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IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases [W:127]

Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Middleground said:
I read the article, and that is not the opinion I got from it. Not even close.
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You haven!t been paying attention because the "local rogue agent" spin has been debunked for weeks.
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

pbrauer said:
Did you read the article?
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but but it was a few rouge agents from Cincinnati Washington wasn't involved:lamo
the left has lost all creditability
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

ms paz went missing a week ago, fyi

The agency told employees that Holly Paz is being replaced as director of the rulings and agreements division, according to a memo distributed to staffers on Friday and obtained by POLITICO Monday.

The memo doesn’t provide details about whether Paz was fired, placed on administrative leave or moved to another position inside the agency. The IRS didn’t immediately respond to questions about the personnel change.
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More staffing changes at IRS - Kelsey Snell - POLITICO.com

A top Internal Revenue Service considered a key player in the political targeting scandal that’s hit the agency in recent weeks was fired and had since dropped from sight, one media outlet claimed in a Friday report.

Nobody’s seen or heard from Holly Paz, the director of the IRS Rulings and Agreements division, since she was fired last Friday, National Review Online reported.

“As of Thursday, the voice mail on Paz’s work phone remains active and callers are asked to leave a message for Paz, though nobody answered repeated calls placed to that number,” NRO reported. “Calls to the mobile phone number listed under Paz’s name in the IRS’s internal directory are sent straight to voice mail and indicate her mailbox has not yet been set up.”
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IRS agent at heart of scandal believed fired: media report - Washington Times
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

It is my understanding that the reason some of these applications sat for so long is because they literally did not know what tho do with them. In 2010, right after the Citizens United ruling(you remember when Obama scolded the SCOTUS during the 2010 State of the Union address?) it became advantageous for political groups to file 501c4 instead of 527. 527s have to disclose their funding sources where, because of Citizens United, 501c4s no longer had to. Starting in 2010, the IRS began to get flooded with 501c4s to process and many of those applications really didn't meet "the spirit" of what 501c4 designation was supposed to be all about.

This scandal, at least to me, has nothing to do with whether or not some Tea Party groups got unfairly targeted. The fact of the matter is that they shouldn't have been filing 501c4 in the first place. The part that needs investigation is, was the IRS being used as a tool for information laundering? Remember, 501c4s no longer have to reveal their donors. At the same time, there were attack ads and op-eds galore during the 2012 campaign which focused on corporate money and who was donating to what to who. If all or at least some of this information was technically supposed to be anonymous, where was it all coming from?
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

apdst said:
The article proves that it wasn't just a handful of rogue agents in a local IRS office that deployed this offensive against Conservative NFP's.
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Wanted to illuminate a little bit here. The Obama Admin, and its willing-dupe Press, continuously chime that it was somehow contained to the "Cincinnati Office", which is to make it sound as though its just one regional office, and not systemic.

Here is what they do not tell you. The "Cincinnati Office" was that department of the National IRS that processed almost all of the 501C requests for the entire country. So why not call it the "main 501C office", which happens to be located in Cincinnati ? Because its part of the disinformation campaign !
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

So Pete, MG, whats it say when the incompetence and mistakes and delays are only hitting one side of the political fence?

Do you say "oh well" or do you find out why? I think we should find out why and make the people making policy and decisions about what happened never work in government again at any level.

Things we dont know:
Who made the word association policy
Who was the communication link in Washington that forwarded items to Lerner
Who Lerner was talking to above her on these issues
Who was allowing the applications to be delayed for months
Which agents were doing this per procedure and which were under orders
Who was giving those orders if anyone
Who set procedures to allow agents to indefinitely delay tax determinations

Before we can do anything we need to know all those things. If we cannot find all of those things, its time to start contempt citations---starting with Lerner.
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Jack Fabulous said:
It is my understanding that the reason some of these applications sat for so long is because they literally did not know what tho do with them. In 2010, right after the Citizens United ruling(you remember when Obama scolded the SCOTUS during the 2010 State of the Union address?) it became advantageous for political groups to file 501c4 instead of 527. 527s have to disclose their funding sources where, because of Citizens United, 501c4s no longer had to. Starting in 2010, the IRS began to get flooded with 501c4s to process and many of those applications really didn't meet "the spirit" of what 501c4 designation was supposed to be all about.

