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IRS officials in Washington were involved in targeting of conservative groups

Its not dishonest at all. They meet the definition the IRS set forth. Perhaps your issue is with the label the IRS puts on it instead. Furthermore, disclosing donors leads to widespread political corruptions as seen by this story. The IRS agents are wanting orgs to expose their donors so they can harrass them. Which is why donors dont want to disclose. I see no reason why the IRS needs to know that I gave money to a private group who advocates for an issue.
What evidence do you have that anyone was harrased because of political donations? The only harrassment that you could possibly be talking about is that donations given to a tax exempt 501(c)(4) organization are not in fact tax exempt, even though many people incorrectly claim them.

Also, according to the report, all donor lists were destroyed upon completion of the investigation.
 
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“I wish there was more GOP interest when I raised the same issue during the Bush administration, where they audited a progressive church in my district in what look liked a very selective way,” California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said on MSNBC Monday. “I found only one Republican, [North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones], that would join me in calling for an investigation during the Bush administration. I’m glad now that the GOP has found interest in this issue and it ought to be a bipartisan concern.”

The well-known church, All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena, became a bit of a cause célèbre on the left after the IRS threatened to revoke the church’s tax-exempt status over an anti-Iraq War sermon the Sunday before the 2004 election. “Jesus [would say], ‘Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine,’” rector George Regas said from the dais.

The church, which said progressive activism was in its “DNA,” hired a powerful Washington lawyer and enlisted the help of Schiff, who met with the commissioner of the IRS twice and called for a Government Accountability Office investigation, saying the IRS audit violated the First Amendment and was unduly targeting a political opponent of the Bush administration. “My client is very concerned that the close coordination undertaken by the IRS allowed partisan political concerns to direct the course of the All Saints examination,” church attorney Marcus Owens, who is widely considered one of the country’s leading experts on this area of the law, said at the time. In 2007, the IRS closed the case, decreeing that the church violated rules preventing political intervention, but it did not revoke its nonprofit status.

And while All Saints came under the gun, conservative churches across the country were helping to mobilize voters for Bush with little oversight. In 2006, citing the precedent of All Saints, “a group of religious leaders accused the Internal Revenue Service yesterday of playing politics by ignoring its complaint that two large churches in Ohio are engaging in what it says are political activities, in violation of the tax code,” the New York Times reported at the time. The churches essentially campaigned for a Republican gubernatorial candidate, they alleged, and even flew him on one of their planes.

Meanwhile, Citizens for Ethics in Washington filed two ethics complaints against a church in Minnesota. “You know we can’t publicly endorse as a church and would not for any candidate, but I can tell you personally that I’m going to vote for Michele Bachmann,” pastor Mac Hammond of the Living Word Christian Center in Minnesota said in 2006 before welcoming her to the church. The IRS opened an audit into the church, but it went nowhere after the church appealed the audit on a technicality.

And it wasn’t just churches. In 2004, the IRS went after the NAACP, auditing the nation’s oldest civil rights group after its chairman criticized President Bush for being the first sitting president since Herbert Hoover not to address the organization. “They are saying if you criticize the president we are going to take your tax exemption away from you,” then-chairman Julian Bond said. “It’s pretty obvious that the complainant was someone who doesn’t believe George Bush should be criticized, and it’s obvious of their response that the IRS believes this, too.”

In a letter to the IRS, Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel, Pete Stark and John Conyers wrote: “It is obvious that the timing of this IRS examination is nothing more than an effort to intimidate the members of the NAACP, and the communities the organization represents, in their get-out-the-vote effort nationwide.”

Then, in 2006, the Wall Street Journal broke the story of a how a little-known pressure group called Public Interest Watch — which received 97 percent of its funds from Exxon Mobile one year — managed to get the IRS to open an investigation into Greenpeace. Greenpeace had labeled Exxon Mobil the “No. 1 climate criminal.” The IRS acknowledged its audit was initiated by Public Interest Watch and threatened to revoke Greenpeace’s tax-exempt status, but closed the investigation three months later.



When the IRS targeted liberals - Salon.com


Of course you never heard about this because they didn't have fox noise and right-wing hate shows on the radio whining day and night. The tea party are the biggest bunch of crybabies on the face of the earth.
 
...Of course you never heard about this because they didn't have fox noise and right-wing hate shows on the radio whining day and night. The tea party are the biggest bunch of crybabies on the face of the earth.

Oh this is rich! We never heard this because 'fox noise' is the ONLY news network...? Why didn't the other MSM sources cover this past issue similar to the way 'fox noise' is the current issue?

Further, please explain how you crying about 'fox noise' and 'right-wing hate shows on the radio whining day and night' is EXACTLY THE SAME THING...mirror anyone?
 
