea party groups, which we are not) were experiencing. Someone had told me at the time that our name and how patriotic it sounded, was a red flag to those at the IRS with a political agenda who wanted to prevent the our approval. Without ACLJ's intervention and help we probably would have given up.
Today the IRS has admitted they were targeting "tea party" and other groups and trying to prevent them from achieving certification as non-profit all through 2012. Please forward this information. It's really discouraging that a non-profit department such as the IRS has been corrupted by partisan politics.
Best,
Nancy Bonus
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Here is a report on the IRS scandal from the ACLJ:
ACLJ Calls IRS Apology for Targeting Tea Party Groups "Significant Victory for Free Speech and Freedom of Association"(Washington, DC) - The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which represents nearly 30 Tea Party organizations nationwide against an assault by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), called today’s apology by the IRS a "significant victory for free speech and freedom of association."
The ACLJ began representing Tea Party groups after the IRS launched an effort to intimidate Tea Party organizations by demanding information that is outside the scope of legitimate inquiry and violated the First Amendment. The IRS demanded that groups reveal the internal workings of their organizations - including the identification of members, how they are selected, who they associate with, and even what they discuss.
Today, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS unit that oversees tax-exempt groups, issued an apology and said that practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and inappropriately focused on groups that included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status, singling them out for additional reviews. Today, she said the practice was wrong and should not have occurred.
“We knew from the very start that this intimidation tactic was coordinated and focused directly on specific organizations,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. “This admission by the IRS represents a significant victory for free speech and freedom of association. There was never any doubt that these organizations complied with the law and applied for tax exempt status for their activities as Americans have done for decades. And for the many tax-exempt groups we represent, this is an important day – and underscores the need to stand-up and defend your constitutional freedoms.”
The ACLJ represents 27 groups in more than 18 states across the country. To date, 14 groups have been granted tax-exempt status by the IRS, the others are pending and no organization has been denied.
“The IRS admission and apology should have come much sooner,” said Sekulow. “It took the threat of legal action to get the IRS to make this admission. And while many of the organizations we represent have finally been granted tax-exempt status, we demand the IRS to immediately approve the pending applications for the remainder of our clients.”
The ACLJ said the IRS information demands sent to the Tea Party groups are not in response to complaints of wrongdoing, but instead in response to applications by the organizations for 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) tax exempt status.Sekulow, who served as a trial lawyer with the Office of the Chief Counsel for the IRS earlier in his career, said many of the questions were simply inappropriate and fall well outside the scope of legitimate IRS inquiry. A sampling of the problematic questions are posted here.
The ACLJ also called for Congressional oversight hearings on this issue. The ACLJ has heard from from more than 50,000 Americans urging Congress to conduct hearings concerning the IRS actions in this matter.Led by Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), focusing on constitutional law, is based in Washington, D.C.
Contrast these problems with how Media Matters for America (an arm of the Democratic Party) obtained its 501 C3 status: (Hat tip Daily Caller.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/16/media-matters-targets-revealed-business-wealth-christianity/
Right. Read the below article that shows that the head of the IRS section that overseas non-profit organizations learned on June 29, 2011 of what was going on. (Hat tip Big Story)
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/irs-apologizes-targeting-tea-party-groups
And IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman testified before Congress on March 22, 2012 that no such targeting was going on.
"There's absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people" who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman said at the House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing."
I guess it depends on what your definition of "is" is.
As in Fast and Furious, it is easy to lay the blame on the troops. But if you have any common sense, consider this:
Who is more likely to employ discrimination directed to particular philosophies? Who made the decision to target organizations with such words as "America" and Patriot" in their names?
Remember when this happened in the Nixon administration? It came right out of the White House.
If this isn't an abuse of power, what isn't? Where is the accountability for this administration? This is just another example of the corruption and depravity of this administration.
President Obama is indirectly responsible for this illegal action. His joking give license to IRS agents to do what Obama wants, with impunity. Some people remember his statements back in 2011, where he jokes about IRS audits of his enemies.
ReplyDeleteHere is the revealing account in the Wall Street Journal:
Tax Audits Are No Laughing Matter
A president shouldn't even joke about abusing IRS power.
The Wall Street Journal
May 18, 2009
At his Arizona State University commencement speech last Wednesday, Mr. Obama noted that ASU had refused to grant him an honorary degree, citing his lack of experience, and the controversy this had caused. He then demonstrated ASU's point by remarking, "I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. . . . President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS."
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260113149028331.html
Squid
Shades of ol' "Tricky Dick" himself yet again. Let me see here. A very high-ranking IRS official (only thrice removed from the Commissioner) learned at least as early as June 2011 that certain conservative groups were inappropriately, and almost certainly illegally, being singled out, obviously for politically motivated purposes of harassment/intimidation.
ReplyDeleteLater, in August 2011, she and other HQS staffers met with IRS Chief Counsel in regard to this matter so that "everyone (apparently exclusive of the IRS Commissioner, based on his subsequent March 2012 testimony), would be up to speed on the matter
The idea that low-level "line people" initiated this policy is ludicrous on its face. They are almost always career employees and essentially not politically motivated. Further, their work product would eventually find its way to and through those managers whom they allegedly did not talk to.
And even if those managers (if you want to call them that) did not direct the activity, they most certainly should have recognized what was going on. And if they did not, the doofuses should be picking up trash on the side of the highway rather than being high-ranking IRS employees.
What almost certainly occurred was that when the operations of the particular IRS division in question were moved to/concentrated in Cincinnati, "marching orders" to implement this policy came down the pike.
I guess Treasury's IG is going to issue a report on this matter, which I await with bated breath. As Gary intimated, it will most likely be a "whitewash" similar to the one issued by Mr. Pickering, Admiral Mullen, and the Accountability and Review Board relative to Benghazi.
Two things to remember. Absence of evidence is not the equivalent of evidence of absence. Management 101 tells us that while it is possible to delegate authority, there can be no similar delegation of responsibility.
Depending on what internal documents exist, it may be necessary to have some "whistle blowers" to flesh this out. Unfortunately, they do not yet appear to be coming from the top ranks, as with Benghazi, and lower-level employees are much more intimidated by coming forward. We'll see.
I have a simple solution: abolish tax deductibility for all contributions.
ReplyDeleteThat need not, and should not, mean that voluntary contributions to an organization are taxed as organizational "income." Such contributions are an exercise of freedom of association, whether for a political or non-political purpose. If the organization does not generate a profit, if it merely spends its members contributions on free speech, its not taxable as income.
But, it would mean that the donors don't get to deduct their contributions from their own personal income. They donate because they believe in the purpose for which their money will be used, period.
And this gets the IRS out of the business of parsing what is a legitimate tax-deductible activity vs. what is legal but non-exempt political advocacy.
Simple.