Slashdot Mirror
After Non-Profit Application Furor, IRS Says It's Lost 2 Years Of Lerner's Email
As reported by the Associated Press, via US News & World Report, the IRS says that it cannot locate much of the email sent by a former IRS official over a two-year period. "The IRS told Congress Friday it cannot locate many of Lois Lerner's emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed during the summer of that year. Lerner headed the IRS division that processed applications for tax-exempt status. The IRS acknowledged last year that agents had improperly scrutinized applications for tax-exempt status by tea party and other conservative groups." Three congressional committees are investigating the agency because of the allegations of politically motivated mishandling of those applications, as is the Justice Department and the IRS's own inspector general. As the story says, "Congressional investigators have shown that IRS officials in Washington were closely involved in the handling of tea party applications, many of which languished for more than a year without action. But so far, they have not publicly produced evidence that anyone outside the agency directed the targeting or even knew about it." CBS News has a slightly different version, also based on the AP's reporting.
As soon as the Obama administration lives up to their promise of being the most transparent administration in the history of the ministry of truth
I'd love to see what she would say to a taxpayer "losing" 2 years of receipts during an audit.
I think that "my bad" wouldn't be enough.
The messiah of transparency fails yet again. In the private sector, incompetency like this would be a career-killer. In government, though, it's business as usual.
Do you think they'd take that as an excuse during an audit?
Isn't the default to assume that they said what they were assumed to have said at the worst in these cases.
Only one thing i can say - it's sad, but only words are good for us.
http://www.wordreaders.com
Oh her computer crashed did it? Did you try looking on the server where you keep the mail, and not on her computer?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
anyone buy that? all the agencies I worked for had everything tracked across multiple machines. big IT contracts to manage the systems, including backups.
What is the source of this information ? By The Way ?
The IRS told Congress Friday it cannot locate many of Lois Lerner's emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed during the summer of that year.
Wow! I didn't know the IRS had personal email servers on every individuals personal computer, where all copies of a persons email sent and retrieved is kept and deleted from everywhere else.
The rest of us just use shared central email servers where multiple copies of everyone's email is kept, backed up daily. Boy, are we out of touch with reality!
Incorrect. This is how they promote people.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
Don't worry. The NSA has it all filed away.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
Lost your data? It used to be that your dog ate it. Wait, this still hold: the dog ate my mail server. Yeah, he found a way and he did it. He went into the cloud and ate it. What's so unbelievable about that? People believe all kinds of crazy shit and will do your head in if you challenge them.
Yep. Probably an Exchange setup with .pst files saved on the local machine.
Everybody should be depressed and angry but they are complacent. New chief executive, same ole shit. Corruption and lies.
Really love the job you gu
Seriously, I have a feeling they set up local email accounts, thought archiving was too difficult or expensive to implement, and called it a day - 20 years ago.
And for the record, targeting political organizations wasn't isolated to conservative groups, and the only application rejected was for a progressive organization.
BOOP!
The classic "My dog ate my homework" defense! Nicely played!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Clinton was impeached for being a LYING scumbag, not for being a scumbag.
Really, how dumb are you guys?
Come on, it's 2014. And beta. Seriously.
God! This is taking forever. Can we just skip to the burning part of the witch hunt?
Yes,
Just like you can say that there has never been a oil pipeline that has been rejected either. By not quickly approving simple applications and letting them linger for years - you effectively reject the application, without the political backlash of having to actually do it. I would assume it was a simple progressive organization that didn't qualify for the tax break - it was quickly rejected so they can fix their problem, or get back to doing what they should be doing.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
I was going to reply then realized it was an Anonymous Coward. Is it me or are there a lot more Anonymous Cowards inside and outside Slashdot.org?
I spec'ed, installed and managed mail servers for several organizations and this never happened on my watch. We had this magical power called "backups" that insulated us from user ineptitude and malfeasance. Another item is the "ten million dollars" to retrieve emails and documents. I was asked to provide several years of emails and documents involving eleven employees and specific criteria for a lawsuit. Legal had it in their hands within two days and that involved pulling and selectively restoring the identified tapes and burning to DVD. I call bullshit.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
Were those her emails to herself? Otherwise, they went through servers. This isn't a school board email server.... it's the IRS. Does anyone seriously think they don't have copious records of all the documents? My dog ate my homework? If you are gonna post any kind of credible reply to this, don't be an AC. Any AC reply to this will be assume to be coming from the legal staff of the Criminal Democratic Party.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I've not read what I'm sure are mounds of news articles about this "scandal" but I suspect that the IRS staff involved decided to audit all partisan groups to make sure they should be 527s instead of 501c3s.
BOOP!
You're right. There are a lot more mod trolls than there used to be. Not as bad as Ars Technica, but getting there.
These days smart people with something to say go the AC route. Or leave for |. or SG.
It's pretty rare for the IRS to retroactively reverse a 501c3 status, except when it fails to file the proper paperwork.
I've not read what I'm sure are mounds of news articles about this "scandal" but I suspect that the IRS staff involved decided to audit all partisan groups to make sure they should be 527s instead of 501c3s.
correction on my part - They were 501c4s, not c3s. (I work with c3s, so I tend to forget other types exist ;)
BOOP!
The NSA are professional liars. They've been caught lying about a huge number of things: spying on friendly foreign leaders, mass phone surveillance on everyone in the USA, modifying routers before they are shipped overseas, etc.
Double standard much? Who is more likely to be lying: the NSA or the IRS? Everyone in Washington are going after the IRS. Committees are meeting, IRA officials are testifying under oath, criminal investigations have been started. Higher ups at the IRA are going to be forced out, and there will be criminal charges. The same thing is also going to occur with the Veteran's Administration scandal.
Meanwhile over at the NSA, the sound of crickets. They claim that their own secret investigations have found they did everything right. Somehow this seems good enough. No one has been called to task. Even the people responsible for letting Snowden get access to all that information seem to be off the hook.
As bad as the IRS and VA situations are, they pale in comparison to the NSA situation and yet nothing has happened as a result. It's business as usual. The NSA is completely unaccountable to anybody for anything, and when they do screw up nothing happens to any insiders. This is guaranteed to result in a culture of incompetence. We are in big trouble.
Why is Snark Required?
Oh. Right. I forgot. Benghahhhhhhzzzzziiiiiii!!!!!
Seriously, just once I would like to see some sort of conversation about the governmental system not devolve into name-calling. It makes it a lot easier to have productive conversations that way :/
BOOP!
Who doesn't run exchange or some form of IMAP, especially in a government function? I smell bullshit.
I propose an experiment. Run one article per day that allows no moderations. I'd suggest it be a political subject, as moderations are useless in those anyway.
I come here for the love
Bullshit, its all irrelevant to the issue at hand. The irs specifically targeted groups they didnt like and asked them to jump through hoops.which were highly illegal. For example you cant ask them for their member list, or if they are religious, all things asked. If they did the same thing to socialsts communists black panthers gay groups women groups or the kkk, id still feel the same, this shouldnt be partisain, unless you beleive it was ok and that makes it ok when the other side has the whitehouse...remember that
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Do they mean literally down the stairs? Because I'm pretty sure if they simply reboot the computer they can read the emails again.
I find that with a rotation of admins, various screwups, machine upgrades, damaged media, etc. That legacy data tends to just lie around for decades. Generally most data security is during disposal with various mandates such as old hard drives being fed into atomic shredders. But if the server was pulled from the rack and put into a to-be-refurbished pile then it can easily exist in the back of the admin's closet. Or someone doing an inventory will say, "Hey, here is machine 53B, this machine doesn't exist in our list, I wonder what is on it?"
The IRS targeted groups of all political stripes. If you filed for tax-exempt status and it looked based on keywords that you were really a political group, then you got sent for further evaluation.
The IRS reported to Congress that it targeted conservative groups because Congress asked the IRS the question: "Are you targeting conservative non-profits?"
Yet today, years after the fact and investigations into the matter that detailed the broader non-partisan scope of the flagging, we still have the media parroting that this was only about conservative groups.
Two years of emails?!? Nixon only lost 18 1/2 minutes of the Watergate Tapes and he had to resign.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
/b/ is causing the Internet to vibrate at a fundamental frequency and the harmonics are hitting Slashdot rather hard.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
There seems to be a cabal of people who will spend all their mod points modding everything on your posting history down if they find you posted something they find particularly offensive. This causes a lot of people to post controversial stufff as AC.
There are also groups of people like groupies who follow topics in order to impress a particular viewpoint that seems to match their worldview. Both seem to be problems on Slashdot in the last couple of years.
You will find that with the retaliation that seems to be going on in today's environment, people just don't want their online persona associated with something controversial. There is the mass down modding to ruin your karma and restrict your posting abilities but also take Mozilla for instance. They canned a new CEO (who had been working for them in other offices since their inception) for something he did 8 years ago that had the majority support of his community at the time. What will you be driven away from or refused or jailed or whatever retaliation that happens in 8 years over a comment you made today or yesterday?
Seriously, I have a feeling they set up local email accounts, thought archiving was too difficult or expensive to implement, and called it a day - 20 years ago.
Maybe so, but that means that the IRS has not been diligent about obeying the law. They are a government agency and are required to keep records.
As others have said, if you are audited by the IRS, the IRS won't let you get away with saying "Oops, my records were lost, sorry." The IRS must not be allowed to do this.
People must at a minimum be fired with no pension, but probably people should be in prison for this. The IRS has tremendous powers, and in return the IRS is expected to limit its activities to simply collecting the taxes owed. When Nixon asked the IRS to give him dirt on his enemies, they quite rightly told him to fuck off. Now we have found out that the current IRS politicized itself to help Obama. This isn't a fuzzy sort-of technical rules violation... they crossed multiple bright red lines. Prison.
And for the record, targeting political organizations wasn't isolated to conservative groups, and the only application rejected was for a progressive organization.
Absolute fucking bullshit. Either you are misinformed or you are a shill... which is it?
