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.

Comments

Can we stop kissing tea party butts for a moment?

[damn_registrars]

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.