This scandal, at least to me, has nothing to do with whether or not some Tea Party groups got unfairly targeted. The fact of the matter is that they shouldn't have been filing 501c4 in the first place. The part that needs investigation is, was the IRS being used as a tool for information laundering? Remember, 501c4s no longer have to reveal their donors. At the same time, there were attack ads and op-eds galore during the 2012 campaign which focused on corporate money and who was donating to what to who. If all or at least some of this information was technically supposed to be anonymous, where was it all coming from?
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"It is my understanding .......... " !!! How about you get edumacated then ? The liberal 501's got swift approvals. The liberal ones did not get the bogus questionnaires. How about you show us those applications that "shouldn't have been applying" ? That would be those that were disapproved on the merit that you cite ?

Edit In: Further, you make this claim:

Starting in 2010, the IRS began to get flooded with 501c4s to process and many of those applications really didn't meet "the spirit" of what 501c4 designation was supposed to be all about.
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That is 4 Pinnochio BS right there.

But it turns out that these are federal fiscal-year figures, meaning “2010” is actually Oct. 1, 2009 to Sept. 30, 2010, so the “2010” year includes more than three months before the Supreme Court decision was announced.
Astonishingly, despite Lerner’s public claim, an IRS spokeswoman was not able to provide the actual calendar year numbers. By allocating one-quarter of the fiscal year numbers to the prior year, we can get a very rough sense of the increase on a calendar-year basis. (Figures are rounded to avoid false precision; 2012 is not possible to calculate.)
2009: 1745
2010: 1865
2011: 2540
In other words, while there was an increase in 2010, it was relatively small. The real jump did not come until 2011, long after the targeting of conservative groups had been implemented. Also, it appears Lerner significantly understated the number of applications in 2010 (“1500”) in order to make her claim of “more than doubled.
A bushel of Pinocchios for IRS’s Lois Lerner - The Washington Post
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501C4's can participate in political activities, btw.
 
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Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Eighty Deuce said:
"It is my understanding .......... " !!! How about you get edumacated then ? The liberal 501's got swift approvals. The liberal ones did not get the bogus questionnaires. How about you show us those applications that "shouldn't have been applying" ? That would be those that were disapproved on the merit that you cite ?
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Is there any evidence that this was standard practice at every IRS office?
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Unitedwestand13 said:
Is there any evidence that this was standard practice at every IRS office?
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Read post 30. Its not that long of a thread.

The "Cincinnati Office" is the main 501C processing office for the entire country.
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Eighty Deuce said:
Read post 30. Its not that long of a thread.

The "Cincinnati Office" is the main 501C processing office for the entire country.
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I highly doubt that one office can handle requests coming from all 50 states, this is the IRS we are talking about after all. I imagine that the IRS has local offices for each state.
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Unitedwestand13 said:
I highly doubt that one office can handle requests coming from all 50 states, this is the IRS we are talking about after all. I imagine that the IRS has local offices for each state.
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Not for processing the 501C's. The Ohio office handles most of them. What is your expertise here ?

The home of the IRS scandal rocking the Obama administration is located on the fourth floor of the John Weld Peck Federal Building in Cincinnati, a division that handles 60,000 applications a year from organizations seeking one of the tax code's many exemptions.

IRS Division in Dispute Followed Own Course - WSJ.com
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Is the truth that difficult to handle ?

The seeds of dysfunction were planted a decade ago, current and former agency officials said, with a plan whose goal was improving efficiency.

In 2003, amid complaints that applications for tax-exempt status were being reviewed twice, by a district office and headquarters, IRS officials decided to make Cincinnati the hub for a niche part of the agency—scrutinizing groups with political ties that wanted to be tax exempt.

Cincinnati's rise fed a long-held criticism that the agency was "stove piped," meaning it had a number of divisions that seemed to work independently with little oversight.

It is "an internalized operation focused on moving that pile of applications in the door and out the door," said Marcus Owens, a former top IRS official who oversaw the exempt-organizations division until 2000.

The Cincinnati tax-exempt determinations unit, which employees refer to as "determs," is considered by employees one of the less-attractive IRS posts. Government employees who aspire to join the private sector seek positions that review corporate filings, among other things, former employees said.
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Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

ms paz, who sat in on 36 of 41 interviews conducted by the ig's office, which was news (he says, in sworn testimony in the house) to the ig, is also evil issa's source for the internal irs review---independent of tigta---which found the same "significant problems" and "substantial bias" uncovered by ig george

In late March 2012, IRS deputy commissioner Steven Miller–who resigned his post as acting commissioner last week at President Obama’s request–directed senior technical advisor Nancy J. Marks to investigate allegations of political targeting of groups seeking tax exempt status, agency officials told congressional aides. Holly Paz, acting director of ruling and agreements, worked with Marks on the probe, and both traveled to Cincinnati to conduct interviews.