We know that groups with "tea party" and "freedom" in their names were targeted. No such targeting rules were found for groups with "progressive" in their names.
Multiple Tea Party groups were talking to their Congressmen, asking for help. No progressive groups were. That story about progressive groups being targeted is just a retroactive cover-up story, in short, a lie. Are you going to swallow the lie?
The IRS managed to harass and delay and defer the Tea Party for over two years, enough to defang them right before an election. That's tampering with the voting process as the progressive groups were not similarly hampered. Are you not absolutely fucking outraged over this? I am.
The Federal Records Act requires retention of records. That email is a "record" for statutory purposes is a long settled matter. Conducting government business on a system with a retention period of 14 days and no archive is a crime.
It's your banana republic government either deliberately neglecting their obligation to preserve or destroying evidence or both. There aren't any plausible alternatives.
Enjoy.
"Prior to 2011" corresponds to when the Bush administration switched email systems without including an automated archiver.
http://fcw.com/articles/2010/01/19/web-white-house-email-system-details.aspx?m=2
On the other hand, I've worked in NARA and I've worked with Records Officers in cabinet-level agencies and you're smoking some medical grade stuff if you think any but a handful of emails that aren't sent to or from the a White House are required by the FRA to be archived.
There you go. It's all a mistake because republicans tax cuts regulations.
Here's how DSM-IV defines rationalization; "when the individual deals with emotional conflict or internal or external stressors by concealing the true motivations for his or her own thoughts, actions, or feelings through the elaboration of reassuring or self serving but incorrect explanations."
You're exhibiting a symptom of possible metal disorder. Seek help.
Bullshit, its all irrelevant to the issue at hand. The irs specifically targeted groups they didnt like
No, the IRS specifically targeted groups that don't like the IRS. I still think it was wrong (only in the sense that I think the IRS should have applied the same strict scrutiny to other groups), but it's not political to suspect that vocally anti-IRS groups might play fast and lose when it comes to complying with IRS regulations.
Actually they did the same thing to socialist etc. groups. In fact the only group that was actually denied a tax exemption was a progressive church.
But don't let facts bother you.
lol.. IF that is what it takes to make your pathetic life worth living another day, so be it.
They seem to divulge too much information, sometimes. My understanding from this IRS issue, is that these tea party groups were filing for a special non-profit status that has a specific social improvement goal of the non-profit, which did not align with the purpose/description of said non-profit status (plainly opposite in many cases if they are trying to stop social improvements like immigration reform).
So it seemed like the government released this information that they are doing their job properly, which the media goes nuts that it was a political witchhunt. It was not. It was purely being extra careful of a flood of applications for a non-profit that was much higher than previous years. The focus was on the type of applicant and the status applied, not the name or who applied.
I always understood the IRS to look for patterns and anomalies, and when there are anomalies, investigate them because they are likely fraud. So, based on my understanding from reading up on this last year, I sided with the IRS.
Unjustified accusations of racism are just as vile and despicable as racism itself, and should be condemned to the same degree.
You ass.
Amazing how ineffective these intelligence agencies are when the issue in question goes against the absolute power agenda...
Yes, the 50+ anonymous cowards in this thread are shaking at the thought of your 13 mod points.
I would settle for this Administration following the rule of law.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
So smart. So ethical. And he has binders on everyone, not just women.
You must be so proud.
"The focus was on the type of applicant and the status applied,"
That, AC, is precisely the complaint. They were a certain type of applicant. Politically Conservative
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
plainly opposite in many cases if they are trying to stop social improvements like immigration reform
This is a subjective statement. One person may consider a particular immigration reform position as representing social improvement, while another may view the position as damaging to the same society.
Write failed: Broken pipe
No, in reality the IRS investigated all groups with political parties and movements in their names, since they're required by law (i.e. Congress) to only allow non-political groups to be granted tax exempt status. And the IRS investigated (and rejected) far more liberal groups than conservative groups. So (1) they were required to investigate political groups, so the investigation was not only proper, it was required by law passed by Congress, and (2) they didn't target Tea Party groups exclusively or even disproportionately.
So what were you complaining about?
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
First they lied to the congress
Then the US Marshals seizing police Stingray records to keep them out of the ACLU
Now IRS is lying about a certain computer crash in justifying their refusal of disclosing tghe email records of a key IRS employee who was in charge of harassing groups which were affiliated with the so-called "TEA party"
The Obama administration simply does *NOT* respect the rule of law anymore !
Do you think the American populous is that stupid? Maybe we are; we did vote the current potus in twice. :)
Amazing they released the story late Friday afternoon. WEAK
Still using POP, amirite?
if you think any but a handful of emails that aren't sent to or from the a White House are required by the FRA to be archived
Having read the statute, prior to hitting my crack pipe, I see no such "White House" criteria.
You may read the latest revision of the IRS interpretation of the statute here, where you will learn that e-mail — all e-mail — that meets that statutory definition of a "record" must be preserved within either an "electronic recordkeeping system," as defined by the IRS manual and well beyond Lois's broken computer, or "must be printed out and placed in the appropriate record system." Any e-mail communication Lois made regarding the disposition of some non-profit's status would obviously have qualified as a "record" under the plain language of 1.15.6-1.
And yes, we do prosecute people for destruction of government records. Probably not the protected political appointee hatchet-people of the powers-that-be, but it does happen, because it's criminal.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Bush committed at least three felonies.
Why not prosecute him?
/church lady
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
It is more than that since tbe it's is unpopular. The congress has reduced its funding. Like they have no control over it. The Irs was trying to focus on the applications they felt where the most likely to be false.
You are one of those useful idiots easily manipulated by the left wing media. What you just said above is all so wrong.
Thank you for proving my point so well. It is you who are deranged. You are frothing at the mouth at how bad the current president is, and yet conveniently forget how so many people thought the previous president was just as bad.
Who cares how long ago it was? Ever hear of something called history? Like you better learn it or you will repeat mistakes in the past? Hell idiots like you extol the virtues of even older presidents like Reagan, whats wrong with pointing out the foibles of someone more recent?
Why not just admit it, you are just a dimwit partisan repubnant, no different from those people you despise.
Actually, you're not required to keep records to respond to speculative FOIA requests. FOIA just requires you provide responsive documents, if you have them.
Records retention is a whole different matter.
There will be a specific request for retention of emails, for example, in connection with a lawsuit.
I would settle for any administration to follow the law. But yes, it would be nice to start with the present one, and work our way forward. And a good message would be sent by also indicting the surviving criminals from past ones. Alas, it is but a fantasy of mine.
Just a note about this IRS "scandal", The only group that was actually denied was a "liberal" group, the Maine chapter of Emerge America, which trains Democratic women to run for office. So boo on anyone that is trying to keep the story alive.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If we take an objective look at the matter, there actually is a good reason to give extra scrutiny to the tea party applications, as well as applications from many other political groups. The tea party is a group that openly advocates for people to do everything they can to get out of paying taxes; including cases where tea party members advise people to not send in any forms to the IRS at all.
And what is the job of the IRS? In case you have forgotten, they are tasked with collecting taxes. If someone is not paying taxes, the IRS is responsible to do everything within their powers to collect those owed taxes.
This is no different from the DEA paying extra attention to NORML.
I know that slashdot has taken a very conservative lean in the past ~10 years. But this nonsense is just silly. Furthermore one thing it most definitely is not is technology related.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
So you aren't counting the plethora of conservative groups that are still jumping through hoops, waiting on a decision, 3 years later?
Do you really mean to tell me that the IRS uses an email system that keeps the only copy of a user's email on the user's PC, and the user's PC isn't backed up? In the era of records laws, retention requirements, etc?
Not quite.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Is there any chance that you watched Newsroom and thought it was brilliant?
It reminds me of a scene from Firefly:
Inara: Does it seem every supply store on every border planet has the same five rag dolls and the same wood carvings of... What is this, a duck?
Kaylee: It's a swan. I like it.
Inara: You do?
Kaylee: Looks like it was made with, you know, longing. Made by a person really longed to see a swan.
Inara: Perhaps because they'd only heard of them by rough description.
Newsroom's writers know Republicans by rough description (and Jeff Bridges is the vomit-inducing carved swan), much like your knowledge of the Tea Party phenomenon.
Actually they did the same thing to socialist etc. groups. In fact the only group that was actually denied a tax exemption was a progressive church.
But don't let facts bother you.
BULLSHIT
The Internal Revenue Service on Friday apologized for targeting groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, confirming long-standing accusations by some conservatives that their applications for tax-exempt status were being improperly delayed and scrutinized.
Lois G. Lerner, the IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, said the “absolutely inappropriate” actions by “front-line people” were not driven by partisan motives.
Umm, yeah, the IRS didn't target them. That's why they apologized. And no, it wasn't for political purposes. That must be the IRS can't find her emails....
What was that about facts bothering you?
You knowq most of us which DO have real work, get a lot of email circulating. On our account we may have maybe 128 Mb maybe 256 Mb of place available. EVen if it was 1 Gb. Well whoopy duh. After a year or two you usually have to move email ina rchival because no matter what you will reach your server max capacity. And guess where those archive are ? Archival are a local file, not a server file. You can set it up to have backup but so far I have known of no normal department which does that.
And by the way the thing you all accuse to being fishy ? hapenned to me at work. Once my HD broke down, I lost all archived email which were older than soemthing like 1 month.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Actually they did the same thing to socialist etc. groups. In fact the only group that was actually denied a tax exemption was a progressive church.
But don't let facts bother you.
No, they didn't harass even a single progressive group. Not one. There were other groups that were legitimately denied, or approved, tax-exempt status during that same period. It's not like only conservative groups were founded during those two years, after all. But NONE of the progressive groups, not even the denied group you quote, was asked for the member lists, donor lists, mailing lists, names of associates, etc. None of the progressive groups had data illegally shared with private media organizations, or the SEC, or the FBI.
And being denied means you get a reason, and can appeal. Waiting forever? There's no legal recourse to deal with that. It's worse than denial.
Remember, Lerner is the one who said "The process is the punishment."
