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Acting IRS commissioner resigns in wake of agency scandal

Of course, the first attempt to trivialize the issue as the work of some underlings in Ohio, is now buried by revelations the mighty IRS was marching people through hoops from various offices around the country.

Southern California Offices Named in IRS Tea Party Scandal | NBC Southern California

Unfortunately I am quite familiar with the El Monte Office of the IRS. It's an arm pit office. Unimaginable anyone in that office would have acted on their own. This scandle has many branches, and I believe the roots run really deep.
It's systemic, I believe. I have no verifiable information to support that other than the revelations that seem to be coming out on a daily basis now. So far, we have a guy taking early retirement, and a couple of apologies from two low level people in Cincinnati who we are supposed to believe ran the whole operation.
 
Is it time yet for a FLAT TAX ??

A flat tax would have nothing to do with this issue. First it was about tax-exempt status. Second, I haven't heard of any flat tax proposal that applies to groups or businesses.
 
Thanks for illustrating your misunderstanding. Didn't say the outcome was different, he's still gone from the position. What is different is the public perception of what happened (Obama fired the guy as opposed to the guy resigned and retired). One suggests the POTUS took a stand, the other, not so much.
But it is different. If he had been fired, there would be no pension and benefits. So he wasn't fired. He resigned, a whole two weeks before he would have anyway.
 
But it is different. If he had been fired, there would be no pension and benefits. So he wasn't fired. He resigned, a whole two weeks before he would have anyway.

Granted. My point was different though, and in that context the outcome is superfluous. One headline portrays Obama as a "man of action", the other, again, not so much.
 
A flat tax would have nothing to do with this issue. First it was about tax-exempt status. Second, I haven't heard of any flat tax proposal that applies to groups or businesses.

OK I'll buy that.No tax exempt status for anybody or anything!!

No exemptions for groups or businesses, but everybody pays.

Whatever the % from all income period!!
 
Granted. My point was different though, and in that context the outcome is superfluous. One headline portrays Obama as a "man of action", the other, again, not so much.
Yeah. Meddling with talking points and characterizations again. You'd think they'd learn that sometimes is best to call something what it is rather than redefining every damn thing to suit this situation or that.
 
It's systemic, I believe. I have no verifiable information to support that other than the revelations that seem to be coming out on a daily basis now. So far, we have a guy taking early retirement, and a couple of apologies from two low level people in Cincinnati who we are supposed to believe ran the whole operation.

I'm with you Humbolt. When I saw the headline that identified individuals within the El Monte field office as also being involved, it confirmed my deepening suspicions. This was orchestrated from on high, and the harrasement was done with a purpose.
 
:ws Really smart people avoid taxes illegally. Anyone who believes otherwise is naive and dumb. :yt
:ws

Marc Rich (born Marcell David Reich; December 18, 1934) is an international commodities trader, hedge fund manager, financier and businessman.[1] He is best known for founding the commodities company Glencore. He was indicted in the United States on federal charges of tax evasion and illegally making oil deals with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. He was in Switzerland at the time of the indictment and has never returned to the U.S.

Marc Rich - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Someone please give Taylor here a lesson in the real world. Thank you.
 
That sword offers full retirement and benefits. It's a really nice sword that isn't there. Hardly a sacrificial lamb. More like a celebratory gloat.

Don't tell the righties/tpers that. It'll make them feel bad :lol:
 
The real reason why this was odd is that
tea party groups are generally too dumb to know how to avoid paying taxes, so targeting them is plain stupid.

After all, the very fact that they tried to apply for tax-exempt status in an attempt to avoid the IRS tells you those organizations are naive.

The best tax avoiders do it illegally.


So the people that blindly elected a Jr Senator from Chicago who had ties to known radicals and left wing community groups, who publicly stated our Constitution was a " charter of negative Liberties, who had ZERO experience as a manager, as a Leader or as a human being, who were so intellectually lazy they used a complicit media to do their research for them, are now calling Conservatives "dumb" ?

The people who after 4 years of economic stagnation, after Obama was responsible for nearly 7 TRILLION dollars in NEW structural debt, after Obama wasted nearly 800 billion dollars building a manufacturing base for a product no one wanted, who gave 29 Million to a Dutch Car Company, who claims job creation after nearly 10 million people have dropped out of the work force, who's central bank appointee is currently stuck on QE, so he can keep all of Obama's new debt cheap ( for now ), who Presided over the largest increase in poverty since The Great Depression,voted AGAIN to let this group of Criminals and low lifes run our Country are bragging about their intelligence ?

