WaPo: IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative political groups in 2012 election

[Tulane Skins Fan]

It's entirely appropriate that the IRS does due diligence on organizations requesting tax-exempt status, including political ones whose eligibility is subject to restrictions.

What's not acceptable is that they focus on one part of the political spectrum more than another.

Exactly. 501©(3) can be abused, but there's no reason to focus on one political group as the abuser.

[nonniey]

Exactly. 501©(3) can be abused, but there's no reason to focus on one political group as the abuser.

Of course there is a reason to focus on one type of group over other types. The reason of course would be unethical and possibly illegal but there is a reason. That is why this is a scandal.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

Of course there is a reason to focus one type of group over other types. The reason of course would be unethical and possibly illegal but there is a reason. That is why this is a scandal.

No good reason. This one is a scandal.

[Larry]

Exactly. 501©(3) can be abused, but there's no reason to focus on one political group as the abuser.

I haven't even seen anybody claim that they focused on one political group.

Rather, they received thousands of applications, and attempted to use various criteria to examine them. (And they revised that criteria, several times.)

---------- Post added May-13th-2013 at 11:56 AM ----------

It's entirely appropriate that the IRS does due diligence on organizations requesting tax-exempt status, including political ones whose eligibility is subject to restrictions.

What's not acceptable is that they focus on one part of the political spectrum more than another.

Agreed.

But so far, all we have is proof that they kinda did the former, and claims (which are somewhat contradicted by the evidence) that they did the latter.

[Corcaigh]

Agreed.

But so far, all we have is proof that they kinda did the former, and claims (which are somewhat contradicted by the evidence) that they did the latter.

But through their filtering they did focus on a particular part of the spectrum for at least some of the time. Even if it wasn't explicitly intended to target right-wing organizations, that's what ended up happening.

Now it may well be that their apology was really badly mishandled, and made what was incompetence appear far worse.

[AsburySkinsFan]

But through their filtering they did focus on a particular part of the spectrum for at least some of the time. Even if it wasn't explicitly intended to target right-wing organizations, that's what ended up happening.

No it may well be that their apology was really badly mishandled. and made what was incompetence appear far worse.

This is completely reasonable....must not be true. :pfft:

[sacase]

Everyday more is coming out and the worse it looks for the IRS.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

I haven't even seen anybody claim that they focused on one political group.

Rather, they received thousands of applications, and attempted to use various criteria to examine them. (And they revised that criteria, several times.)

I think they admitted that they targeted tea party groups, and the tea party is a political organization.

[chipwhich]

I think they admitted that they targeted tea party groups, and the tea party is a political organization.

I finally understand what Larry's approach is, they haven't proven to me there is any real issue, so until that time I won't believe there is an issue.

The apology from the IRS, if word-smithed is open ended and technically it could come to light that they didn't just target conservative groups so until that time occurs, I refuse to believe they targeted anything but tea party groups which in my book is a good thing.

[JimboDaMan]

I finally understand what Larry's approach is, they haven't proven to me there is any real issue, so until that time I won't believe there is an issue.

The apology from the IRS, if word-smithed is open ended and technically it could come to light that they didn't just target conservative groups so until that time occurs, I refuse to believe they targeted anything but tea party groups which in my book is a good thing.

It seems to be a fact that they did NOT "just target conservative groups". Three quarters of those applications selected for scrutiny were for other organizations, ones that did NOT use "patriot" or "tea party" in their applications. That doesn't make it OK. But the facts do not agree with some of your assumptions.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

I still think this is wrong, but this paragraph from a WP blog caught me:

It is worth remembering an important fact here: The IRS is supposed to reject groups that are primarily political from registering as 501©4s. If they’re going to do that, then they need some kind of test that helps them flag problematic applicants. And that test will have to be a bit impressionistic. It will mean taking the political rhetoric of the moment and watching for it in applications. It will require digging into the finances and activities of groups on the left and the right that seem to be political even as they’re promising their activities are primarily non-political.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/13/wonkbook-the-good-reasons-for-the-irss-dumb-mistake/?wprss=rss_social-postbusinessonly&Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

I'm going to go ahead and say something almost no one ever says, but "I might not understand all the issues on this one." Doesn't mean I think it's right, but there might be a misguided, but well-intentioned reason, this happened. Might.