It destroyed evidence - and go fuck yourself.
Some congressional hearings are short and to the point.
What do you know about "the Tea Party phenomenon" that this guy doesn't?
I have already noticed the mod down in history, but though it was my paranoia...
No, in reality the IRS investigated all groups with political parties and movements in their names, since they're required by law (i.e. Congress) to only allow non-political groups to be granted tax exempt status. And the IRS investigated (and rejected) far more liberal groups than conservative groups
They claimed this at first, but then their IG had to retract it when they discovered it wasn't true.
We have a Constitutional Scholar in the Whitehouse. I'm sure he'll put this in order any day now.
I was going to reply then realized it was an Anonymous Coward. Is it me or are there a lot more Anonymous Cowards inside and outside Slashdot.org?
It's really not safe to express a controversial opinion at Slashdot anymore, lest you find yourself posting at -1 Karma, instead of engaging in thoughtful discussion.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
More democrat lies & corruption!!! Anyone in an Information Technology job in the United States is likely to be familiar with the email retention laws and expectations of our rouge government! For our rogue government to tell us they have not complied with their own regulations - is a lie!
No, in reality the IRS investigated all groups with political parties and movements in their names, since they're required by law (i.e. Congress) to only allow non-political groups to be granted tax exempt status. And the IRS investigated (and rejected) far more liberal groups than conservative groups. So (1) they were required to investigate political groups, so the investigation was not only proper, it was required by law passed by Congress, and (2) they didn't target Tea Party groups exclusively or even disproportionately.
So what were you complaining about?
WRONG
A bushel of Pinocchios for IRS’s Lois Lerner
In the days since the Internal Revenue Service first disclosed that it had targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, new information has emerged from both the Treasury inspector general’s report and congressional testimony Friday that calls into question key statements made by Lois G. Lerner, the IRS’s director of the exempt organizations division.
The clumsy way the IRS disclosed the issue, as well as Lerner’s press briefing by phone, were seen at the time as a public relations disaster. But even so, it is worth reviewing three key statements made by Lerner and comparing them to the facts that have since emerged.
The Pinocchio Test
In some ways, this is just scratching the surface of Lerner’s misstatements and weasely wording when the revelations about the IRS’s activities first came to light on May 10. But, taken together, it’s certainly enough to earn her four Pinocchios.
Four Pinocchios
Just in case you were wondering, the Washington Post rates "Four Pinocchios" thusly:
Four Pinocchios
Whoppers.
And "Four Pinocchios" is as bad as it gets. Their scale doesn't go to five.
Why do you think that post was anonymous? There is a reason.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
OMG Bush Derangement Syndrome raises its ugly head again. Bush has been gone for SIX years dammit. Grow the fuck up.
So is Jeffrey Dahmer innocent now? Been a long time.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So how many years before you will shut up about Obama? The problems Bush caused are still unfolding after 6 years.
Hey, the holy and Apostolic church of the Republicans are still writing dirt on FDR, so the answer is:
Bad democrat - forever,
Bad Republican Statute of limitations - 5 minutes.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The real question that should be asked is why are political think tanks granted charity status in the first place? They are often simply a front for monied self interest, pushing self interest through political propaganda is what they are all about. Regardless of whether I agree of disagree with their propaganda, I don't see why they should get a tax break just for disseminating it?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I was going to reply then realized it was an Anonymous Coward. Is it me or are there a lot more Anonymous Cowards inside and outside Slashdot.org?
They were all kicked off th eYahoo comment boards, and migrated over here.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
>The IRS, in particular, expects taxpayers to keep records FOREVER (or until you die and your will is probated)
What? Where are you getting this nonsense? The IRS does not expect you to keep records for your *entire life*. That's absolute moronic drivel. In fact, the IRS doesn't require you to do *anything*; it's congress that writes the tax code. Not just a different entity, a completely different branch of government. The IRS isn't some extra-legal entity that makes up their own rules to inflict on citizens and delights in making them difficult.
Anyway, you're required to keep records until the audit window for tax returns dependent on those records expires, no longer. Rarely will an individual have to keep any record of any kind longer than 7 years after the last filing year that record affected; the vast majority of records can be destroyed after no more than 4 years, and almost all people can fit the documents they're required to keep longer than 7 years in a single manilla folder (if they have any at all).
Are you just one of those people who think the IRS are evil because of your strict constructionist views, or something? Maybe you live in a compound in Idaho? Because this whole "IRS is evil and seeks out ways to fuck and/or control the average taxpayer in service of XYZ political force" notion is just so fucking far from the truth I seriously wonder what kind of willful ignorance or bizarre lies someone must experience to believe it.
His failure was attempting to negotiate with the far right nutjobs when he had the numbers and the mandate to put the boot in and do what he was elected to do. In his defense, he pissed away his political capital dealing with a real financial black hole, not an imaginary one like we currently have here in Australia.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You may be surprised at the number of low digit sock puppets government agencies retain here just for such occasions. Well, then again if you read the thread perhaps not.
and explain to them what happened during the time you "lost" two years of records once and see what happens.
Lawlessness, Usurpers and Destroyers.
If there is any justice in this Universe the IRS and its minions will be utterly destroyed, hopefully before they destroy EVERYTHING.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Because this whole "IRS is evil and seeks out ways to fuck and/or control the average taxpayer in service of XYZ political force" notion is just so fucking far from the truth I seriously wonder what kind of willful ignorance or bizarre lies someone must experience to believe it.
Taxes have long been the favorite tool of Federal Government to step outside of its originally intended boundaries. Sometimes this is done for good reasons (bringing down Al Capone), sometimes it's done for social engineering (everything from the mortgage interest deduction to the ACA's individual mandate), and other times it's done for paternalistic reasons (marijuana was originally regulated via tax stamps, similar to the way machine guns and destructive devices are currently regulated)
Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you fall on, you ought to be able to acknowledge the dangers of centralized power, for it's only a matter of time before the other side wields that power.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
There is an obvious problem with trying to legally define the difference between any of the Super PAC groups which are run and have "Corporate" membership and a group like the Tea Party which has individuals on both sides. This problem did not exist until corporations were made people by our fucked up supreme court. The tax exempt status for political groups was originally geared toward the latter, the former was illegal until very recent times. Yeah, the justices should booted with the rest of the corrupt politicians.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Not merely the majority of investigations and delays were targeted against politically conservative groups, but the nature of the investigations, is an issue.
If you think some progressive, liberal, or activist groups were also discriminated against, give Issa's office a call. He's probably happy to investigate even more accusations.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
You do realize that charity groups are just fronts for monied groups, relatively speaking... Their clients, beneficiaries, whatever, are often by definition much poorer and less 'well off' then those who found, support, even work for these charitable groups.
Doh.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
>The IRS, in particular, expects taxpayers to keep records FOREVER (or until you die and your will is probated) What? Where are you getting this nonsense? The IRS does not expect you to keep records for your *entire life*. That's absolute moronic drivel. In fact, the IRS doesn't require you to do *anything*; it's congress that writes the tax code. Not just a different entity, a completely different branch of government. The IRS isn't some extra-legal entity that makes up their own rules to inflict on citizens and delights in making them difficult.
There are approximately 2600 pages of tax law. That generated over 70,000 pages of tax regulations - which the IRS essentially wrote themselves and enforce. To a large extent, they did make up their own rules.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The only group that was actually denied was a "liberal" group, the Maine chapter of Emerge America, which trains Democratic women to run for office. So boo on anyone that is trying to keep the story alive.
They were "denied" after they were first approved. Meanwhile the enemies of the current administration were neither denied nor approved, a fate worse than either.
"His name was James Damore."
Insofar as corporations serve their stockholders, employees, and customers, who are real people, they may claim a right to speech on any number of issues that impact them or their constituents.
We can probably re-write the law to survive constitutional review, but neither major party actually wants that unless one gains an advantage over the other.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I'd love to see what she would say to a taxpayer "losing" 2 years of receipts during an audit.
Its better than that. Imagine if you only lost the receipts that were of interest to the IRS, that you still have many receipts that they are not interested in.
From the article:
"Camp's office said the missing emails are mainly ones to and from people outside the IRS, "such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices.""
Can we just have a flat tax (that phases in at the poverty line, not literally flat) and no deductions? Then the IRS can be scaled down to a small fraction of its current size and have very little power, no deduction no power to interpret things. As an added bonus it removes a major source of political corruption, the creating of those deductions for influential constituents.
...the enemies of the current administration...
I feel like I've gone back 42 years. Sweet nostalgia!
Well, if you want something different, you all know the routine.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
What, deliberately "losing" incriminating emails due to a "technical issue."
In the private sector, that shit gets you promoted (at least until somebody has to take the fall, then under the bus you go).
I've managed to stay at "Excellent Karma" since I stopped saying the truth of how stupid the metric system is.
Fucking metric groupies are the worst, most vindictive, and ignorant modders on /..
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
I would settle for this Administration following the rule of law.
Ha! Laws are for peasants, not their rulers.
Yes, how foolish of him to negotiate! What's the point of having all those nukes if he's too timid to use them?
Non profit status does not equal charity status.
It simply means that after costs and salaries are paid there's no money left.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Nixon got impeached for 18 minutes of tapes. Two years of email are missing. Just sayin'.
There's this principle, as part of the RICO act, that says creating a lot of shell corporations, where money moves around between companies in a very complicated way and it's very hard to track it, is one of the signs of an organized crime operation. Parts of the RICO law are written to deal with this specific method. For ciriminals to use this method, they have to build enough shell corps to make tracking the money very hard - a few won't do it, twenty or 50 or 119 is better. The Idea is that the more levels of shells there are, the more time the organization has to delay a criminal investigation, as the investigators have to keep going back to a judge and getting more warrents for new records. If they don't find anything the first few times, the judge is likely to stop giving them more warrents, plus there's more time to move money into places such as offshore accounts, or for the top dogs to skip the country if they must.
