IRS unfairly singled out Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status

[Dan Druff]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...geting-in-2011

This is pretty bad.

Keep in mind, that despite being a conservative, I am not a fan of the Tea Party. For the most part, I think the Tea Party is an embarrassment to Republicans, and in fact was responsible for throwing away five Senate seats since 2010. (For those of you that don't remember, the Tea Party got five terrible candidates elected in the 2010 and 2012 primaries, who went on to lose in elections where the Democratic candidate would have otherwise lost to an average Republican candidate.)

However, putting that aside, this story about the IRS is really dirty.

Simply put, when Tea Party groups applied for tax-exempt status, they were intentionally put through a lot of long delays and forced to submit ridiculously detailed and difficult paperwork.

These groups were singled out due to their name only. If your group had "Patriot" or "Tea Party" in the name, you were automatically put through all of this hassle. If your group was named something different, it was handled normally.

This is no conspiracy theory. The IRS has admitted it occurred, and has admitted that the policy was a mistake.

I believe this was partially done because the IRS felt that a lot of Tea Party groups probably didn't qualify for the tax-exempt status, and partially because the IRS just hated the Tea Party due to their anti-tax and anti-IRS agenda.

Awful, regardless of what you think of the Tea Party's politics.

[sah_24]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...geting-in-2011

This is pretty bad.

Keep in mind, that despite being a conservative, I am not a fan of the Tea Party. For the most part, I think the Tea Party is an embarrassment to Republicans, and in fact was responsible for throwing away five Senate seats since 2010. (For those of you that don't remember, the Tea Party got five terrible candidates elected in the 2010 and 2012 primaries, who went on to lose in elections where the Democratic candidate would have otherwise lost to an average Republican candidate.)

However, putting that aside, this story about the IRS is really dirty.

Simply put, when Tea Party groups applied for tax-exempt status, they were intentionally put through a lot of long delays and forced to submit ridiculously detailed and difficult paperwork.

These groups were singled out due to their name only. If your group had "Patriot" or "Tea Party" in the name, you were automatically put through all of this hassle. If your group was named something different, it was handled normally.

This is no conspiracy theory. The IRS has admitted it occurred, and has admitted that the policy was a mistake.

I believe this was partially done because the IRS felt that a lot of Tea Party groups probably didn't qualify for the tax-exempt status, and partially because the IRS just hated the Tea Party due to their anti-tax and anti-IRS agenda.

Awful, regardless of what you think of the Tea Party's politics.

Does not matter , we live in an age where the government agencies and friends can do whatever they want . They will never face any consequences for their actions because most of america does not care how badly they are getting screwed as long as "Duck Dynasty" is on , and they got a miller lite/glass of wine in their hand . Both parties and government agencies all work for the same people because they have been pushing the same agenda whether red or blue for 20+ years now . It will only continue to get worse and worse , and it is seen in every industry ! Just look at the "Ultimate Poker" debacle ................same shit different day !

“The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.”


― Robert A. Heinlein

[badguy23]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...geting-in-2011

This is pretty bad.

Keep in mind, that despite being a conservative, I am not a fan of the Tea Party. For the most part, I think the Tea Party is an embarrassment to Republicans, and in fact was responsible for throwing away five Senate seats since 2010. (For those of you that don't remember, the Tea Party got five terrible candidates elected in the 2010 and 2012 primaries, who went on to lose in elections where the Democratic candidate would have otherwise lost to an average Republican candidate.)

However, putting that aside, this story about the IRS is really dirty.

Simply put, when Tea Party groups applied for tax-exempt status, they were intentionally put through a lot of long delays and forced to submit ridiculously detailed and difficult paperwork.

These groups were singled out due to their name only. If your group had "Patriot" or "Tea Party" in the name, you were automatically put through all of this hassle. If your group was named something different, it was handled normally.

This is no conspiracy theory. The IRS has admitted it occurred, and has admitted that the policy was a mistake.

I believe this was partially done because the IRS felt that a lot of Tea Party groups probably didn't qualify for the tax-exempt status, and partially because the IRS just hated the Tea Party due to their anti-tax and anti-IRS agenda.

Awful, regardless of what you think of the Tea Party's politics.

Does not matter , we live in an age where the government agencies and friends can do whatever they want . They will never face any consequences for their actions because most of america does not care how badly they are getting screwed as long as "Duck Dynasty" is on , and they got a miller lite/glass of wine in their hand . Both parties and government agencies all work for the same people because they have been pushing the same agenda whether red or blue for 20+ years now . It will only continue to get worse and worse , and it is seen in every industry ! Just look at the "Ultimate Poker" debacle ................same shit different day !

“The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.”


― Robert A. Heinlein

FYP
"Duck Dynasty" is on , and they got a miller lite/glass of wine in their hand or some PRESCRIPTION DRUG THEY CAN TAKE .

[Dan Druff]

badguy is happy if he has a beer in his hand and a roof over his head in a residential neighborhood.

[Walter Sobchak]

What the fuck is Duck Dynasty?

The dumbest thing about a scandal like this is even if the shenanigans had been successful, would it really have made a lot of difference? It can't possibly be +EV because you know it's going to come out. It's like Nixon and his enemies list. Did he benefit at all? No, and it ultimately led to his forced resignation.

[4Dragons]

Odd that one would use Duck Dynasty as a reference of what people would be distracted by because that group looks like some card carrying tea party members to me, admittedly I have not seen it though. I would have gone with a random Kardashian show reference as far as the ill, mal and misinformed voter class of humans.

On the other end of it, I had heard that from both sides that the administration in charge, no matter who it was, used the IRS against its political enemies.