[AsburySkinsFan]

I still think this is wrong, but this paragraph from a WP blog caught me:

It is worth remembering an important fact here: The IRS is supposed to reject groups that are primarily political from registering as 501©4s. If they’re going to do that, then they need some kind of test that helps them flag problematic applicants. And that test will have to be a bit impressionistic. It will mean taking the political rhetoric of the moment and watching for it in applications. It will require digging into the finances and activities of groups on the left and the right that seem to be political even as they’re promising their activities are primarily non-political.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/13/wonkbook-the-good-reasons-for-the-irss-dumb-mistake/?wprss=rss_social-postbusinessonly&Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

I'm going to go ahead and say something almost no one ever says, but "I might not understand all the issues on this one." Doesn't mean I think it's right, but there might be a misguided, but well-intentioned reason, this happened. Might.

I wonder what other key words and phrases they focus on, we saw how it changed but I wonder what other criteria changed.

[Larry]

I think they admitted that they targeted tea party groups, and the tea party is a political organization.

According to the one site I've checked, (admittedly, a sample of one isn't exactly overwhelming. But it's one more than anybody else has brought to the table), they applied for, and received, a 501c3 classification. Which actually prohibits them from what the IRS calls "political activity". (Which, admittedly, doesn;t cover everything political, just a tiny portion of it.)

---------- Post added May-13th-2013 at 02:21 PM ----------

Everyday more is coming out and the worse it looks for the IRS.

Every day more claims are coming out.

Many of the things coming out, actually make things look better. Like the fact that, when a supervisor found out about it, the practice was immediately changed.

---------- Post added May-13th-2013 at 02:29 PM ----------

But through their filtering they did focus on a particular part of the spectrum for at least some of the time. Even if it wasn't explicitly intended to target right-wing organizations, that's what ended up happening.

Now it may well be that their apology was really badly mishandled, and made what was incompetence appear far worse.

1) I'll point out that even that hasn't been proven.

They supposedly had a list of criteria, and one of the things on the list were names like "tea party" and "patriot".

Was another item on the list (just to make something up) organizations whose purpose included "save the planet"?

If one of the items on the list was the word "Republican", but another word on the list was "Democrat", then did they only target one end of the spectrum?

But, I'll assume that there is no such convenient excuse, if for no other reason that the fact that it hasn't come out, yet. And I assume that it would have.

2) And I do think you've got a point, here.

That even if the intent wasn't political (and there's no proof that it wasn't), I certainly think it;s reasonable to direct a higher level of scrutiny at government actions where the effect might be uneven.

I'll use the example of the Republican's voter ID laws. I do think it's reasonable to direct very strong scrutiny at any action which has a political effect.

This needs to be investigated. And frankly, even if there was no political motive (and my first suspicion is that there was), it still stinks. Even if it was an accident. Even if it was only low level employees.

(And it might well not be.)

---------- Post added May-13th-2013 at 02:31 PM ----------

I finally understand what Larry's approach is, they haven't proven to me there is any real issue, so until that time I won't believe there is an issue.

How about sticking to stating your opinions. (And maybe actually backing them up.)

Instead of trying to find a long winded way of trying to accuse me of lying (without any support for that, either.).

---------- Post added May-13th-2013 at 02:55 PM ----------

I still think this is wrong, but this paragraph from a WP blog caught me:

It is worth remembering an important fact here: The IRS is supposed to reject groups that are primarily political from registering as 501©4s. If they’re going to do that, then they need some kind of test that helps them flag problematic applicants. And that test will have to be a bit impressionistic. It will mean taking the political rhetoric of the moment and watching for it in applications. It will require digging into the finances and activities of groups on the left and the right that seem to be political even as they’re promising their activities are primarily non-political.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/13/wonkbook-the-good-reasons-for-the-irss-dumb-mistake/?wprss=rss_social-postbusinessonly&Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

I'm going to go ahead and say something almost no one ever says, but "I might not understand all the issues on this one." Doesn't mean I think it's right, but there might be a misguided, but well-intentioned reason, this happened. Might.