There weren't a whole bunch of new PACs and such made by the Democrats in that election cycle, but because of the very nature of the Tea Party movement, we saw a lot of Tea party this and Tea Party that, over a hundred new non-profits for states, groups of states, and particular parts of the movement. In many cases, some of the Tea party organizers put their names on multiple applications in different positions, which is another sign of potential shell corporations. That's another possible red flag under RICO, seeing the same person's name for different positions in different corporations which are being formed in multiple states, as is seeing organizations incorporated in odd states (i.e.a company doing businesss only in Arkansas, but incorporating in Florida). (Delaware is somewhat of an exception to this, as their laws make it popular for many businesses to incorporate there, but I don't think there are any real advantages to incorporating in Delaware for non-profits).
The IRS has also long had a position that even if something is technically legal to do as the law is written, it can still be illlegal if the primary purpose of doing it appears to be not to achieve whatever goal the law endorses, but to evade taxes. That means they could have approached this as a case where some of these new organizations might not qualify as their particular type of non-profit, AND might have made a profit AND had the intent to avoid paying the taxes that would entail. Technically, if somebody screws up and didn't stay within the non-profit rules, the IRS next looks to see if they made money, and if they did, for the third step the IRS gets to assume that the mistake in claiming non-profit status isn't an innocent mistake, but a deliberate way to evade taxes on that money. If you think about it, this makes a certain amount of sense - as the plaintiff at that point is often arguing that they accidentally made a profit without trying to, and they just coincidentally filed as a non-profit by innocent mistake. The press has tended to treat this as though the new non-profits could be set up wrong quite innocently, and have made a profit under law, but not done anything really wrong unless the IRS could prove some sort of intent, but the law normally assumes people don't make profits accidentally, and don't just happen to get the paperwork wrong coincidentally.
Who is John Cabal?
I'm curious, what is your opinion of George W. Bush? Because liberals said pretty much the same thing about him and conservatives would always say "Why do you hate so much?"
Why do you hate so much?
They're both egotistical incompetent fucktards.
I agree! Then we would finally set a precedent and Holder (at a minimum) would look forward to maximum security for the rest of his natural life.
Then you know shit about the federal government. They stopped using exchange sometime back after the fiasco with the Navy and NMCI. As for targeting political organizations, they'll never let a true forensics team in there because they are two-faced liars. Also, when you're denied an application and simply not responded to for five years whatsoever, most normal people see that as the brushoff.
This problem did not exist until corporations were made people by our fucked up supreme court.
A curious choice of phrase for something that happened nearly 150 years ago. I mean, yeah, this problem didn't exist before that, but it's a silly point of comparison.
No, it doesn't. It means they do not operate with profit-seeking as a goal and all left over revenue will be employed in providing services at some point. In any given year there will very likely (in fact, MUST) be money left over (cash reserves).
None of the 3 progressive groups on the list where singled out for extra scrutiny . They where never asked any probing questions. I think one was denied but it wasn't the result of asking questions there was something wrong with their paper work which may even have been fixed. Remember, the conservative 501C are in legal limbo and many of them are reporting a full federal crack down on anything related to them aka companies they own are having federal inspectors that they have never see before applying. But truly damning, is that if the IRS wanted to crack down on 501Cs that where operating manly as political tools instead of for the public "good" they would have gone after existing 501C but since those were manly left wing in ideology it they didn't. Plus, it's a lot easy to prove someone is violating the tax law then trying to figure out who might be violate the tax laws in the future.
BTW, I am all in favor of ending tax exempt status for charities for the reason that it gives the state too much power over those charities. Churches should be able to say what they think of political candidates and measures just like the idiots on TV do all the time.
Note: I'm not the AC from the GP comment, but I feel the need to respond here.
You are frothing at the mouth at how bad the current president is, and yet conveniently forget how so many people thought the previous president was just as bad.
The moment Mr. Obama took the oath of office, he assumed responsibility for upholding the law. Nothing you've said changes the fact that he has grossly abused the law beyond recognition.
Hell idiots like you extol the virtues of even older presidents like Reagan, whats wrong with pointing out the foibles of someone more recent?
The problem is simply that you're not interested in having a productive discussion of what to do about corruption in government, and you choose to waste your keystrokes on childish "but the other guy was wrong too" games.
no different from those people you despise
You have offered no supporting evidence for that rather expansive assertion. For my part, I suggest we prosecute all current and former elected officials for every instance of dereliction of duty regarding the laws they swore to uphold and defend. We can start with the highest ranked members of the current and former administrations and work our way down and as far back as statutes of limitations permit. Do you take issue with this suggestion?
Write failed: Broken pipe
I'll paraphrase my reply to another poster here. I suggest we prosecute all current and former elected officials for every instance of dereliction of duty regarding the laws they swore to uphold and defend. We can start with the highest ranked members of the current and former administrations and work our way down and as far back as statutes of limitations permit. Do you take issue with this suggestion?
Write failed: Broken pipe
The IRS probably still has Exchange server logs with message-IDs, recipients, timestamps and message sizes.
Some mail recipients may still have copies of the 'lost' emails filed away -- either emails themselves, or portions forwarded, replied to, or otherwise quoted in some manner. Server logs will make this known.
They canned a new CEO (who had been working for them in other offices since their inception) for something he did 8 years ago that had the majority support of his community at the time
They didn't can him. He resigned because the people under him weren't willing to work for someone whose judgement they did not respect.
Moreover, saying Prop 8
had the majority support of his community a the time
really depends on how you define "his community." If you define it only as "All people who answered Y/N on the 2008 California Ballot," then yes by a narrow majority that is true. If you define it as "The people who live and work in Mountain View California," then no. His community was against it (see county by county results: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., Mountain View is in Santa Clara County). If you further restrict his community to "Employees and Major Stockholders of the Mozilla Corporation" then they were obviously strongly against it.
Or you can just rig the system, like Obama's advisers do, apparently.
All the President’s Muses: Obama and Prosecutorial Misconduct
People like Rumsfeld etc came back like zombies from previous administrations so I don't think such a way to close off arguments is a good idea. We'll be seeing ghosts of the various Bush administrations haunting things for a while - for example, one of George H. Bush's staffers very fresh out of his studies, Chris Vein, was the guy that personally fucked up the Terry Childs situation yet is now the CIO at the World Bank!
If anything the current administration should face criticism for continuing some practices that fly in the face of the rule of law and it makes no sense to apply a cutoff date to a continuing situation. Don't let tribalism and cheering for your team cloud judgement.
Which since they were applying as nonpolitical groups means by definition they should have been rejected.
So, uh, you're saying the conservative groups were all approved? THEY WERE HELD IN LIMBO - NEITHER APPROVED OR DENIED.
I'm sick of Obamabots.
So (1) they were required to investigate political groups, so the investigation was not only proper, it was required by law passed by Congress, and (2) they didn't target Tea Party groups exclusively or even disproportionately.
You are, to put it simply, lying.
The agency deliberately put conservative groups through a years-long tedium of intrusive personal questions. They asked them, for example, about what books their members were reading. Progressive non-profits were ushered through the system in a fraction of the time, while conservative groups were delayed and intimidated as a matter of policy (you know, the very thing the IRS "apologized" for deliberately doing to specific groups).
Your contentions have been thoroughly debunked, which you have to know. Which makes your post anything but the "informative" that it's been modded, since you're being purposefully deceptive.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Because the IRS scrutinized ALL political groups, not just conservative ones, and rejected more liberal ones than conservative. The so-called IRS scandal is a non-issue, and this is just a matter of bad IT. You know, like exists in every single large corporation in the world. Major banks lose oodles of emails ALL THE TIME.
The only group that was actually denied was a "liberal" group
The whole point of the scandal (about which you are clearly uninformed, or about which you are being deliberately disingenuous and deceptive) is that the IRS put applying conservative groups through the ringer specifically to delay their activities through then-upcoming election cycle. They dragged out conservative-sounding applications for months or years through an intimidating, recurring process of illegally asking for information like personal information about group members' lifestyles, the books they read, their personal religious musings, and other complete BS. It wasn't about approving or denying the groups' non-profit status, it was about keeping them in limbo while more quickly approving groups that were more likely to back the administration before the election.
You really think the word scandal needs quotes around it, because none of that was real or mattered? Or are you dismissive of that illegal treatment because you, like the administration, just don't happen to like the thinking of the fellow citizens that were abused in that way?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Emails get accidentally "erased" all the time. The idea that corporations retain all emails is a myth. There barely any discovery these days that doesn't include the phrase "we could not find those emails because our (systems crashed|hard drives failed|staff can't wipe their own asses)". The problem with that excuse is that the vast majority of the time, it's true. If you want to see some truly appalling IT procedures, set foot in any IT department of any large corporation, especially those of banks. This idea that the private sector is this efficient, perfect machine whereas government is a den of bumbling idiots is laughable on its face. All large organizations have massive holes in their IT infrastructure, not the least because most of the people running these departments HAVEN'T DONE ANY REAL WORK IN THE FIELD IN A DECADE OR MORE. The truth is that most CTOs are dinosaurs, technologically, that can't understand the first thing their staff is doing.
Don't ever make the mistake of mixing up small and medium companies where people at the top still have to get their hands dirty once in a while, and large corporations, where the people at the top are so far removed from actual operations that they are barely able to send an email without help from their secretaries.
LOL. That will have the wing nuts frothing at the mouth. BENGHAZI!!
The IRS investigated political fund raising groups that applied for credentials. Since the vast bulk of these outfits were right wing the bulk of inquiries fell upon the right wing. If more left wing groups had applied then more left wing groups would have been under scrutiny. The IRS was simply doing exactly what they should have been doing. It does not help them one bit that it is known far and wide that the conservative cause is little more than a criminal conspiracy in the first place. The conservatives are not our honorable opponents. They are an enemy of our nation and of freedom itself. If anything the conservatives are cleaved into two branches. First we have the rigged game people who want money for doing nothing good at all. The other half includes the morons like the tea party illiterates with a spattering of slightly better folk who simply want to identify with the rich or have sociopathic defects that cause them to ignore the harm that their beliefs produce. Why is there any debate when we know full well that the right wing shelters the American Nazis, skinheads, KKK and other racist and violent types such as the idiotic militias that have bloomed in the western states.