The people that would trade the lives of four Americans in a heartbeat to keep their corrupt 2016 candidate viable are criticizing the IQs of Tea Party members ?

The people who have sold out any semblance of integrity to apologize for a corrupt ideology, who have justified down his numerous lies and who pretend that these scandals are some Conservative Conspiracy actually look down on the people who were right all along about the Character of our President ?

Please. The left wingers, Obama-philes and Media Matter clones are definately not splitting atoms on their off time if you know what I mean.

How on earth could so many people be so lacking of the fundamental Common sense needed to see through this guy in 2007-2008 ?
 
Of course, the first attempt to trivialize the issue as the work of some underlings in Ohio, is now buried by revelations the mighty IRS was marching people through hoops from various offices around the country.

Southern California Offices Named in IRS Tea Party Scandal | NBC Southern California

Unfortunately I am quite familiar with the El Monte Office of the IRS. It's an arm pit office. Unimaginable anyone in that office would have acted on their own. This scandle has many branches, and I believe the roots run really deep.

Good morning, ocean515. :2wave:

I don't know about anybody else, but I am having difficulty determining where in the H*** the buck stops! Didn't used to be underling drones who were causing all the problems, but somewhere along the line, that apparently changed. Maybe it was on the second Tuesday of some week, and I was watching some other scandal unfold...probably Benghazi... and didn't realize I was not up-to-date on all the other scandals making the news! Fortunately I can multi-task, so I've set my alarm clock two hours earlier, and I'll see if that works! :shock:
 
I'm wrong about needing to apply for 501(c)(4) status. Groups appear to be able to self declare. So this begs the question, why would anyone bother applying?

Here's a few sources that describe some of the intricacies of 501(c)(4) legislation.
http://afjactioncampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Starting-a-501c4-Organization.pdf
http://www.texascbar.org/content/legal_library/corp_structure/downloads/Differences501cOrgs.pdf
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopicm95.pdf
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopici03.pdf

501(c)(4) status originated in 1913 upon request from the Chamber of Commerce. It's a catchall for groups which aren't taxable entities, but don't merit tax deductible donations. Furthermore, the law allows these groups to engage in political activity by either an attached PAC or by using donations specifically earmarked for independent expenditures (campaign adds). In both of these cases, the law mandates that donors for these funds be made public.

Prior to Citizens United, it made perfect sense for a 501(c)(4) to be able to self declare. Donations to 501(c)(4)'s are not permitted as charitable deductions meaning you can't use them as a tax shelter and funds raised are not permitted to benefit any of the leadership. Furthermore, the “not primarily political” distinction was fine because all political activity was subject to the same laws as it was for any other organization.

Citizen's United broke 501(c)(4)'s because it allowed them to use general treasury funds (with anonymous donors) instead of specially earmarked funds which require donors to be publicly disclosed. Now there was a huge benefit for a political organization to declare as a 501(c)(4) because it allowed donors to influence politics autonomously; something that had been illegal for the last hundred years.

Self Declaring allows organizations to begin acting like 501(c)(4)'s without waiting for approval, but does not free them from the approval process. When processing their taxes, IRS will then review the organizations to insure that they filed correctly. They still go through the application process, it's just after the fact and it was expected that the IRS would give greater scrutiny to groups that self declare. But the real reason to get approval first, particularly if your goal is to allow donors to autonomously influence elections, is that if your status is revoked your group will have to disclose all of it's donors and pay appropriate penalties.

This means that if you're a 501(c)(4) group that has not been pre-approved, your donors risk being exposed if you engage in political activity. Therefore you'd want to obtain approval first, so that your donors are not exposed.

:rolleyes: it's amazing how many posters are incredibly naive about how their gummint actually works.

Unless you're down with the IRS (i. e. the feds like you), applying for tax-exempt status is always going to raise suspicion. You can easily be denied tax-exempt status even if you're legally eligible, and then you'll have to get lawyers involved, which costs even more $$.