I suspect that part of the ease of confusion, is that there are several different ways an organization can become tax exempt, and the different methods have different rules.

(And some of the terms used seem to have different meanings from Plain English. Apparently a big one is that "political activity" is defined as campaigning for (or against) individual candidates (and some places I've read say "or Parties", but others don't.) But apparently, lobbying is different, and doesn;t count as "political activity". Neither does issue advocacy. The NRA can do all the yelling they want about how great guns are, and that's not "political activity", as the IRS defines it. But, if they endorse Senator Lardbutt, that's political.)

I posted this link, earlier, in the middle of a long post. It's from a law firm that specializes in supporting non-profits, and it summarizes the various classifications.

501c3 organizations are charitable organizations. Money you donate to them is tax deductible (with some limits). They are forbidden from any "political activity" at all. (But, remember, lobbying doesn't count.)

501c4 organizations aren't charitable. Money you give to them isn't deductible. Part of the law forbids them from "political activity", but other parts simply say that, if they do it, then they get taxed. (And can be punished for it.) (I assume that people like the NRA fit into this category.)

527 organizations are political organizations. Politics is their business. (I assume that the major parties are in this category.) Far from being prohibited from "political activity" (campaigning for or against individual candidates), they are required to do it (or they lose their tax exempt status). OTOH, they are forbidden from lobbying. (Which the previous two organizations are allowed to do.)

And, 527 organizations have to comply with campaign finance laws. There's limits on what people can give them. I assume that they're required to document who donated to them. (And no doubt lots of other paperwork.)

----------

The Tea Party organizations are political organizations. (At least in the Plain English definition. Maybe not in the IRS definition.) But it appears that at least some of them were applying to be treated under a section of law that forbids them from campaign activities (the IRS definition). (And at least the one I checked on, applied under that section, and had it granted.)

[aREDSKIN]

What a surprise!!!

Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post..............................>

......IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea-party-affiliated groups, the documents show.

Catherine Engelbrecht, president of the Houston-based True the Vote, first filed for tax-exempt status in July 2010. At one point, Engelbrecht — who is still awaiting a determination from the IRS regarding her voting rights organization and a separate tea party group, King Street Patriots — said an IRS employee informed her: “I’m just doing what Washington is telling me to do. I’m just asking what they want me to ask.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-denounces-reported-irs-targeting-of-conservative-groups/2013/05/13/a0185644-bbdf-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_print.html

[mistertim]

At one point, Engelbrecht — who is still awaiting a determination from the IRS regarding her voting rights organization and a separate tea party group, King Street Patriots — said an IRS employee informed her: “I’m just doing what Washington is telling me to do. I’m just asking what they want me to ask.”

Are you using this claim to say that it was the Obama administration that was pulling the strings on this thing?

[visionary]

https://twitter.com/ReutersPolitics

Reported IRS targeting is "certainly outrageous and unacceptable," if not criminal: U.S. Attorney General Holder

2:00 PM

[chipwhich]

How about sticking to stating your opinions. (And maybe actually backing them up.)

In this situation, your or my opinions mean nothing, only the truth.

You've been going down a rabbit hole with your thoughts of how to twist this into something it is not.

Eric Holder surely would have announced that they also keyed on "Save the Planet" or "Mars or Almond Joy" prior to it going this far.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/14/politics/irs-conservative-targeting/index.html

But hey it's nothing but a bunch of conservative tax cheats.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

What I am really struggling to understand with this case is whether political organizations are supposed to be applying for this 501©(4) exemption. There does seem to be something to me that this exemption is not for political organizations, and it does sorta make sense to ask companies called "Tea Party Patriots" whether they are a political organization or not. Unless I am just totally misunderstanding what happened here.

[twa]

Tulane....that is because you are using the common sense definition of a political organization rather than the IRS one.

issue centric vs party/candidate centric

[Larry]

What I am really struggling to understand with this case is whether political organizations are supposed to be applying for this 501©(4) exemption. There does seem to be something to me that this exemption is not for political organizations, and it does sorta make sense to ask companies called "Tea Party Patriots" whether they are a political organization or not. Unless I am just totally misunderstanding what happened here.