Actually, that's one of the few good ideas I've read on this otherwise useless, but mildly amusing, site.
Do us all a favor and put a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger (make sure it's loaded). It shouldn't make too much of a mess since your head is devoid of brain matter.
He'll, I'd settle for the IRS following its own rule that are enforced so strictly on the rest of us, which is that the taxpayer is presumed guilty. If you, as the accused, cannot produce records proving your case, you lose and get reamed. So in this instance, since the IRS claimed to have 'lost' the records that would have proved its case, we will make the same assumption the IRS does.
Only the slashtard crowd loves him.
Yeah just ask President McCain and President Romney.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
So thinking your point is worthless and giving an example of why is "missing it"?
A lot of US politics has devolved into cheering for one team or another hence utter rubbish like a team being "off limits" when the other one holds the executive branch. Don't take it personally when I consider such a view as being deliberately blinkered. Even when I threw you the bone of being critical of the current administration as well you took offence so I think you are taking this far too personally.
I suppose I should have been either more blunt ( it's a fucking stupid idea IMHO and comparing it to a Godwin is ridiculous ) or in attempting to be gentle I should have followed through and resisted the urge to put something in there that showed what I thought about such a self-serving "team player" proposal. I really don't see how we can discuss the current state of US policy on a lot of things without bringing up Bush, Clinton or even earlier Presidents.
While what others have done before does not excuse current actions another poster here put things well about people expecting a "five second statute of limitations" for the team they are cheering for - enabling such bullshit just to save time in arguments is IMHO worthless.
It is a matter of known fact that they used search terms design to find conservative organizations. Not structure, not who's name was on what, but simply just what was in the name.
Your sixth grade education has been wasted on you.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It didn't matter, and it doesn't matter. Republicans and democrats will continue to rule for the foreseeable future despite all their "scandals". Personally, I don't vote for either, but I still have to live with the results. The IRS has always been used as a weapon. That's what it is designed for. I find their treatment of regular individuals much more scandalous. This 501 thing is bullshit anyway. As far as I'm concerned, political campaign financing is nothing but money laundering, and the 501 status is legitimized tax evasion. So I have no sympathy for these people seeking it, "conservative" or "liberal". I put them in quotes because those labels are also bullshit. Let's not pretend that harassment of one's political enemies is anything new. It's only now with the demographic threat showing its face that people are starting to whine about it. Crocodile tears, welcome to life in the big city.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The 501(c)4 process is a long-standing and ordinarily well defined process. In March 2010 it is alleged that IRS staffers began flagging applications that included text such as "We the People" and "Take Back the Country." Staffers also targeted groups whose names included the words "tea party" and "patriots." Those flagged applications were then sent to specialists for a more rigorous review than is typical." The IRS gave extra scrutiny to 298 groups applying for tax-exempt status, the Washington Post reported. Seventy-two of those groups had "tea party" in their title, 13 had "patriots," and 11 had "9/12," shorthand for the 9/12 movement started by conservative TV host Glen Beck. But IRS officials not only singled out tea party and liberty groups. They also looked for "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement," according to the leaked timeline. This included groups that planned to focus on government debt and spending, taxes, or those trying to "make America a better place to live." In June 2011, Lerner reportedly became aware of what was going on and directed staffers to change to how they vetted nonprofit applications."
"What did tea partiers mean when they said they were being "harassed?" The Waco Tea Party was one such group targeted by the IRS. The agency asked for information about the group's members, donors, and any "close relationship" with candidates for elected office. The IRS also requested transcripts of radio interviews done by Waco Tea Party staffers and print copies of news clips mentioning the group. Conservatives who received these special requests complained that the IRS's requests were unwieldy and impossible to fulfill, and a veiled attempt to intimidate them during the run-up to the 2012 elections.
That said, the IRS hasn't shied away from punishing liberal groups that flout the law. Last year, the IRS revoked the tax-exempt status of Emerge America, a San Francisco-based group that trains female Democratic candidates. Emerge was too political and too focused on benefiting the Democratic Party, the IRS ruled, to qualify for 501(c)(4) status.
(From Mother Jones)
96 groups targeted intentionally with key words in their applications, applications delayed during the 2010 campaigns, with the effect in most cases of both delaying their activities and preventing donations... One liberal group denied... In historical context, this is what Democrats consider 'fair'. It does seem that the IRS did, back then, focus on a particular political alignment, which is more chilling and damaging than anything else this administration has done than killing innocents on the 'battlefields' of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Ignoring the multiple technical questions, yes, assume the worst.
Now, in a practical sense, let's have Issa subpoena ALL IRS emails to reconstruct the internal email that Lerner sent and received. Expand that to the White House, Justice, and all recipients identified.
When they complain that this is a huge burden, have Justice employ the same systems they use for managing discovery in antitrust cases.
Technical questions about this abound. Lots of senior management to fire, records retention violations to pursue, FIOA violations also. A career for some lucky lawyers.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
No, he won't even mention them, they'd spoil his narrative that it's the right-wing being persecuted. They did the same thing when it was warnings about right-wing terrorists. And no mention of the ones in Vegas, or the numerous other sovereign citizens engaging in their violent agenda.
But heaven forbid a single liberal spray some graffiti on Abe Lincoln, that's a major story.
Issa wants there to be a martyr, and only his kind, he doesn't want a real investigation, because then he'd be doomed himself. He thinks his job is to persecute the Obama investigation. I only wonder if he knows how much he's cried wolf only serves to discredit himself.
None of the above, I'm one of those people who has gotten burned because I didn't keep the purchase records for something 25 years earlier, and when I sold it and had to declare a profit, I spent many hours trying to find proof of the cost basis. Perhaps you have not yet bought (or inherited) real property, assets of declarable and insurable value, or stock, and thus have not yet encountered these issues (no, wait, if you're younger you may have bought stock in the no-certificate book-entry-only broker-keeps-records era rather than the old transferable-piece-of-paper era, which makes life a lot easier - until your broker goes under). Rather than insult you back, I will urge you to research the record-keeping requirements before the IRS expects you to pay tax on ordinary income for the ENTIRE sale price of something because, without proof of original investment cost, they peg it at zero.
It's another 'fake' scandal pushed by right-wing propaganda, I mean media, outlets.
The real problem is that these groups that are clearly influencing elections are trying to use a bad exemption that shouldn't be there in the first place.
But, it is a right-wing tactic to try and find any little scandal to justify doing nothing and feeling superior. Even though they are stupid and the ones causing all the problems in this country.
I don't care whether they were scrutinizing "Islamo-terrorist Nazi Anarchist March of Dimes" charity groups. Pretending to lose all the emails is criminally wrong.
You are trying to hide the forest in the trees.
None of that matters to my point. Something that was acceptable 8 or so years ago became unacceptable and was used to retaliate against him. Some people will not want any online persona associated with anything that can be used like that in the future.
As for the specifics, yes, the intolorance of some drove him away when they retaliated against someone for political speech that was the same as the majority of voters who made it state law. But the point wasn't about Mozilla being evil, it was about hoe something you do or say today can and will be used by extreamists in the future against you
No, in reality the IRS investigated all groups with political parties and movements in their names, since they're required by law (i.e. Congress) to only allow non-political groups to be granted tax exempt status. And the IRS investigated (and rejected) far more liberal groups than conservative groups. So (1) they were required to investigate political groups, so the investigation was not only proper, it was required by law passed by Congress, and (2) they didn't target Tea Party groups exclusively or even disproportionately.
So what were you complaining about?
I'd like to see the mission statements and crayon filled applications from some of those "liberal" groups entered. I mean let's be real, you know a bunch of idiots who don't know how to fill out forms and were justly denied make up a good deal of that number.
Each email system had a triplicate of backups done so they would not lose emails. They used Microsoft Exchange Server and digital tape backups. They used Outlook and backed up PST files to network drives.
If they lost her emails with a system like that it was no accident.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Do you really want people like Government bureaucrat deciding what is charitable and what isn't? It's been a long time since i've felt that Most chareties were more the Moral Narcisism at best and "a front for monied self interest, pushing self interest through political propaganda" at worst, but I can't imagine how having a bureaucrat deciding which plutocrat gets a tax break makes anything better.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
You mean like when Autism Speaks paid their science officer $635,000.00 to oversee the distribution of $64,000.00?
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The fact that some "Non-profits" are corrupt doesn't change the meaning of the term.
Something that was acceptable 8 or so years ago became unacceptable and was used to retaliate against him
No. The people who consider it unacceptable now considered it unacceptable then. They just didn't know about it then.
Nothing was used against him. People decided they did not want to work for or do business with someone whose beliefs they find distasteful. They have that right. He was not fired--the board knew about his beliefs and hired him anyway. He chose to resign because he would have been unable to run the organization anyway--because so many people refused to work with him. Again, they have that right. Suggesting they don't is to suggest that his free speech trumps their right of free association.
To use the good ol' reductio ad absurdum, if I found out tomorrow that my boss was making sizeable donations to the Klan, I would in fact start looking for new employment too. I don't want to associate with someone like that, and I don't want someone like that in the position of recommending or not recommending me in the future.
In other words, shunning is a perfectly legitimate response to bigotry. Which is all that happened in this case.
No in a suprising number of private sector industries, losing emails, incriminating or otherwise gets you a felony conviction, I'd be surprised if the Federal Government doesn't have very stringent data preservation requirements as well.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Funnily enough, you show up as Friend of a Friend as well as Foe of a Friend. That usually means you're one of the few consistent people around here, keep it up.
When it comes to non-profits and raising money, not being approved is synonymous with not being denied.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The IRS needs to request the backup copy from the NSA. They're hoarders so they'll have a complete copy of the necessary files.
....and the Nazis burned down the building that contained birth records of Hilter's Grandparents. 'Poof' all proof that he was part Jewish.
