Wed
May 29 2013
06:58 am
IRS Was Really Doing Its Job
By: CE Petro  shortURL

Well, well, well, seems that some of the TEA party groups screaming "UNFAIR" for being targeted by the IRS, were, GASP, violating IRS rules for 501(c)(4) status.

But a close examination of these groups and others reveals an array of election activities that tax experts and former I.R.S. officials said would provide a legitimate basis for flagging them for closer review.

“Money is not the only thing that matters,” said Donald B. Tobin, a former lawyer with the Justice Department’s tax division who is a law professor at Ohio State University. “While some of the I.R.S. questions may have been overbroad, you can look at some of these groups and understand why these questions were being asked.”

Like the TEA Party group in Ohio who thought that handing out literature for the Romney campaign was not political activity.

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redmondkr's picture

Lawrence O'Donnell let most

Submitted by redmondkr on Wed, 2013/05/29 - 7:37am.

Lawrence O'Donnell let most of the air out of this 'scandal' a couple of weeks ago. Since then this statement has even been repeated during the Congressional hearings on the subject, once by a Democratic representative who had discussed it on his show.

The law defines such groups as “civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.” Since 1959, the IRS has been reading “exclusively” as “primarily.”

Emphasis mine

If Congress actually worked for us people instead of corporate people, I think the IRS would soon be separating a lot of 504(c)(4) groups, right and left, from their tax-exempt privileges.

Karl Rove is running a social welfare group? Bah, humbug!

reform4's picture

Maybe Exclusively should mean EXCLUSIVELY.

Submitted by reform4 on Wed, 2013/05/29 - 11:55am.
(in reply to redmondkr)

I mean, we prohibit churches from campaigning (and we do a bad job at enforcing that).

If Congress says "exclusively", then that's the way it needs to be enforced. That would clean up the whole damn mess.

Factchecker's picture

Maybe the right will back off

Submitted by Factchecker on Wed, 2013/05/29 - 7:41am.

Maybe the right will back off its calls for profiling when they're not the potential targets. Nah; who am I kidding?

Min's picture

See this?

Submitted by Min on Wed, 2013/05/29 - 9:45am.

This is my unsurprised face.

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