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Is the IRS scandal worse than Watergate?

Is the IRS scandal worse than Watergate?


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Of course. Making people fill out forms is vastly worse than robbery. Everyone knows that. It's much more important that political organizations be allowed to not pay taxes based on a law protecting non-political organizations than it is that competing political campaigns not directly sabotage each other.

Seriously, this IRS thing is barely a scandal and it's little more than the pro Citizens United crowd reaping some of what they've sown. This kind of nonsense is what you get with all this anonymous money tossed around. The law states very clearly that political organizations are not entitled to this tax exempt status. These Tea Party groups tried to pass themselves off as non-political organizations. And they got caught. And now they're crying foul because they were examined more thoroughly than others. They wouldn't have been examined at all if they weren't trying to illegally get out of paying taxes.



The key word is "unfairly". It wasn't unfair. Holding people who are trying to tax dodge accountable is not unfair.

Are you really going to claim that very few businesses or organizations don't have a decided political lean while legitimately qualifying for tax exempt status?
 
Except that is a massive scandal and a gross injustice. Look at it this way: Imagine if the police only arrest blacks for activities committed by whites at the same rate. Here, too, you would have the "government doing its job unevenly." But no one would be running to its defense.
They basically already do that.
http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_Trends_in_Corrections_Fact_sheet.pdf
So let me ask you this, is it worse for the government to scrutinize your taxes more than someone else's, or fund someone breaking into your house and then cover it up?
Also, there was a coverup of the Watergate incident by Nixon, and his administration.
If the President did cover this one up, then maybe it will be on the same level as Watergate IMO.
 
I can agree with that. Of course, they can always act as if it falls under the guise of "due diligence". Remember - we're talking about claims of tax exemption.

Tax evasion is the granddaddy of all crimes. Hell, look at all those old-time gangsters. Murder, extortion, racketeering - all over the place. Know what got many of them? Tax evasion. This is most prevalent with Capone.

You don't screw with the Tax Man. That's why I said that the biggest crime here is the unchecked power of the IRS and the Treasury.


The hell of it is they only thought to go after Capone on taxes when they couldn't get him any other way. How many large corporations are never looked at unless the gov wants to flaunt it's power?

The IRS definitely uses a system to select who they'll target and in this case they need to show that their methods didn't favor anyone. Not an easy task, since someone will always appear to benefit more than another.
 
If it was done with intent to intimidate political groups, definitely yes. If Obama was involved, then he should be impeached. Freedom and fairness in political activity is a primary quality of democracy that must be maintained. Of course, I realize that the vast majority of conservatives wouldn't be doing it to preserve the integrity of our democratic republic, so I am not sure if we really deserve self governance. However, in the hope that we one day will rise to the level of responsible citizens, we must maintain the trappings of a democratic system.

That said, I seriously believe that this was rogue behavior on the part of IRS employees. If anything.

It's already been determined in spades that this was a direct Washington initiative, which really flies into the face of the people who claim it's just a couple scrubs in Cincinatti trying to play the system in their party's favor.
 
Of course. Making people fill out forms is vastly worse than robbery. Everyone knows that. It's much more important that political organizations be allowed to not pay taxes based on a law protecting non-political organizations than it is that competing political campaigns not directly sabotage each other.

Seriously, this IRS thing is barely a scandal and it's little more than the pro Citizens United crowd reaping some of what they've sown. This kind of nonsense is what you get with all this anonymous money tossed around. The law states very clearly that political organizations are not entitled to this tax exempt status. These Tea Party groups tried to pass themselves off as non-political organizations. And they got caught. And now they're crying foul because they were examined more thoroughly than others. They wouldn't have been examined at all if they weren't trying to illegally get out of paying taxes.



The key word is "unfairly". It wasn't unfair. Holding people who are trying to tax dodge accountable is not unfair.

Actually, from the perspective of harm to the political system, it is worse. Definitely.
 
It's already been determined in spades that this was a direct Washington initiative, which really flies into the face of the people who claim it's just a couple scrubs in Cincinatti trying to play the system in their party's favor.

Oh for gods sake, no it hasn't.
 
The hell of it is they only thought to go after Capone on taxes when they couldn't get him any other way. How many large corporations are never looked at unless the gov wants to flaunt it's power?

The IRS definitely uses a system to select who they'll target and in this case they need to show that their methods didn't favor anyone. Not an easy task, since someone will always appear to benefit more than another.

No large corporation is never looked at, regardless if it's shady or follows every letter of the law to a fault.

Taxes, both at the individual and corporate level, have "red flags" involved with certain claims, deductions, etc. If their radar blips enough, you're going to get a smarmy look from the Tax Man.