IRS 'loses' records that would show Obama administration grossly abusing power. 'Poof'... just another 'massive right wing conspiracy' gone.
History repeats itself and intentions stay the same. 'Brown' is the new color of the DNC.
So what if her computer crashed? I'm sure they are running IMAP and everything is saved onto an email server such as exchange. And what do they mean her computer crashed? HD died or corrupt? Ram Died or corrupted? PSU Died? CPU Died? What?????????? Your telling me you can't fix her machine or at least piggy back her HD to recover hair emails(if it's pop). Bullshit! Bullshit!. Every damn government around the world is corrupt because humans are so easily corrupt. This computer bullshit just proves this women is fucking guilty.
Because free speech. Which is just a convenient flag-waving way to say that the definition benefits the people who write the laws defining such matters. Politicians benefit from political think tanks being classified as charities, so... Free speech! It's the same reason that capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than other income. Oh, sure, on the surface of it there's some ideological veneer of doing it to promote market liquidity, job creation, and so forth, but in reality it's because the people writing the tax laws tend to be wealthy and directly benefit from the law being that way.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
It is not crying wolf to point out one abuse and not another m. Perhaps the Senate could investigate those abuses against liberals?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Correct. The filings after Citizens United for 501C4 non-profit organizations soared 4x the year after and 10x during the next election. 501 c4 is a specific type of not-for-profit that is EXPECTED to do 50% of its work on social issues, but is allowed allowed to DIRECTLY DONATE money to political campaigns WITHOUT telling the FEC who donated the money.... See how that's kind of a problem? The official IRS group for collecting campaign donations is a 427 organization that must also file tax paperwork (and tell the FEC who is donating money). A 501 c3 organization like the SCA or Boy Scouts is held to a standard that they are FORBIDDEN from political contributions and must "prove" they do not-for-profit work.
The IRS merely drilled them hard that the organizations filing met the MERITS of the non-profit class they filed for. The IRS JOB is to not let TAX MONEY go away. Yes, they ask invasive questions... Being part of the process for a Boy Scout troop and SCA group, that is COMMON PRACTICE that the IRS can be dicks... A 501 c3 permit is a PRIVILEGE to get to be exempt from taxes.. Not a RIGHT. It's their government job to be dicks when the courts are CHANGING THE LAW the IRS is expected to follow.
In the end nearly ALL the Conservative groups were approved.. While liberal and alt party groups were withheld... So the IRS did their job.... It's just fun to kick them because nobody likes paying taxes.
Fan-fare!
I'd point out as Pratt of the SCA and a Boy Scout group for a while, even the 501c3 groups are subject to a few Congressmen calling up the IRS every time a scandal is in the news to "verify" this group or that group is meeting all of its duties for its class. Every 4-5 years there's some dust up and the IRS is ORDERED TO HARASS existing groups because some clause in the law was not being properly enforced or overlooked... It's a common thing for the IRS to spend a few years "verifying" a different thing than they did the previous few years... It's how giant organizations work.
Lerner was an IRS person who was promoted within the IRS by the IRS commissioner
Yeah, she was there in the Bush years as an IRS employee... and yeah she got promoted in Dec 2005 to a post she assumed in Jan 2006 (while Bush was in office) but the position was a supposedly totally non-political post back then. The problem is that the IRS is unionized - and ALL of the government employee unions in the US are associated with the Democrat party; therefore all government employees are statistically more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, Libertarians, etc. In this case, A Democrat was promoted in a non-discriminatory way within government while a Republican was in the White House and you are now trying to say that because Bush did not reach-down into the IRS to discriminate against a Democrat (which you would have undoubtably been outraged at IF he HAD) HE is to blame for her polititcal actions 6 years later. hmmmmm I guess Bush really IS responsible for all the crap happening under Obama - because Bush is responsible for Obama (because he did not sufficiently discriminate againsts him and mess with him years earlier when Obama was in a lower post in government...
Remember: One of the reasons Democrats listed for the Impeachment of Nixon was that he talked to his aides (caught on tape) about the possibility of using the IRS against his political opponents (the Democrats carefully-worded the charge to say "he "endeavoured to" rather than "did" as you will note below:
Article 2, charge 1:
"He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner."
[bold emphasis is mine]
Note: Obama has ACTUALLY DONE these things. Obama's IRS got the donor records of a pro-traditional-marriage group and gave them to the groups pro-gay-marriage opponents. Obama's IRS has stalled the tax-exempt processing of TEA Party groups for YEARS. Obama's IRS has forwarded personal tax information of TEA Partiers and Republicans to Democrats on Capitol Hill. And there is evidence (admittedly still unproven, but statistically too crazy to be accidental) that the IRS passed info on the president's enemies to the ATF, EPA and FBI which was then used to harass TEA Partiers.
You said: "The tea party is a group that openly advocates for people to do everything they can to get out of paying taxes"
Nope. That's NOT true. You are either dishonest, or a useful idiot. TEA is an acronym for "Taxed Enough Already" (as-in: "Stop raising taxes... we're taxed enough already. Start cutting government back down to the size it's supposed to be!"). The TEA Party movement (it's NOT an actual political party) is all about getting government smaller; getting it off the backs of, and out of the wallets of, average Americans. TEA Partiers are also NOT in-the-bag for big business (another dishonest accusation often flung at them) - they are hostile to bailouts and "too big to fail"; The Wall St banks bail-outs and car company bail-outs, were part of the spark that ignited the TEA Party movement. The TEA Party has nothing to do with the whacko-crazy types who are always running around the dark corners of the internet trying to find ways to dodge paying taxes (ask wesley Snipes. HE fell-in with some of those decidedly NOT Tea Pary types).
Your post makes about as much sense as saying "of COURSE Bush went to war in Iraq... Saddam Hussein hated his dad, and Democrats hated his dad, and Bush's enemies were Democrats therefore it was natural for him to go to war against Saddam Hussein who was obviously a Democrat." Get REAL. This sort of "reasoning" is completely insane. I know there are some liberals on Slashdot who cannot think their way out of a paper bag, but it's best for such people to stay quiet (self-control NOT imposed censorship) and let others presume them smart, than to post a completely ignorant rant and "out" themselves.
First, citing government-run pro-Democrat NPR on this subject is like citing Geobbels as an "unbiased" source in holocaust denial, or citing an article by Putin on the status of the Ukraine - an absolutelty insanely ridiculous exercise.
Second, The actions of the IRS were SEVERELY anti TEA Party:
1. Groups friendly to the President were approved within DAYS (particularly in the case of an application by Obama's brother who got his in 34 days PLUS retro-active certification!)
2. Groups (of ANY orientation) with actual standard problems were denied at the usual rate.
3. TEA Party groups were not given either an approval (allowing them to get busy) OR a denial (allowing them to prep and file an appeal). They were simply tossed-into legal limbo unable to move forward as an approved group (and therefore not able to take-in money from donors, most of who require evidence of the tax status of the groups they support)
Third, even the NPR page you cited admits (READ the table) that 100% of the "progressive" groups were approved and that TEA Partiers were asked for 3 times as much supporting information to get their approvals - with TEA Partiers being put through so much of a hassle that nearly half eventually simply GAVE UP trying to get certified.... that's VERY effective suppression of the President's "enemies". Hell, the IRS had NO business setting-aside and specially-processing applications with "TEA Party" in the title to begin with! They are BY LAW supposed to be BLIND to politics! This meant that the already tax-exempted liberal groups like the unions (who'd been organized like this for DECADES) were free to do their voter outreach and voulunteer training efforts through two entire national elections while the TEA Partiers were being suppressed - many afraid to do ANYTHING political or take ANY contributions while being investigated by Obama's IRS.
READ the IG report! The IG found that there were many "liberal" or "progressive" groups and that while these too were selected for special processing, the "special processing" that THEY got was FASTER and EASIER processing. Liberal Democrats took a clip of that (the bit about lib/prog groups also being "targeted") and ran to their Democrat-friendly press outlets (Like ABC,CBS,NBC,NYT) to run stories saying "nothing to see here! Both sides were abused!". This was a completely dishonest move and both the Democrat politicians and the Democrat journalists involved KNEW IT - all they had to do was READ the report.
The effect is even worse when you consider the 800-pound gorilla in the room: Most liberal/progressive groups got their certifications many years ago and have long enjoyed their status. TEA Partiers, however, only got organized in 2009 and 2010 in response to the Bush bailouts of the Wall St banks, th Bush temporary bailouts of the car companies, and the Obama big car company bailouts, stimulus law, and healthcare law. As a result, the new scrutiny under Obama of the TEA Partiers (using standards never previously applied to such groups) hit nearly all TEA Partiers while missing ALL previously-approved liberals and progressives and only affecting the tiny fraction of lob/prog groups who applied recently (and whose applications were SPED UP)
Shame you couldn't vote for him, being Aussie and all. Shame I can't vote on your government either. Perhaps it's for the best...
They knew about it for the previous 4 years and didn't care enough to say anything then all the sudden it was important and used against him. It has never been shown that his beliefs were ever pushed onto anyone in his professional capacity or that anyone had ever been discriminated against due to his one time belief.
It doesn't matter how you justify the intolorant behavior, it still validates my point.
Impeachment time has come, High Crimes and treason with the Taliban prisoners, Making sure Iraq and Afganistan fall So many laws and oaths violated that you can't keep track of them.
No, the majority of corrupt astro-turfing industry groups pretending to be 501c charities are Conservative.
The number of investigations is pretty high in the Liberals -- but where there is smoke, there is fire.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Who is more likely to be lying: the NSA or the IRS
Do we have to pick one? I'm confident they're both lying. The secret lies in your other statement:
Everyone in the political establishment believed the NSA version
I think a more true statement is that everyone in the political establishment had a vested interest in accepting the NSA version.
Also, speaking of snark requirements, the blank comments textbox in beta has a pretty snarky placeholder text: "Compose your masterpiece"
The Obama admin's own IG report proves everything you posted is a lie.