The very fact that a group that opposes taxation in the US (i. e. the TP) thought it could apply for tax-exempt status and not raise gummint suspicion has to be the ultimate in naive.

That's like an anti-police brutality activist walking into a police station, declaring his affiliation, and then asking how he can legally purchase a gun. TRANSLATION: stupid.

In the real world, the most powerful organizations have accounts in one or more overseas banks and are therefore able to skirt IRS tax provisions.
 
Good morning, ocean515. :2wave:

I don't know about anybody else, but I am having difficulty determining where in the H*** the buck stops! Didn't used to be underling drones who were causing all the problems, but somewhere along the line, that apparently changed. Maybe it was on the second Tuesday of some week, and I was watching some other scandal unfold...probably Benghazi... and didn't realize I was not up-to-date on all the other scandals making the news! Fortunately I can multi-task, so I've set my alarm clock two hours earlier, and I'll see if that works! :shock:

:agree

However, after giving it some thought, all this scandle stuff is not really that unexpected, at least in my opinion. The tone is set at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, so the beat, and the dance shouldn't be that surprising.
 
So the people that blindly elected a Jr Senator from Chicago who had ties to known radicals and left wing community groups, who publicly stated our Constitution was a " charter of negative Liberties, who had ZERO experience as a manager, as a Leader or as a human being, who were so intellectually lazy they used a complicit media to do their research for them, are now calling Conservatives "dumb" ?

Obama has been elected President twice.

The TPers are poor, struggling w/the IRS, and still trying to get their boys elected.

Pretty obvious who's the smarter of the two.
 
No you weren't, you were relishing in your unquestionably bigotry and prejudice as you doled out backhanded insults and attack laden "defenses" of them and then turn around like you're doing some good thing sounding like a slave owner convincing himself of what a kind deed he's doing for those black folk.

How is it being bigoted to defend those groups? Please tell us.

I've stated repeatedly that those TP groups lack the resources and noodle to be credible tax evaders. So they should not have been targeted. The IRS was wrong. What more do you want me to say? :rolleyes:
 
Someone please give Taylor here a lesson in the real world. Thank you.
Yes! Marc Rich is an excellent example of why it is naive and dumb to try to avoid taxes with a 501(c)(4) when you could instead go the illegal route. Had these tea party groups been really smart, they too could have received Presidential pardons and retired to Switzerland!

Thank you, solletica, for letting us all know how things work in the "real world."
 
Yes! Marc Rich is an excellent example of why it is naive and dumb to try to avoid taxes with a 501(c)(4) when you could instead go the illegal route. Had these tea party groups been really smart, they too could have received Presidential pardons and retired to Switzerland!

Uh, no, in order to avoid taxes and retire in Switzerland, you have to lots of $$ and connections, something the TPers, well, lack (although that's putting it mildly :lol: )

Thank you, solletica, for letting us all know how things work in the "real world."

You're welcome.
 
Obama has been elected President twice.

The TPers are poor, struggling w/the IRS, and still trying to get their boys elected.

Pretty obvious who's the smarter of the two.

The TP ers have few boys to try to get elected. When they get one elected both parties leadership
coopts them.



Most aren't poor just work for a living.
 
It's systemic, I believe. I have no verifiable information to support that other than the revelations that seem to be coming out on a daily basis now. So far, we have a guy taking early retirement, and a couple of apologies from two low level people in Cincinnati who we are supposed to believe ran the whole operation.
http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2013reports/201310053fr.pdf
what the IG has presented is nothing more than piss poor management - and laws/regulations that are other than clear and specific

to be recognized as tax exempt under internal revenue code 501 (c) (4) an applicant organization MUST be PRIMARILY engaged in the promotion of social welfare. social welfare does NOT include 'political campaign intervention'.

now, as the assigned specialist determining whether the applicant was primarily engaged in social work in contrast to political campaign intervention, what is the benchmark which allows you to distinguish between the two?

