IRS Admits Targeting Conservative Groups During 2012 Election

An anonymous reader writes "A recurring theme in comments on Slashdot since the 9/11 attacks has been concern about the use of government power to monitor or suppress political activity unassociated with terrorism but rather based on ideology. It has just been revealed that the IRS has in fact done that. From the story: "The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election . . . Organizations were singled out because they included the words 'tea party' or 'patriot' in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups. In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said. 'That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review,' Lerner said . . . 'The IRS would like to apologize for that,' she added. . . . Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. . . . she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice. Tea Party groups were livid on Friday. ... In all, about 300 groups were singled out for additional review. . . Tea Party groups weren't buying the idea that the decision to target them was solely the responsibility of low-level IRS workers. ... During the conference call it was stated that no disciplinary action had been taken by those who engaged in this activity. President Obama has previously joked about using the IRS to target people." So it's not how they choose cases for review (except when it is), and was not motivated by political bias (except that it was). Also at National Review, with more bite.

Comments

on a serious note

[AdmV0rl0n]

I have a question...

Maybe more than one..

Under Bush, lotta crying, moaning, and bleeting from the people. Seems now the same people who did this are or have been involved in;

Cold blodded murder of enemy combatants (Bin Laden could have been taken. He was simply assasinated..) - remember the pictures of a soldier doing this under Bush? all hell let loose. Wot, now its ok cos the pres says so?

Illegal bombardment of other nations land, and illegal operations and flights over other nations airspaces. Drone use today is at an all time high..
Gitmo still seems to be open..
Still in Afganistan, and ever more so in Afpak.

Seems to me that the President and friends is getting a very big free pass on a lot of activities.
And some stuff is new, like drones over the US and further assassinations of unwanted or disliked individuals.

Whatever the background, the IRS should be politically independant and not a tool to be aimed at opponents.
I'm not American. But I have to say that in recent years it seems a lot of mud gets thrown. The republicans and tea party folks are accused of living in their own bubble. And I think thats true. But have to say, the other side is in its own bubble, and its not getting better. In fact, its getting really quite bad.

The President is murdering civilians. And he's issuing orders to kill people. And he seems to have no check or balance. Seems dem press are giving free rides. Doing so isn't proving loyaltly to their beliefs or so called values.

When 3000 Pakistani's die from drone strikes, will it turn to a Pearl Harbour for Pakistan?
More than anything else, put aside the politics, these policies and ideas are not more effective than Bush, or better than Bush. The current work isn't effective in even the medium term. Short term, maybe the US gets some people. But whole villages are being turned. Its winning hearts and minds, but not for the US. This is not going well. It may seem like it is on the surface, but thats all.

Re:Very un-PC

[trims]

MoveOn.org isn't solely a 503(c).4 organization. They're very explicitly split into two branches: the main site, which engages in all the permissible organizational and democratic (small 'd') stuff, and the MoveOn PAC, which explicitly is a registered PAC and does promote candidates and specific issues. Their books are separate, and open, and the sections of the web site where PAC vs 503 stuff goes on is clearly demarked. Donations are also clearly marked as to whether you're giving to the PAC or the 503.

The problem with many of the newer 503(c).4 organizations is that they:

(a) don't file the appropriate paperwork, so it's hard to see if they're complying with the reporting and transparency requirements

(b) Engage in activities that are, at best, grey advocacy, and at worst, outright political support of individuals and issues.

I do agree that we need more auditing, and that the selection of who to target was wrong. But that doesn't mean there isn't a serious problem on the Right around this, particularly since there's been a whole lot more money poured into Right Wing 503(c).4 orgs in the past 4 years, and also because the vast majority of these organizations seem to be very heavily politicized, and much less socially-oriented.

FYI - laws say it's fine for a 503(c).4 to advocate certain general positions (i.e. "Clean Water", "Less Coal, more Wind", and do what used to be called "Community Organizing"), so long as they did not promote specific candidates or parties or legislation/initiatives. The problem has been that may 503(c).4 orgs aren't obeying those restrictions. That is, you see a lot of Left-Wing 503(c) doing general voter registration and promoting Big Causes. Recent Right Wing stuff has heavily been oriented around "Defeat taxation" and "Stop Immigration" and the like, which leads (or is intended) to be mostly legislative lobbying, which is NOT OK for a 503(c).4

Re:Accountability

[darkmeridian]

You didn't read the article. By definition, the IRS couldn't have gone after their political rivals because political groups are not allowed to have non-profit status. That's the entire cause of this kerfuffle. The law forbids non-profits from having a political goal. The IRS saw "Tea Party" and "Patriot" in the names and just assumed those groups were political in nature. That's stupid and lazy, but not necessarily evil or criminal. BUT if you think that "Tea Party" and "Patriot" groups are inherently political, and therefore discriminated against by the IRS on that basis, then you're actually agreeing that the IRS did the right thing by targeting them as political groups!