Yes, the IRS set-aside both tea party and progressive applications, but it then accellerated approval of the progressives while throwing the tea partiers into an endless cycle of re-submitted questions and paperwork preventing their approval but also denying them any ability to appeal a "no" result, by never giving them a negative judgement either. Progressives were approved in as little as two weeks; half of the tea partiers were denied so long they gave up and some are still dangling in regulatory limbo 3 YEARS into the process which the IRS says should take about 90 days.
That's because the Tea Party groups were just put on hold forever. But don't let fact bother you.
I'll bet you're a, Ayn Rand Coo Coo Nut.
Go fuck yourself.
Even emails to herself would go through the mail server.
Because he wasn't the boss. If my colleague was a Klan member, I would just avoid them personally. It becomes very different if they're my boss.
Or are you really suggesting that people don't have the right of free association?
Actually, this is about 501(c)4 groups. Different thing.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I did NOT suggest that so don't take it personally when I think it's a very bad idea to stop discussion about Bush, Clinton, Johnson, whoever doing similar things.
Since I was modded as a troll for my unforgiveable diss of Republicans, let me state it a different way.
A poster here stated that Bush hasn't been president for 6 years now, and we should forget whatever he did that might be wrong.
After which I stated that Republicans are still upset about Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
http://capitalismmagazine.com/... That's just one. Do your homework Plenty of cites, plenty of evidence.
So modify me as troll if you like, but you're just admitting that the truth infuriates you Conservatives still excoriate FDR, at the same time as telling us that what happened since 2000 to 2008 is old news, not to be entertained.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Do i need to draw you a picture? I'm suggestiing that people now understand that anything they post or do can later be brought up against you in retaliation so they are posting as AC instead of having it associated with an online identity.
I have said that several times now. I am not sure why you are trying to justify peoples intolorance and ram it in qhile ignoring the point made. I could care less if you think it is fine to retaliate against someone for their political expressions or wvwn if it was or wasn't justified. The point is that it happened and more people are posting AC so it doesn't happen to them.
Not if you're "too big to fail"
The point is that it isn't retaliation. Calling it that is disingenuous. Refusing to work for someone is not retaliation. Torching their car is retaliation. Harassing them at home is retaliation. Refusing to work for them is not retaliation.
Why is that so complicated to understand?
Uhh, the point you are making was the exact point I was making.
The link I provided has 'irs-scrutiny-worse-for-conservatives' in it.
Additionally, the IRS has released conservative private tax payer information to liberal groups. There is no question about that fact.
Additionally, last week, the House Oversight Committee indicated that Lerner illegally emailed private taxpayer information to the FBI.
your opinions mean less than nothing, son.
There's an 18 minute gap in the backups.
Just because Issa says that these are abuse, does not make it so. This group's job was to evaluate them. If they found that they did not conform, then deny them. The real issue here is that they deny it regularly to BOTH sides, but that Issa and his band of idiots are making up something that is NOT an issue.
Worse, they are trying hard to tie it to the white house with ZERO evidence.
Basically, this is a witch hunt of the worst kind because it is out GOP out to get a President of the United States of America pretty much because he is black and a moderate democrat.
But charity groups are NOT supposed to be political.
And the tea party and all of those applications including the liberal's BS, that were turned down were nothing BUT political.
When they are obvious political groups, then they should be denied. And that is exactly what has been happening.
To simply wave a flag and proclaim that a bureaucrat is making a decision is wrong, well, that is just about as stupid as anything that I have heard from Issa's as well.
What your issue is, is that conservative political groups were shot down, not that political groups were shot down.
And these bureaucrats shot them down on BOTH SIDES.
Taking action that has influence or conseqiences to someone else because of their past political speech is retaliation no matter how you define it. This is especially obvious when you participate in an organized campain to encourage others to take the same or similar action citing what that other person supposedly did.
Nothing is disengenuous about that unless it is your constant attemp to force the opinion of justification for the retaliation above any point drawn from it. Just because you think it is "just" doesn't change what it is or how people are reacting to it. I'm sorry that you are uncomfortable when your action of intolorance or the actions of intolorance of others are called what they in reality are, but that doesn't change anything.
No, in reality the IRS investigated all groups with political parties and movements in their names, since they're required by law (i.e. Congress) to only allow non-political groups to be granted tax exempt status. And the IRS investigated (and rejected) far more liberal groups than conservative groups. So (1) they were required to investigate political groups, so the investigation was not only proper, it was required by law passed by Congress, and (2) they didn't target Tea Party groups exclusively or even disproportionately.
So what were you complaining about?
No, in reality the IRS investigated all groups with political parties and movements in their names, since they're required by law (i.e. Congress) to only allow non-political groups to be granted tax exempt status. And the IRS investigated (and rejected) far more liberal groups than conservative groups. So (1) they were required to investigate political groups, so the investigation was not only proper, it was required by law passed by Congress, and (2) they didn't target Tea Party groups exclusively or even disproportionately.
So what were you complaining about?
you think 292 to 6 was not disproportionate? How ironic, the left claims to be the moral majority on everything that matters, and that the right is some kind of fringe group of 1% homophobic racists. Yet 292 groups were targeted for scrutiny vs 6 for progressive groups.
Yeah nothing disproportionate about that i guess. Move along, nothing to see here. Lets get all hopey changey and sweep this under the rug. The only way you can believe that crap is if all your news comes from Huffinton Post, MSNBC, Mother Jones, and Salon. In other words, wake up youre a communist.
You're picking random numbers to try to make a comparison that's not meaningful. 292 groups applying for tax-exempt status had names contained "tea party", "patriot", or "9/12", who were all given more scrutiny, and only 20 groups applying for tax-exempt status had names contained "progress" or "progressive". Of course, those numbers you care about are only about a third of the groups given deeper scrutiny - the large majority of groups investigated for possibly being political groups (and this not allowed to claim tax exempt status and hide their donor lists) weren't right-wing groups, they had terms like "Democrat", "Occupy" or "Israel" in their names, and only a third of the groups were right-wing groups, so the scrutiny wasn't politically biased against right-wing groups. If anything, it affected more left-wing groups than right. It was still a bad idea to use a list of terms to trigger deeper investigation, of course, but as the "BOLO list" system was put in place by a conservative Republican who was trying to make the system more efficient and consistent, and was applied to groups across the political spectrum, and the outcome was that only a third of the groups affected were right-wing, the evidence suggest that it wasn't politically biased against the right-wing.
The political bias that is most obvious is that the Inspector General's office in charge of the IRS audit had been asked by House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) "to narrowly focus on Tea Party organizations". And, of course, Issa kept most of the testimony secret, selecting a few bits to try to distort the program as anti-right-wing.
The reality is that using a list of terms to watch for is a bad mechanism, because it's substituting a mechanical rule for human judgement in making a determination about a group's being political vs. social, and that's wrong. But if you ignore the rhetoric, the facts don't support the accusation that the BOLO lists were aimed purely at right-wing groups. The real problem is that Congress passed a law requiring the IRS to make an extremely vague determination ("primarily political") so the IRS came up with a system for making that determination that pissed people off.
Looking at the lists, I can't see how most of them were ever granted tax exempt status. How can a group with a political party in its name, that raises money for and donates time to political candidates, not be a political group? The IRS should have rejected far more of the groups, both Republicans/Tea Party and Democrats, and instead of seems like all they did was ask a lot of questions and then approve almost every application, which seems a bit pathetic.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
(marijuana was originally regulated via tax stamps, similar to the way machine guns and destructive devices are currently regulated)
Close, but not quite similar. They made the law mandating the tax stamps for marijuana, but they never made the stamps. The real goal was to make it illegal to use, so they just made it impossible to use it legally.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Real talk:
These tea party groups are shell organizations created for the express purpose of laundering money for conservative political groups. They were created to skirt tax, finance, and election law. End of story.
Organizations that hide under the "tea party" banner are completely funded by funds and think tanks representing the very top fractions of a percent. There is no grass roots tea party funding. There is no such thing as a tea party fund raiser. It all comes from funds and think tanks and has to be massaged to avoid campaign finance law.
They may be technically legal. The IRS has to dig pretty hard to figure out weather or not they are because these shell organizations by nature are intentionally obfuscated.
The "backlash" is a smokescreen because the funding sources don't want to be found and don't want the public to know what they are spending money on. Fake controversy fueled by conservative media.
Mmm hmm. Delegated authority. The IRS has it.
The alternative is for Congress to write 70,000 pages of tax rules. Realists consider that a fucking shit-tarded idea.
The other alternative is for rich people to pay even less taxes than they do now because [hand waving] see? no tax liability!
You owned real property and didn't have any paperwork for your cost basis? No paperwork at all? Nothing filed with the local county or anything? Wow, yep, that sucks.
The lesson is that we don't live in prehistorical times; we live in the modern world where paperwork is important; so keep important paperwork. In that regard you are right on. If you are dealing with large purchases of real property then, yeah, go ahead and keep your bill of sale, or be prepared to pay taxes on your whole take.
When I sold some real property I did still have the paperwork but I never needed it. My accountant asked me how much I'd paid for it, wrote down that amount, and that was it. Mine was a pretty simple transaction though, not the kind of thing the IRS would sniff at.
Also I once asked a tax accountant how long to keep tax records. She told me, for the IRS, seven years is more than long enough; but I should still keep them forever because of Social Security. If I ever have to prove to SS how much I earned decades ago, tax records are the gold standard for doing that.
Bullshit. A bunch of tax-dogding scofflaw asshats demanded an illegal tax haven for their blatantly partisan political operations. The IRS responded appropriately by telling them, fuck you, that's not what the tax law says. Then the crybabies ran off to their anarchist asshat representatives who made it into a political sideshow full of lies and nonsense.
Fuck those asshats. Pay your fucking taxes you goddamned asshats.
1. They asked about religion because religion is relevant to the tax code
2. They asked about book reading because reading books is relevant to the tax code
What else you got? So far, you've only got the IRS following the law.