Frankly, the only way we can prove beyond the scope of doubt that this was a targeted issues is to look into how many new organizations with a demonstrable Democratic lean were getting poked and prodded by the Tax Man.
 
As opposed to some deep Freudian subconscious impulses making them to write official memos mandating scrutiny and delays in approval for conservative and libertarian non-profits, specifically?

I didn't say there wasn't evidence of some malfeasance, I meant proven enough to cause punitive actions and seek further inquiry.
 
No, it's not worse than Watergate because the president was not involved.

I don't have any proof of this but I believe that some, if not all, of this happened because some people at the IRS were trying to score some brownie points.

The IRS definitely has way too much power (Yes, I have gone a few rounds with the IRS). Something needs to be done about that.





"If you don't know where you're going any road will get you there." ~ Lewis Carroll
 
Are you really going to claim that very few businesses or organizations don't have a decided political lean while legitimately qualifying for tax exempt status?

I'm saying that political organizations, like the Tea Party organizations at the heart of this situation, should not be enjoying the tax exempt status reserved for non-political organizations. A lean is not the criteria. The main activities of the organization are. An organization that calls itself a political party and fields candidates for election is about as political a group as possible. And they are claiming to be singled out. Well, when investigating illegal activity, they go for the big fish first.

It would absolutely be wrong for the IRS to be harassing and denying legal benefits to an organization that actually qualified for them. But the complaint here is that the process to deny these obviously political groups the tax exempt status reserved for non-political groups took longer than they like... it's an empty complaint. While the IRS may indeed have unclean hands in this situation, the organizations complaining have much much dirtier ones. I have no sympathy for them being given a hard time doing something they shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Putting one group of crooks at the top of the investigation is hardly scandalous. The real threat here is not from IRS not letting people illegally get out of paying their taxes. It's the loopholes that allow these groups the tax exempt status in the first place.
 
No large corporation is never looked at, regardless if it's shady or follows every letter of the law to a fault.

Taxes, both at the individual and corporate level, have "red flags" involved with certain claims, deductions, etc. If their radar blips enough, you're going to get a smarmy look from the Tax Man.

Frankly, the only way we can prove beyond the scope of doubt that this was a targeted issues is to look into how many new organizations with a demonstrable Democratic lean were getting poked and prodded by the Tax Man.

I don't believe the IRS has a record of going after mega corps who even blip. They're too good at manipulating the tax code and hiding profits, probably legally. I imagine they have different "flags" for different levels of income.

They'll have to prove with documents or testimony that there was a conspiracy to target particular groups, not just who got investigated for no particular reason.
 
Why the IRS scandal is worse than Watergate. Watergate was a political scandal in which the DNC offices in DC were broken into and President Nixon and his administration attempted to cover it up. The IRS scandal involves the government in the form of the IRS going after American Citizens including groups, organizations, and individual citizens based on their political or religious ideology. If a smoking gun is found that directly ties the president to this he must be impeached. If however he was kept in the dark those who kept it from the president must be fired. There is evidence that officials in the white house knew about this in June 2012, during the campaign. Those who were directly involved must go to prison. This is huge and every American regardless of their political persuasion should demand that heads roll. This scandal could be the catalyst that lights a fire under our politicians asses to rewrite the tax code and abolish the IRS. Just think what a flat tax or national sales tax would do for our economy. And another thing, most people are afraid to talk about the IRS because their worried that they too will be targeted. We should not have to be afraid of our government on the other hand the government should fear us. WE ARE THE PEOPLE!

So this is a simple question. Is the IRS scandal worse than Watergate?

It's fun to invent fictional either/or scenarios.

Let me take a run at it...

If the GOP witch hunts that regularly accuse the President of committing impeachable crimes are unable to produce evidence, they are either incompetent investigators and should be fired or they harming the nation with their purely political accusations and should be fired.

See how that works.

For this to be worse than Watergate, you would need evidence that the President committed a crime and right now, though it seems clear that the filtering process the IRS used was inappropriate, there is still no evidence that it was criminal.

I think scandal mongering has become GOPorn, the fantasies of Republicans who can't seem to find any path to winning national elections in the foreseeable future unless they can find a way to destroy their potential adversaries.
 
It's already been determined in spades that this was a direct Washington initiative, which really flies into the face of the people who claim it's just a couple scrubs in Cincinatti trying to play the system in their party's favor.




If you can't post a link to a reliable source on this I will continue to believe that you made this up.
 
I'm saying that political organizations, like the Tea Party organizations at the heart of this situation, should not be enjoying the tax exempt status reserved for non-political organizations. A lean is not the criteria. The main activities of the organization are. An organization that calls itself a political party and fields candidates for election is about as political a group as possible. And they are claiming to be singled out. Well, when investigating illegal activity, they go for the big fish first.