On May 3, 2012. Marks gave what IRS officials described as a “presentation” to Miller describing her findings. Marks said the investigation had found significant problems in the review process and a substantial bias against conservative group, [House Oversight spokesman] Ahmad said. No written findings were produced as a result, the aide said, and it does not appear the internal review led to any disciplinary actions against IRS employees.
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Internal IRS probe cited same problems with approach to conservative groups in May 2012 - WaPo
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Eighty Deuce said:
Not for processing the 501C's. The Ohio office handles most of them. What is your expertise here ?



Is the truth that difficult to handle ?
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I can freely admit that I know nothing about how the IRS is orginized. I still think that I can offer a oppinion based on what facts I know and preconceived notions.
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Unitedwestand13 said:
I can freely admit that I know nothing about how the IRS is orginized. I still think that I can offer a oppinion based on what facts I know and preconceived notions.
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And you were completely wrong. See my edit in, where I added more proof. So what are your "facts and preconceived notions" that made you be so wrong ? Does it bother you ?
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

I like how this scandal is about government workers doing their job correctly. Their job is to scrutinize complex and problematic applications. I don't see how it is the IRS' fault that Tea Party organizations were more often problematic than others. And then those TP orgs got their tax exempt status anyway, even though they didn't qualify. The right wing is making a scandal out of people doing their jobs correctly, and the only rules that were broken were done so in their favor. It's insane.
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

bottom line:

USAToday: IRS gave liberals a pass; Tea Party groups put on hold

DOJ opens criminal probe into IRS - The Hill

why can't the president state flatly when he first learned what was going on at his irs for 2 years?

why does he claim he read it in the newspaper?

how could his cos and white house counsel know and not he?

why did stevens and miller lie to congress, why did lerner cop the 5th?

why were miller and grant fired, where is holly paz?

why did shulman visit the white house 118 times?

why does the white house narrative keep shifting?

The White House's Shifting IRS Account - Politico

why were progressives given an irs pass?

why do half million dollar donors to ofa (organizing for action, 501c4) get invites to white house quarterly meetings?

why have the doj and fbi launched criminal investigations into the "substantial bias" the irs itself found at the irs?

bottom line---if you are unfamiliar with holly paz, nancy j marks, colleen kelley, cindy thomas...

you are fundamentally judging before you have the facts, ie, pre judging, ie prejudiced

don't do that

stay tuned
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Eighty Deuce said:
And you were completely wrong. See my edit in, where I added more proof. So what are your "facts and preconceived notions" that made you be so wrong ? Does it bother you ?
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I already said I know nothing about how the IRS operates so all I had to go on was conjecture. If you are expecting me to fall to pieces just because I was wrong then I hate to disappoint you.
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Middleground said:
So what? That tells me sweet frig all.
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That's how leftists remain leftists. Even when they are caught with their hands in the jam jar they cannot see where there is anything wrong taking place. It's always been that way.
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Gary Muthert, an IRS agent there, said his local supervisor told him in March 2010 to check the applications for tax-exempt status to see how many were from groups with "tea party" in their names. The supervisor's name was blacked out in the transcript.

"He told me that Washington, D.C., wanted some cases," Muthert said of his supervisor.

Muthert said he came up with fewer than 10 applications. But after checking some of the group's websites, he noticed similar groups with "patriots" or "9-12 project" in their names, so he started looking for applications that mentioned those terms too.

Over a two-month period, Muthert said he found about 40 applications that mentioned tea party, patriots or 9-12 project - the latter being groups that aspire to re-instill a post-9/11 spirit of unity in the country.

Muthert said his supervisor told him that someone in Washington wanted to see seven of the applications, so Muthert prepared the files.
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Was IRS targeting limited to Cincinnati office?

but but Washington isn't involved it was some republican in Cincinnati.
great detective work Cummings Sherlock would be proud
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

The right wing is making a scandal
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the op is ap

LOL!

5 Ways Obama Can Restore the Public's Trust and Rescue His Presidency - NationalJournal.com

How Obama Can Rescue His Presidency From Scandals - Bloomberg

Is The White House Obscuring the Truth? - NationalJournal.com

Internal IRS probe cited same problems with approach to conservative groups in May 2012 - WaPo

CNBC's Harwood: Lerner Pleading Fifth Is "Worst Possible Outcome For White House" | RealClearPolitics

Former IRS Chief: Can't Say How Targeting Happened - AP

Democrat raises prospect of special prosecutor for IRS - Washington Times

IRS scandal hearing: Lerner will be called back - POLITICO

IRS official refuses to answer questions at scandal hearing | Reuters

Shulman's reason for W.H. visits: Easter Egg Roll - POLITICO

Elijah Cummings: Laws probably broken - POLITICO

IRS scandal hearing: Best moments - David Nather - POLITICO

Dem: There Will be Special Prosecutor and 'Hell to Pay' If IRS Keeps Stonewalling | CNS News

