The Real IRS Scandal

[Howey]

I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier since for years I've protested religious groups receiving 501(c)(4). I did, however, point out extensive abuse of the tax-exempt status by teabagger groups and others.

But why?

Of course. Thanks Citizens United!

All this outrage threatens to obscure an important point: the IRS does need to crack down on political groups masquerading as social-welfare organizations. Many of the nonprofit groups who claim 501(c)(4) status either flout tax law or flirt with the murky line between electioneering and issue advocacy, all while using their tax-exempt status to conceal their donors. The problem isn’t that the IRS flagged nonprofit groups for additional review. The problem is that it did so poorly, lavishing special attention on Tea Party outfits when it should have been scrutinizing everyone — or at least more egregious offenders.

But here's the problem...

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in January 2010, donors flocked to 501(c)(4)s as a vehicle to pump cash into elections without disclosing the source of their contributions. The number of groups applying for social-welfare status has since doubled. In 2012, the news outlet ProPublica examined 72 501(c)(4) applications from groups that claimed to have no plans to spend money on elections. They compared those documents against the subsequent tax returns. Nearly half of the groups found their plans had changed.

In last year’s elections, 501(c)(4) groups spent more than $300 million in dark money, according to Lisa Rosenberg of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan government-transparency group based in Washington. There is no way to police all these groups, Rosenberg acknowledges. But the IRS, deluged with social-welfare applications at the same time the Tea Party movement was on the rise, appears to have picked a political filter as a shortcut. “It’s the right thing to do to be looking into which of these groups are legitimate social-welfare organizations and which are political organizations. It’s absolutely necessary,” Rosenberg says. “There’s no question the way the IRS apparently went about it was wrong. But the fact that they were doing it is absolutely right.”

So there you have it. It's an undisputable fact these teabagger organizations, and a lot others, aren't social-welfare groups. Including churches.

It's time to repeal this section of the Tax Code and let every entity pay taxes.

More...

Beginning in the fall of 2010, Democracy 21 and another nonpartisan group called the Campaign Legal Center have urged the IRS to crack down on groups that have improperly claimed social-welfare status. Among the leading offenders, Wertheimer says, are two right-leaning groups, Crossroads GPS and the American Action Network; PrioritiesUSA, which supported Obama’s re-election; and the short-lived Americans Elect, which tried to raise a third-party presidential candidate to compete in 2012 despite registering as a social-welfare nonprofit.

The IRS, Wertheimer says, was provided with evidence that clearly documented how these groups flouted IRS regulations, which hold that they must be “primarily” engaged in social-welfare activities rather than electioneering. (Crossroads GPS founder Karl Rove even acknowledged in a Wall Street Journal editorial that his group had funneled millions into an ad blitz on behalf of Mitt Romney.) And yet the IRS chose instead to adopt a crude criteria targeting possible Tea Party transgressors.

And there's a huge penalty for this, other than the tea party getting undue press.

For campaign-finance watchdogs, the fear is that the backlash will spook the IRS out of pursuing major players who are using the loophole to influence elections. “Our concern now,” Wertheimer says, “is to make sure the focus on IRS abuses does not become cover for political organizations that are blatantly misusing the tax laws.”

 

[Howey]

Bump

 

[NOVA]

I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier since for years I've protested religious groups receiving 501(c)(4). I did, however, point out extensive abuse of the tax-exempt status by teabagger groups and others.

But why?

Of course. Thanks Citizens United!



But here's the problem...

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in January 2010, donors flocked to 501(c)(4)s as a vehicle to pump cash into elections without disclosing the source of their contributions. The number of groups applying for social-welfare status has since doubled. In 2012, the news outlet ProPublica examined 72 501(c)(4) applications from groups that claimed to have no plans to spend money on elections. They compared those documents against the subsequent tax returns. Nearly half of the groups found their plans had changed.



So there you have it. It's an undisputable fact these teabagger organizations, and a lot others, aren't social-welfare groups. Including churches.

It's time to repeal this section of the Tax Code and let every entity pay taxes.

More...



And there's a huge penalty for this, other than the tea party getting undue press.

"I did, however, point out extensive abuse of the tax-exempt status by teabagger groups and others."


The main thrust of this criminal activity is not organizations that already had tax exempt status and abused it, its about hundreds of people TRYING to get
tax exempt status that were harassed and audited and threatened in the applications process....you certainly can't abuse a status you don't have.
and of course the FACT that liberal groups applying for the very same status had NO difficulty in getting their applications processed and approved in
the same time period..... the double standard is obvious, the targeting is obvious, and if you watched the hearing, the lying war obvious.

The Speaker's words are becoming more accurate....we won't matter a twit how many get fired or reprimanded, we want to know how many GO TO JAIL for
this criminal activity.

 

[007]

Liberals continue to sidestep the release of confidential information by the IRS pertaining to the identities of members of the groups and their families to spurious liberal groups.
I can only see the motivation behind the criminal release of this information would be to incite violence against members and their families.

 

[Howey]

"I did, however, point out extensive abuse of the tax-exempt status by teabagger groups and others."


The main thrust of this criminal activity is not organizations that already had tax exempt status and abused it, its about hundreds of people TRYING to get
tax exempt status that were harassed and audited and threatened in the applications process....you certainly can't abuse a status you don't have.
and of course the FACT that liberal groups applying for the very same status had NO difficulty in getting their applications processed and approved in
the same time period..... the double standard is obvious, the targeting is obvious, and if you watched the hearing, the lying war obvious.

The Speaker's words are becoming more accurate....we won't matter a twit how many get fired or reprimanded, we want to know how many GO TO JAIL for
this criminal activity.

If you were IRS and I knew other entities of similar purpose had alreadyviolated the law would you look at new applicants a little closer?

 

[Howey]

I see Bravo ran away from this thread too...

 

[007]

The IRS and liberals are pissed.
No children of conservatives were killed or worse becsuse of this scandal.
Therefore they regard it to be a failure.
They will probably blame Bush!!