What evidence do you have that anyone was harrased because of political donations? The only harrassment that you could possibly be talking about is that donations given to a tax exempt 501(c)(4) organization are not in fact tax exempt, even though many people incorrectly claim them.

Also, according to the report, all donor lists were destroyed upon completion of the investigation.

The purpose of these IRS agents focusing on Tea Party groups was to prevent them from being able to influence politics. The purpose of exposing private peoples interactions with these groups is to stifle their speech. There is simply no reason that the govt needs to know who gave money to a political group.
 
Of course you never heard about this because they didn't have fox noise and right-wing hate shows on the radio whining day and night. The tea party are the biggest bunch of crybabies on the face of the earth.

Good to know that you support fox noise in exposing corruption.
 
The purpose of these IRS agents focusing on Tea Party groups was to prevent them from being able to influence politics. The purpose of exposing private peoples interactions with these groups is to stifle their speech. There is simply no reason that the govt needs to know who gave money to a political group.

In a lot of ways you're totally correct. The entire purpose of the application process was to determine if the groups were excessivly engaged in politics, which is prohibited for any organization seeking 501(c)(4) status. Free speech is not the same as unlimited anonymous speech.
 
In a lot of ways you're totally correct. The entire purpose of the application process was to determine if the groups were excessivly engaged in politics, which is prohibited for any organization seeking 501(c)(4) status. Free speech is not the same as unlimited anonymous speech.

And can you explain why they singled out only conservative groups? According to the report, 100% of the Tea Party groups were singled out. Seeing any abuse at all yet?
 
And can you explain why they singled out only conservative groups? According to the report, 100% of the Tea Party groups were singled out. Seeing any abuse at all yet?

Incompetence is not the same as abuse.

The report said that of the 4510 applications processed by the EO office, 207 were correctly submitted to a team of specialists, 144 had strong indications of political involvement but were approved, and 91 were subject to potentially unessasary investigation. Those 91 were not broken down by political lean, but appear to be a more of a result of a poor understanding of the types of political actions that may be taken by 501(c)(4)s.

It may be that conservative groups were subjected to statistically more scrutiny than other groups with political leanings. Certainly the language used had the appearance of bias. However, there has not been any statistial evidence presented yet that indicates that conservatives were targeted at a higher rate.
 
Incompetence is not the same as abuse.

The report said that of the 4510 applications processed by the EO office, 207 were correctly submitted to a team of specialists, 144 had strong indications of political involvement but were approved, and 91 were subject to potentially unessasary investigation. Those 91 were not broken down by political lean, but appear to be a more of a result of a poor understanding of the types of political actions that may be taken by 501(c)(4)s.

It may be that conservative groups were subjected to statistically more scrutiny than other groups with political leanings. Certainly the language used had the appearance of bias. However, there has not been any statistial evidence presented yet that indicates that conservatives were targeted at a higher rate.

They searched out groups who had names with "Tea Party", "Patriots", "9/12", etc... in it. Gee, you think there was bias? I guess the head of the IRS doesn't agree with you, that they didn't go far enough, he just resigned.
 
So you equate terrorism to unfair tax breaks.

OK.

So you think racial profiling is far less serious than political profiling.

OK.
 
“I wish there was more GOP interest when I raised the same issue during the Bush administration,


You liberals sound like a bunch of whinny little children " well Bush did it also "
my 12 year old tries to use that same childish argument all the time "so and so did it also" do you think i let her off the hook

I have a solution for you lets put Bush back into office so then you can impeach him. would that satisfy you? would that make you shut up about Bush?

liberals are so predictable every time you say anything negative about Obama you can bet your right nut Bush will be brought up by the desperate left
 
In a lot of ways you're totally correct. The entire purpose of the application process was to determine if the groups were excessivly engaged in politics, which is prohibited for any organization seeking 501(c)(4) status. Free speech is not the same as unlimited anonymous speech.

Yeah, it is. I don't see any exceptions in the first amendment.
 
They searched out groups who had names with "Tea Party", "Patriots", "9/12", etc... in it. Gee, you think there was bias? I guess the head of the IRS doesn't agree with you, that they didn't go far enough, he just resigned.

He resigned as political cover and to keep his name out of the news. The head of the IRS through the end of 2012 was a Republican appointed by Bush.

To prove bias you'd have to show that either a conservative group was statistically more likely to face a higher level of scrutiny than a liberal group. The report did not examine this question. Instead they found that 100% of groups with Tea Party or 9/12 were subjected to a special review board, but that is not enough to say that there was bias. You need one further bit of information. What percentage of these groups were targeted that should not have been targeted? If that number is higher than the baseline, then there was political bias.

Over two years the IRS had to process 4510 applications. They acted appropriately in 94% of all cases. Of the ones that they missed, 2% were subjected to unessasary questions and delays while 4% should have been further investigated but weren't. To me, that says that the biggest scandal is what was missed.
 
