A shocking admission from the IRS has the Tea Party and other conservative organizations fuming. The IRS admits that they “inappropriately flagged” conservative groups, during the 2012 elections to see if they were violating their tax exempt status. Not only do they admit it, but they issued an apology. Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax exempt groups had this to say:
“That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,” Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.
“The IRS would like to apologize for that,” she added.
The IRS has admitted singling out organizations with the words Tea Party and Patriot in their tax-exempt applications. Sometimes they even asked for lists of donors , which Ms. Lerner admits violates IRS policy in most cases.
This stunning admission comes over a year after a statement was issued in March of 2012 by Douglas Shulman. “There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people” who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.
Ms. Lerner defended Mr. Shulman’s statement by saying that no one in the higher positions knew about it.
The Tea Party groups had noticed it and spoke of it publicly many times. They demanded congressional investigation into the matter, but all inquiries were met with denials, and people eventually dismissed the claims.
Jenny Beth Martin, National Coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, issued the following statement:
The IRS has demonstrated the most disturbing, illegal and outrageous abuse of government power. This deliberate targeting and harassment of tea party groups reaches a new low in illegal government activity and overreach. It is suspicious that the activity of these “low-level workers” was unknown to IRS leadership at the time it occurred.President Obama must also apologize for his administration ignoring repeated complaints by these broad grassroots organizations of harassment by the IRS in 2012, and make concrete and transparent steps today to ensure this never happens again. We reject a simple apology that does nothing to alleviate the danger of this happening again. Only immediate and public actions on the part of the IRS and the president will suffice.We demand the immediate resignation of all complicit in this activity and insist Congress investigate
An IRS spokesperson tells the Washington Post that no disciplinary action has been taken against agency employees.
This is absolutely shameful. I don’t know what the ramifications of this should be, but if this doesn’t tell you how corrupt the IRS is then nothing will. Why did they target the Tea Party? On Who’s orders? You cannot tell me that they took it upon themselves to do such a thing, I mean it is conceivable that a few lone agents did so, but this is an organized plan. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to figure out that they were taking orders from someone higher up. Tell me who had the most to gain from the harassment of Tea Party organizations? This isn’t rocket science.
Why were the complaints ignored?
12 GOP senators sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Douglas Schulman questioning the nature of the relationship between the IRS and Tea Party groups.
“It is critical that the public have confidence that federal tax compliance efforts are pursued in a fair, even-handed, and transparent manner – without regard to politics of any kind,” wrote the Senators, referring specifically to the Kentucky 9/12 Project’s claim of IRS intimidation.
“It is imperative that organizations applying for tax-exempt status are able to rely on a consistent and foreseeable review structure from the IRS.
This was ignored. No one really investigated. Who’s jurisdiction does the IRS fall under? The IRS is subject to the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. There absolutely must be an investigation into this corrupt organization. Someone higher up, gave the order to do that. Follow the money trail. It can’t be that hard.
Will Congress investigate the unfair targeting of the Tea Party and other conservative groups by the IRS or will they just bury it?
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