for those applications which gave no indication of political campaign intervention as part of their organization's activities, they were processed and approved on the merits of the application data received. they were the easy ones.the IG says a couple should have been more thoroughly evaluated, but otherwise they were routine actions

but those applications from organizations whose information provided an indication they were involved in political campaign intervention, now the test was to determine how much political campaign intervention was too much to allow them to be found tax exempt, when compared to how much social welfare promotion they engaged in

and this was the crux of the problem. those non-routine applications were sorted out and not acted upon because the specialists were awaiting direction from various other departments of the IRS, especially including the technical unit, rulings and agreements section, operations unit, quality assurance unit, and general counsel's office
it was a management cluster****, which will be obvious to those who read the timeline
the unit managers were frequently changed. no one seemed to be able to give definition to the need for benchmarking the acceptable level of political campaign intervention and especially how to measure it. so the managers did nothing. and the specialists, who could not process the application consistent with the regulations until the standard operating procedures were put in place, did not process the non-routine applications while awaiting the benchmarking to be established

now, during this span, the staff began looking for ways to distinguish the routine submissions from the non-routine applications. here is where they identified applicant organization names as being indicative of non-routine submissions where there was expected to be a degree of political campaign intervention. which is why organizations self identified as tea party, patriots, progressive, and the like were flagged for a higher level of scrutiny. which added scrutiny could only occur once the benchmarking was established

again. lots of management incompetence. nothing found in the way of partisan bias
read the report and see for yourself
 
Obama has been elected President twice.


The TPers are poor, struggling w/the IRS, and still trying to get their boys
elected.

Pretty obvious who's the smarter of the two.

Thanks to a mix of morons and blind ideologues yes, he was elected twice.

Why you seem so proud of that fact is beyond me.

Your proud that 60 million " adult " Americans were so feeble minded they bought into the " Bush Lied " false narratives and elected a ACTUAL LIAR ?

Your proud that 60 million low information, dim witted, highly susceptable people bought into the " incompetent Bush " false Narratives and elected a ACTUAL INCOMPETENT.

So tell me, as you insult the intelligence of the only people who had him pinned down accurately as a stuffed suite one dimensional media creation prior to November 2008, what are you so proud about now ?

LOL !! Don't tell me, you actually believe the crap that comes out of the Democrat party these days ? As the President and his press secretary publicly contradict each other with dueling lies on a daily basis ??

Wow, how gullible can someone be ?
 
It must have taken willful ignorance and mangle logic to get to this response. You haven't provided a single fact, nor do I think you could support it. Please supply credible sources for this nonsense.

An organization dedicated to opposing taxes thinking it could openly apply for tax-exempt status and not raise the ire of the same institution it criticizes = Mr. Stupid .

Would be like anti-cop brutality activist trying to ask local police for how to purchase rifles legally.

Or an anti-Latino immigration activist asking LA Mayor Villaraigosa how to get a protest permit.

'Nuff said.
 
An organization dedicated to opposing taxes thinking it could openly apply for tax-exempt status and not raise the ire of the same institution it criticizes = Mr. Stupid .

Would be like anti-cop brutality activist trying to ask local police for how to purchase rifles legally.

Or an anti-Latino immigration activist asking LA Mayor Villaraigosa how to get a protest permit.

'Nuff said.

Every one of your examples prove you haven't a clue how government is supposed to work. They point to the vindictiveness that replaces duty in your mind.
 
Thanks to a mix of morons and blind ideologues yes, he was elected twice.

Why you seem so proud of that fact is beyond me.

You seem to confuse character with intelligence.

Intelligence is a measure of how successful one is at accomplishing one's goals, period. Has nothing to do with character.

No one is questioning the character of the TPers. I'm sure they're good people. But given their position relative to Obama's, it's brutally obvious which one of the two lacks noodle.
 
An organization dedicated to opposing taxes thinking it could openly apply for tax-exempt status and not raise the ire of the same institution it criticizes = Mr. Stupid .

Would be like anti-cop brutality activist trying to ask local police for how to purchase rifles legally.

Or an anti-Latino immigration activist asking LA Mayor Villaraigosa how to get a protest permit.

'Nuff said.


Or asking Obama's Treasury Secretary where to pay their taxes...
 
I do not doubt there was targeting of conservative groups. My feelings on this though are there is nothing wrong with targeting groups who are trying to file against the rules. Let's just make sure we're getting all of them, not some of them.

At the moment, this is my feeling. If someone was applying for citizenship with the name 'Jihadi Bin Laden', I'm sure conservatives would want them scrutinized. Similarly, if a group named 'Tea Party 4Life' applied for a tax exemption, they should be scrutinized.

My opinion is not set in stone on this issue, as I only know the basics.
 
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