I think you need to cite some proof of that in some way. I imagine it would be covered a lot more exhaustively by the press if it had happened under a republican.

Stop holding Democrats to a different standard - Salon.com

Two scandals deflated, one persists - Salon.com

A few Democrats tried to get the word out.

The funny thing about this whole story at the end, is that 2/3rd of the organizations that the IRS looked at weren't Tea Party related and the only one that got denied exemption status was a Democrat linked PAC.

The more I read about what actually happened, the more I realize the GOP is using this as a witch hunt. There is a valid reason to come down on the 501(c)4s, the IRS turns out didn't primarily focus their audits on Tea Party groups and didn't deny a single one exemption status to a Conservative leaning application.
 
I'm guessing that you are not aware of the abuses/violations committed by the IRS, or are in favor of an IRS that can do as they please and ignore our rights. Otherwise, it's hard to fathom anyone with the slightest intelligence saying that "the IRS didn't go far enough".

You do not to tangle with me on this. You will lose.

I am fully aware of the situation. You however, are not.

2/3rd of the audits had nothing to do with the Tea Party.
The only group denied an exemption was a Democrat linked organization.
And the 501(c)4 has been abused to bypass the Citizens' United ruling.

I suggest you start researching before you open your mouth. This is your only warning.
 
Stop holding Democrats to a different standard - Salon.com

Two scandals deflated, one persists - Salon.com

A few Democrats tried to get the word out.

The funny thing about this whole story at the end, is that 2/3rd of the organizations that the IRS looked at weren't Tea Party related and the only one that got denied exemption status was a Democrat linked PAC.

The more I read about what actually happened, the more I realize the GOP is using this as a witch hunt. There is a valid reason to come down on the 501(c)4s, the IRS turns out didn't primarily focus their audits on Tea Party groups and didn't deny a single one exemption status to a Conservative leaning application.

Salon is laughably Left Wing and not a trusted source

Claiming any of this is a "witchhunt" stinks of desperation
 
So long as they treat everyone equally. Which isnt what happened here. Targeting a specific ideology is not equality under the law.

Let's go over the facts. Because most of you have no fracken idea what you are talking about.

The GOP spent almost 10 times the amount on PACs that the Democrats did to the tune of nearly $300 million. Much of this was done by 501(c)4s which had nothing to do with social welfare. Second, the sole reason why they went the 4 designation is because it lets them hide donors which is effectively perverting the outcome of Citizens' United. CU made the trade off for unlimited spending for transparency. By using a 501(c)4 illegitimately to not engage in social welfare and hide donors, people like Rove are flat up abusing the code.

Second, 2/3rd of the audits had nothing to do with the Tea Party. See my other posts for the link.

Third, the ONLY GROUP THAT GOT DENIED was a Democrat leaning PAC.

Fourth, the number of applications that came in from the Tea Party were substantially more than everything else. The IRS is going to target Tea Party groups more for the simple reason that there were thousands of Tea Party related applications. Seriously, the concept of basic math escapes people here.
 
Salon is laughably Left Wing and not a trusted source

Claiming any of this is a "witchhunt" stinks of desperation

No one cares what you think. Ever. You resort to calling people liars when they point out your own posts refute you. Even when they quote the very articles you post.
 
I don't see this as an either/or anyway, but I surely don't see coming to peace with "letting the IRS go ape **** " on anybody. It can't be partisan.

We have three choices here.

1) Congress fixes the 501(c)4 code
2) Let the IRS go Ape **** on abusers if Congress fails to do anything
3) Defang the IRS and let the abuse get worse

As #1 ain't likely to happen, I vote for choice #2 as choice #3 makes our elections even worse.

Pick your poison.

Furthermore, there is an actual justified reason to go after them. Unlike when this **** happened under Bush for frankly nothing but political reasons.
 
No one cares what you think. Ever. You resort to calling people liars when they point out your own posts refute you. Even when they quote the very articles you post.

Yet here you are replying, dodging and making stuff up :lol:
 
The irony on this post is beyond the capacity of man to measure.

You're still whining about being called out for your dishonesty in the past? Absolutely hilarious. Talk about insecurity. Apparently I live in your head rent free :lol:

You laughably link articles from a biased source whimpering about "witchunts", while at the same time defending an out of control Government that is specifically targeting people politically for harassment and intimidation. What if under Obamacare you qualify for a life saving surgery, but the IRS who polices Obamacare says, "Have you donated to an organization like the Tea Party?" That's what happens when a corrupt and out of control administration politicizes an institution like the IRS. You have to remember the IRS didn't just target the Tea Party here. They also target Jewish groups and other religious institutions.

But hey go ahead and try and balance on your house of cards telling people nobody takes them seriously. Pot calling the kettle black. How embarrassing :lol:
 
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