Yeah, near as I can tell, 501c4 organizations are allowed to do all the issue advocacy, even lobbying, that they want. All they can't do is to campaign for or against individual candidates. (And I'm not even sure if they can't do that, or if they just have to pay taxes on it.)

And I don't know if the Tea Party or similar groups actually do that.

For example, I assume that the NRA is 501c4. Doesn't mean they aren't up to their necks in politics. Just means they aren't allowed to actually campaign for individual candidates.

OTOH, 527 organizations (a classification which I suspect was tailored for political parties (and PACs)), are also exempt from taxes. They are required to campaign for individual candidates. (It's their reason for existing. If they don't, they lose their 527 status.) But, while the 501c4 organization can lobby, the 527 organization isn't allowed to. (The 527 are also subject to campaign finance laws.)

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

It's entirely appropriate that the IRS does due diligence on organizations requesting tax-exempt status, including political ones whose eligibility is subject to restrictions.

What's not acceptable is that they focus on one part of the political spectrum more than another.

I agree with all of this.

One factor to consider is that there has been such an explosion in the use of the phrase "Tea Party" over the last four years, that any investigation into political groups is going to focus on a large number of groups with that kind of affiliation.

This is a meaningless stat, but google comes up with 75,000,000 hits for "tea party movement" and 88,000,000 for "gay rights movement." That may not seem like anything signficant until you realize that there was no such thing as a "tea party movement" until 2007 and nothing on a large scale until 2009.

Anyway...I'm just throwing out some theories. This could be the biggest scandal in history. It could be some low-level idiocy by the IRS.

[Larry]

In this situation, your or my opinions mean nothing, only the truth.

You've been going down a rabbit hole with your thoughts of how to twist this into something it is not.

Your opinion is incorrect.

(Seems to happen a lot, when you decide to tell other people what they're thinking. That was why I suggested that you stop: cause you're embarrassing yourself.)

Eric Holder surely would have announced that they also keyed on "Save the Planet" or "Mars or Almond Joy" prior to it going this far.

I agree.

Which was why I said it

But hey it's nothing but a bunch of conservative tax cheats.

I haven't seen anything to support that. But then, lack of support doesn't seem to stop you.

---------- Post added May-14th-2013 at 04:00 PM ----------

I agree with all of this.

One factor to consider is that there has been such an explosion in the use of the phrase "Tea Party" over the last four years' date=' that any investigation into political groups is going to focus on a large number of groups with that kind of affiliation.

This is a meaningless stat, but google comes up with 75,000,000 hits for "tea party movement" and 88,000,000 for "gay rights movement." That may not seem like anything signficant until you realize that there was no such thing as a "tea party movement" until 2007 and nothing on a large scale until 2009.

Anyway...I'm just throwing out some theories. This could be the biggest scandal in history. It could be some low-level idiocy by the IRS.[/quote']

Yeah, but they're not saying that they targeted political groups, and the net happened to catch a whole bunch of groups that had "tea party" in their name. They're saying that one of the criteria that put people in that net, was having "tea party" in the name.

Now, did the words "tea party" cause them to be sent into the net, because those words made it likely that they were conservative? Or because those words made it likely that they were political?

----------

But that's speculation.

My own opinion? Somebody was singling out conservative groups for special attention. It seems the most likely explanation.

Was it because some "big fish" told them to harass conservative groups? Well, the claims, so far, is that it started somewhere low, in the Cleveland offics. And, when the supervisor found out about it, the rules were changed to make them a lot more generic. (And to apply to some liberal phrases, not just conservative ones.)

That report makes it look a lot like, once the supervisor found out, it became much more about finding political groups, than just conservative ones.

But, that's just the second batch of leaks or whatever you want to call them. I certainly think that a good, thorough, hopefully non-political (good luck) investigation is called for.

[GibbsFactor]

The Associated Press ‏@AP 6m

BREAKING: Inspector general: Ineffective management at IRS allowed agents to target tea party groups

[Tulane Skins Fan]

The Associated Press ‏@AP 6m

BREAKING: Inspector general: Ineffective management at IRS allowed agents to target tea party groups

This sort of made me laugh.... what about this is breaking?

[twa]

This sort of made me laugh.... what about this is breaking?

the official report