[bukowski72]

The IRS has way too much power. They are used as harassment tool by many powerful people who aren't even politicians. Steve Wynn(allegedly) had Billy Walters audited for years after Walters took the Golden Nugget for 3 mil.

If I had been involved with one of those tea party groups I would have been really pissed off. The IRS was asking for ridiculous things like print outs of every e-mail ever sent or received by the group. Like anyone was every going to read all those. Just delay, delay, delay, their applications.

[LLL]

Let's get partisan since that is what they want anyway...
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/when...eted_liberals/

[Buck Nasty]

Keep in mind, that despite being a conservative, I am not a fan of the Tea Party. For the most part, I think the Tea Party is an embarrassment to Republicans, and in fact was responsible for throwing away five Senate seats since 2010. (For those of you that don't remember, the Tea Party got five terrible candidates elected in the 2010 and 2012 primaries, who went on to lose in elections where the Democratic candidate would have otherwise lost to an average Republican candidate.)

[Goodpoop]

Druff,

How bad do you think this is going to hurt the president? We now have this, Benghazi and the AP scandal. Do you think Americans will wake up and see Barry as the fraud he is? Will he ever take blame for anything or will the Dems keep blaming Bush?

Do you think we are stuck with Obamacare?

[4Dragons]

Bronies officially have their own nonprofit

[bottomset_69]

Druff,

How bad do you think this is going to hurt the president? We now have this, Benghazi and the AP scandal. Do you think Americans will wake up and see Barry as the fraud he is? Will he ever take blame for anything or will the Dems keep blaming Bush?

Do you think we are stuck with Obamacare?

Do not want to speak for Druff, but Obama is basically useless now in his second term. He came is as a "transformational President" and it turned out he is just another Chicago political hack. Since World War 2, the only Presidents that got along with "the other side" have been Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan.

All other have been partisan and each will go down as forgotten. Same with Obama. He had an opportunity to do something, but he got sucked into issues his base needed to feel god about themselves, like Global Warming which is a fucking joke.

[GrenadaRoger]

reading Michael Hilzek's column in the 5/14/13 LA Times is worthwhile...it gives a good analysis of where the blame lays imho


http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may...ltzik-20130514



let me also add this about the IRS....in my experience the IRS/government service has never been a place where top accounting students go...35 years ago when i graduated college with my BS in Accounting, only the 3rd raters went to work there--best went into CPA firms (me), the 2nd best to private industry...and on top of that, over that last 20 years fewer good college students have gone into accounting--instead they have opted for Finance and jobs on Wall Street. The result is IRS is populated with a lot of talentless workers...add to that the policy of diversity hiring/advancement and the talent pool is futher compromised...and over the last three years the IRS had not given cost of living wage adjustments, the last two they have not given any performance awards and there has been a hiring freeze for the past year. The result is an understaffed agency with unmotivated workers having mediocre ability...but that's the kind of IRS the people controlling the government want

[shortbuspoker]

Politics aside, this is an interesting legal matter as far as the application of the 5th amendment.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/07/politi...irs/index.html

(CNN) -- Acting on a conservative battle cry and potentially triggering a court battle with the Obama administration, the Republican-led House voted Wednesday to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions about her agency's targeting of conservative and other groups.

The 231-187 vote fell almost entirely along party lines, a decision that cut across three sharp divides: balance of power issues between the branches of government, political questions over the IRS scandal, and a Constitutional debate over Lerner's individual Fifth Amendment rights.

For nearly a year, Lerner has refused House requests to testify on the matter, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Republicans insist that doesn't apply here, that she waived the right by first asserting her innocence when she appeared before the House Oversight Committee last May.

"Mrs. Lerner made 17 separate factual assertions before invoking her right to remain silent," proclaimed Rep. Richard Nugent, Republican of Florida, as he opened up Wednesday's debate. "You can't make selective assertions and still invoke your Fifth Amendment right."

[4Dragons]

Chaffetz Plays Damning Video Recap of IRS Targeting Scandal During House Hearing, Makes Case for Impeachment

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016...r-impeachment/

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) made the case to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen during a Tuesday hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.

Before delivering his remarks, Chaffetz played a damaging video recap of the IRS targeting scandal, which explained how officials destroyed hard drives and back-up disks containing ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s emails.
“This is really a simple case in my mind,” Chaffetz said. “When Congress asks you a question, you’re expected to give a truthful answer. When Congress issues a subpoena, compliance is not optional. Imagine if a taxpayer failed to comply with an IRS summons or subpoena — what would they do to you?”


The GOP lawmaker accused Koskinen of “actively misleading” Congress and failing to prevent evidence in the targeting scandal from being destroyed.
He also said the IRS commissioner failed to look in “five of the six” places Lerner’s emails could have been recovered: “the back up tapes, her Blackberry, the server, the backup server and the loaner laptop.”


Koskinen was invited to testify but claimed he didn’t have enough time to “prepare or appear in person.”
“The short notice provided has left me without sufficient time to to prepare or appear in person on Tuesday for what could be a wide-ranging and complex discussion regarding claims that may only become clear after the hearing’s first panel,” he wrote in a letter to the Judiciary Committee.

[Dan Druff]

"No e-mails could be retrieved. The hard drive was destroyed and recycled through the normal process."

Yeah, good thing the IRS "recycled" a hard drive which contained crucial evidence against them. How environmental!

[4Dragons]

Yeah, it's funny how the left wing nut jobs call the right crazy but when they find out that all that corruption is completely true that they still think that the right is somehow conspiracy minded, when it is the brainwashed left that can't seem to put their finger on it when they got away from human nature and started believing in fairy tales.

It's because they are being lied to by the people they hold in highest esteem.