Read the original post - the IRS writes its own tax code, which is in direct opposition of what was said by the original poster to whom I respond. Congress gives some generalities, and the IRS creates all the details. How close those details match the original generalities and intent is often quite questionable...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
1. They asked about religion because religion is relevant to the tax code
These were not religious organizations, nor were they applying for non-profit status in the context of religious activity. They didn't mention religious affiliation in their applications or mission statements. Just like their liberal-leaning counterparts, who were NOT asked the very same things.
2. They asked about book reading because reading books is relevant to the tax code
What part of the tax code are you thinking of, exactly, that has them asking conservative individuals which books they read while not asking their progressive counterparts the same questions? Please be specific.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
What was that about facts bothering you?
The fact that clearly political groups managed to illegally avoid disclosing their donors to fund political campaigns, because a small part of the IRS that shouldn't have anything to do with political campaigns didn't prefect dot every "I" and cross every "T". It pisses me of the Rove and others (some liberal) got away with breaking the law so blatantly.
So you agree that Congress delegated that authority to the IRS? And you agree that it would have been absurd for Congress to write 70,000 pages of details themselves? And you agree that after those rules were written Congress was satisfied enough not to provide new direction to the IRS for changing the rules?
Okay, then we agree, no need to argue about anything.
1. Some of the events on the calendars of these groups included prayer breakfasts. The IRS asks about religion in order to determine whether the organization is political or religious. If you are a religious organization you don't qualify for PAC exemptions; and if you are a PAC then you don't qualify for religious exemptions. To determine what you are, the IRS asks you questions.
2. Some of the groups claimed to be book clubs. When a group tries to claim tax-free status as a "book club" (in quotes) then the IRS should (and thank goodness in this case did) ask about the books they are reading, to see if they were frauds -- which they were, of course.
Look, I get it, conservatives don't like taxes and don't like the government knowing anything about their finances, so they sure as shit don't like the IRS. I get it. But for better or worse (probably worse) we've decided to have a huge complicated tax code enforced by a bunch of bean counters, so when new groups of people whose political goal is to stop paying taxes ask for various types of tax-exempt statuses, it is appropriate for the bean counters to ask some questions. The alternative is to have no taxation, because everyone would claim their house is a church. Yes, again, I know that's what the conservatives want: zero taxes and churches on ever lot; but today that isn't the rules.
I should go start the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Fuck You I Don't Like Taxes. I imagine you and the rest of the Republicans (and farther-right parties) would gleefully defend my tax-exempt status and join my church. But if you did, we'd still all be tax fraudsters.
Everyone assumes it was political bias though. I haven't seen any proof that it was bias. Was there a legitimate reason for the extra scrutiny? Were there shady groups of people using the Tea Party phenomenon to set up shady tax shelters or shady "give us money to take down the government!!" scams? I sure noticed a huge increase in "buy gold now the world is ending" commercials when the Tea Party rose up.
It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that most of those 292 new "patriotic" groups did need some extra scrutiny.
I don't think I ever disagreed there. The point is that the IRS makes the rules, Congress sets general guidelines by their laws. But as we've seen - departments are often quite willing to "color outside the lines" when it comes to making the actual rules you have to abide by.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Not real estate, that would of course have paperwork.
Taking action that has influence or conseqiences to someone else because of their past political speech is retaliation no matter how you define it.
Wouldn't that depend on whether they still hold the same beliefs? Has he publicly recanted? Sure, times may change, but isn't there a difference between those that change with them, and those that steadfastly refuse? (For the better and the worse, of course, not all change is obviously an improvement in they eyes of all people.)
Yes, there was also a "campaign" external to Mozilla, but let's ignore that for now and focus on what the parent puts the finger on, namely the employees that would work under him. Don't they have a right to say "No, won't do that. Those views are too far from my own"?
Stefan Axelsson
Look, i have already said whether the retaliation was or was not justified doesn't change the fact it is retaliation. You can make the case that the retaliation was justified and you may convince others of it. That doesn't change the fact it was retaliation. The parent wants to sugar coat reality and sanitize what happened as retaliation seems distasteful to him or something.
Now i never put it in the context of good or bad, i specifically attempted to avoid that because the important point of the matter was that people are choosing to post AC instead of having some comments associated with an online persona to avoid retaliation in the future. In the past i have expressed my disdain for the retaliation on the whole as it has never been demonstrated that he ever discriminated against anyone for his political beliefs but was drove out of a job he deserved due to retaliation on his. The era of blacklists because someone is a comunist, because they supported a black politician, because they want a certain definition of marriage and don't want to be forced to accept behavior their concious or religious freedom finds objectionable needs to end. Retaliation and intolorance or political beliefs can harm society. Its why any congressman can say anything on the floor of congress with constitutionsl immunity. Can you imagine anti war politicians and or their supporters being jailed or drummed out of their jobs. Can you imagine what the country would be like is people protesting the NSA data collection have to fear for their jobs? Retaliaton is retaliation even if you can justify it. I think it is wrong wgen it is done for political expression but the point was that people are changing their behavior to avoid it happening to them in tbe future when "times change"
Aha. Is it just a question of semantics? I just looked it up (Cambridge Dictionary) and they define "Retaliate":
to hurt someone or do something harmful to someone because they have done or said something harmful to you
I can't see how refusing to work for someone for having a diametrically opposed views to you would fall under that heading.
Now if what you're saying is that we should be very careful to not let that be used as a cover for McCarthyism, then I'm with you all the way. But on the other hand, saying that (for instance) a black person would have to work for an boss that's a currently card carrying KKK aficionado is also a bit much, and calling that refusal "retaliation" also seems over the top.
Or to take another example, if you voting for a political opponent because you don't like your congressman's stance on an issue, would that be "retaliation" as well? In some cases what views you hold are very pertinent to the discussion. That's why it's almost certainly wrong to black list the janitor for being your least favourite -ist of the day, but when it comes to the CEO we're in a different league altogether. No?
Stefan Axelsson
If it was one person like you and thw parent keep trying to devolve it to, you might have a case but it was more than one person, it was organised, and it was done with the intent of harming someone for political speech made a number of years previously.
As for voting for another candidate, it certainly would be retaliation. I would think it was justified also. You don't have to believe it was justified and when others who support that politicians stance change their behavior so as their support would not lead to retaliation on them, it would be because of my retaliation on the original
I'm not saying you canbot act or react, i'm callung a spade a spade. Now you have completely lost the point and along with the other guy are insisting we sugar coat reality to sooth your concience. Why are you trying so hard to convince yourself it wasn't wrong by hiding reality?
Bullshit right back at you.
"A series of IRS documents, provided to ThinkProgress under the Freedom of Information Act, appears to contradict the claims by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that only Tea Party organizations applying for tax-exempt status âoereceived systematic scrutiny because of their political beliefs.â The 22 âoeBe On the Look Outâ keywords lists, distributed to staff reviewing applications between August 12, 2010 and April 19, 2013, included more explicit references to progressive groups, ACORN successors, and medical marijuana organizations than to Tea Party entities.
The IRS provided the heavily-redacted lists to ThinkProgress, after nearly a year-long search. From the earliest lists through 2012, the âoehistoricalâ section of the lists encouraged reviewers to watch out for âoeprogressiveâ groups with names like âoeblue,â as their requests for 501(c)(3) charitable status might be inappropriate. Their inclusion in this section suggests that the concern predates the initial 2010 list.
Explicit references to âoeTea Party,â included in the âoeemerging issuesâ section of the lists, also began in August 2010 â" but stopped appearing after the May 10, 2011 list. From that point on, the lists instructed agents to flag all political advocacy groups of any stripe. The documents instructed the agents to forward any âoeorganization involved with political, lobbying, or advocacyâ applying for 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status be forwarded to âoegroup 7822â for additional review. Groups under both categories are limited in the amount of of lobbying and political activity each can undertake."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
Fair enough. I was misled by "Perhaps you have not yet bought (or inherited) real property". Whatever it was, perhaps stocks, it must have been valuable enough that when you sold it the profits were sufficient to pique IRS attention. Anything like that, where you want to prove cost basis, then it's prudent to keep a receipt, but I imagine other forms of evidence are also sometimes accepted. You're not the first person to be nipped by the tax man for lacking receipts, and it sucks.
I feel you, but the people with the important opinion are in Congress. If Congress is dissatisfied with rules made under delegated authority, then they haul directors in to answer questions. It happens all the time, every month or two a new commission is asking new questions of somebody. So if Congress thinks the IRS is coloring outside the lines, Congress would tell them to knock it off. If they don't do that, it's reasonable to conclude that the rules accord with the law well enough to satisfy Congress.
Why are you trying so hard to convince yourself it wasn't wrong by hiding reality?
I'm not convinced it was "wrong". I haven't made up my mind one way or the other (it's not that big a deal for me). But, from what I gather, he stepped down himself as his position became untenable within the company, not really because of outside pressure. And when it comes to political speech, that wasn't really the issue as such as I understand it, but rather his opinions on the matter and that he hasn't changed them.
Now, if you're saying that it was all because of the purported/planned consumer boycott then I'd like to know more about that as that's not what I've gathered at all.
In either case, we don't agree on the definition of "retaliation". But I'm not sure what the "spade a spade" would add to that, as surely we're not hung up on the word as such?
Stefan Axelsson
Retaliation is just that and it happened. You may or may not thibk it is justified but it doesn't realky matter.
As for his speech, it was a political donation but that doesn't even matter because the only time it ever crossed his profesional life was when it was brought up by other in attacking him
All that is besides the point anyways. Even if i am wrong on the entire account, others see it just the same as i do and altered their behavior out of fear of future retaliation.
But as we see with the current issue, just how much pull/influence does Congress have with those bureaucrats? What is the repercussion for Lerner? Heck, what about Holder himself already found in contempt of Congress? The White House has all the power, Congress is now just a deliberative gathering of busybodies.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
In other news, we proved that Saddam Hussein had NBC weapons and we located and disposed of them appropriately after the invasion, so I really don't know what ignorant Dems have been whining about all these years. Probably they're just dumb.