It would absolutely be wrong for the IRS to be harassing and denying legal benefits to an organization that actually qualified for them. But the complaint here is that the process to deny these obviously political groups the tax exempt status reserved for non-political groups took longer than they like... it's an empty complaint. While the IRS may indeed have unclean hands in this situation, the organizations complaining have much much dirtier ones. I have no sympathy for them being given a hard time doing something they shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Putting one group of crooks at the top of the investigation is hardly scandalous. The real threat here is not from IRS not letting people illegally get out of paying their taxes. It's the loopholes that allow these groups the tax exempt status in the first place.

At no point in the reports or research I've seen does it say that they aren't actually NFP or qualify as tax-exempt for some other qualification(s). 501c3s, Form 990s, etc. are not considered to be public records. Therefore, there is no way to know.
 
It's fun to invent fictional either/or scenarios.

Let me take a run at it...

If the GOP witch hunts that regularly accuse the President of committing impeachable crimes are unable to produce evidence, they are either incompetent investigators and should be fired or they harming the nation with their purely political accusations and should be fired.

See how that works.

For this to be worse than Watergate, you would need evidence that the President committed a crime and right now, though it seems clear that the filtering process the IRS used was inappropriate, there is still no evidence that it was criminal.

I think scandal mongering has become GOPorn, the fantasies of Republicans who can't seem to find any path to winning national elections in the foreseeable future unless they can find a way to destroy their potential adversaries.




100 percent on the money.

Exactly what I've been saying for a long time.

The GOP has a problem.




"Better days are coming." ~ But not for today's out of touch, running out of time, GOP
 
If you can't post a link to a reliable source on this I will continue to believe that you made this up.

That's fine - you and Dezaad can continue to believe that I made it up. It's good for a few chuckles.

I mean, after all...I'm clearly biased.
 
That's fine - you and Dezaad can continue to believe that I made it up. It's good for a few chuckles.

I mean, after all...I'm clearly biased.




Don't you feel better now that you have come clean?
 
No, it's not worse than Watergate because the president was not involved.

I don't have any proof of this but I believe that some, if not all, of this happened because some people at the IRS were trying to score some brownie points.

The IRS definitely has way too much power (Yes, I have gone a few rounds with the IRS). Something needs to be done about that.





"If you don't know where you're going any road will get you there." ~ Lewis Carroll

Whether or not the president was involved or not has yet to be determined. He may not have been involved. He may have known about it and was compliant or not. We simply do not know at this time. Steve Miller, Sarah Hall Ingram, and Lois Lerner all need to be subpoenaed and testify under oath together at the same table.
 
"they can find a way to destroy their potential adversaries"

Let me turn that around for you. For 8 years Dems did just that. They did everything they could to bring down President Bush. And now they are using dirty Chicago style politics to further destroy the Republican party. All at the same time claiming they knew nothing about nothing. Like Sgt Shultz they know nothiing. What a crock.
 
At no point in the reports or research I've seen does it say that they aren't actually NFP or qualify as tax-exempt for some other qualification(s). 501c3s, Form 990s, etc. are not considered to be public records. Therefore, there is no way to know.

Those aren't the designations they're going for. They applied to be 501c4s, which are for organizations whose primary purpose is not political. And they clearly are political organizations.
 
Those aren't the designations they're going for. They applied to be 501c4s, which are for organizations whose primary purpose is not political. And they clearly are political organizations.

Hmmm...not good.
 
Let me turn that around for you. For 8 years Dems did just that. They did everything they could to bring down President Bush. And now they are using dirty Chicago style politics to further destroy the Republican party. All at the same time claiming they knew nothing about nothing. Like Sgt Shultz they know nothiing. What a crock.




And the G-nO-P has tried to help President Obama, eh? :lamo

Give us a frickin' break here.
 
Given the IRS has a history of causing people to blow out their own brains.....damn straight it's worse.
 
Let me turn that around for you. For 8 years Dems did just that. They did everything they could to bring down President Bush. And now they are using dirty Chicago style politics to further destroy the Republican party. All at the same time claiming they knew nothing about nothing. Like Sgt Shultz they know nothiing. What a crock.

Actually, liberals were furious with Democrats for NOT doing these kinds of things to Bush.

Kucinich and Wexler were actively proposing impeachment on 35 charges against Bush, but Democrats were not interested in pursuing this course of action even though the liberal base was sure that Bush was a criminal.

These GOP witch hunts are not coming from the base, they are coming from GOP Congressmen.

You could find hundreds of thousands or articles arguing for investigations and/or impeachment of Bush from the left, but virtually zero support in the Democratically controlled Congress. Democrats would not allow themselves to be manipulated by the farthest left of their base. Republicans seem to represent ONLY the farthest right of their base.
 
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