Did Lois Lerner Botch Fifth Amendment Rights? - ABC News

IRS stonewalling makes the case for a special prosecutor - chicagotribune.com

McCaskill Calls For Firing Of All Involved In IRS Targeting Scandal « CBS St. Louis

Scandal draws questions about IRS role in enforcing Obamacare | McClatchy

Carney: White House counsel's office knew of review of IRS office 3 weeks ago, but not Obama - Washington Post

Obama pushes back on IRS, AP, Benghazi - Jennifer Epstein - POLITICO.com

USAToday: IRS gave liberals a pass; Tea Party groups put on hold

IRS stonewalling makes the case for a special prosecutor - Chicago Tribune

WaPo: A special prosecutor in the IRS matter is inevitable

Appoint a Special Prosecutor on the IRS - NationalJournal

IRS scandal: How Obama admin is hurting itself (POLITICO Junkies) - POLITICO

IRS Battling Tea Party Groups Over Tax-Exempt Status - HuffPo

Internal Revenue Service Scrutiny of Non-Profit Groups - C-SPAN Video Library

DOJ opens criminal probe into IRS's politically biased audits - The Hill

The Secret Donors Behind the Center for American Progress and Other Think Tanks - The Nation

Obama Calls Targeting By IRS ‘Outrageous’ « CBS New York

IRS hearing: The takeaways - David Nather and Lauren French and Kelsey Snell - POLITICO.com

Gallup: 74% say IRS issue is serious and needs investigation

AP: IRS apologizes for inappropriate targeting of conservatives

USAToday: Obama calls IRS targeting of certain groups 'outrageous'

FBI Director Doesn't Know Who Lead Investigator In IRS Case Is | RealClearPolitics
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Paschendale said:
I like how this scandal is about government workers doing their job correctly. Their job is to scrutinize complex and problematic applications. I don't see how it is the IRS' fault that Tea Party organizations were more often problematic than others. And then those TP orgs got their tax exempt status anyway, even though they didn't qualify. The right wing is making a scandal out of people doing their jobs correctly, and the only rules that were broken were done so in their favor. It's insane.
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Don't let the IRS' own report get in the way of your "facts".

At the end of June 2011, Lois Lerner, the Washington-based head of the tax-exempt unit, was briefed on the criteria, said the report, and ordered the wording be revised. Singling out applicants on the basis of their political identity, among other characteristics, is a potential crime.

Yet in January 2012, the Cincinnati unit essentially reversed course, on the grounds that the new criteria were too vague, and resumed targeting groups on the basis of assumed political affiliation, the report said. The Cincinnati office targeted conservative groups with lengthy delays in processing documents and smothered them with questionnaires, according to the IRS inspector general's report, a practice IRS officials now say was out of bounds.
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Same link as my earlier posts.
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Paschendale said:
I like how this scandal is about government workers doing their job correctly. Their job is to scrutinize complex and problematic applications. I don't see how it is the IRS' fault that Tea Party organizations were more often problematic than others. And then those TP orgs got their tax exempt status anyway, even though they didn't qualify. The right wing is making a scandal out of people doing their jobs correctly, and the only rules that were broken were done so in their favor. It's insane.
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would you call these groups political?

• Bus for Progress, a New Jersey non-profit that uses a red, white and blue bus to "drive the progressive change." According to its website, its mission includes "support (for) progressive politicians with the courage to serve the people's interests and make tough choices." It got an IRS approval as a social welfare group in April 2011.

• Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment says it fights against corporate welfare and for increasing the minimum wage. "It would be fair to say we're on the progressive end of the spectrum," said executive director Jeff Ordower. He said the group got tax-exempt status in September 2011 in just nine months after "a pretty simple, straightforward process."

• Progress Florida, granted tax-exempt status in January 2011, is lobbying the Florida Legislature to expand Medicaid under a provision of the Affordable Care Act, one of President Obama's signature accomplishments. The group did not return phone calls. "We're busy fighting to build a more progressive Florida and cannot take your call right now," the group's voice mail said.

If the IRS was doing their job why was they given their status as little as 9 months
 
Re: IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

You do not disappoint. Rather, you confirm.
Unitedwestand13 said:
I already said I know nothing about how the IRS operates so all I had to go on was conjecture. If you are expecting me to fall to pieces just because I was wrong then I hate to disappoint you.
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