Paul L. Caron
Dean





Saturday, November 8, 2014

The IRS Scandal, Day 548

IRS Logo 2Forbes:  What If Lois Lerner Was Right About The Tea Party?, by Peter J. Reilly:

The e-mails I have been getting from Jenny Beth Martin, Chairman of the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, have me thinking about Lois Lerner and  Teapartygate.  I went back and took another look at a report prepared by the staff of Darrell Issa’s Committee on Oversight and Government.  The report is titled Lois Lerner’s Involvement in the IRS Targeting of Tax-Exempt Organizations.  It is well worth reading the whole report and I recommend it.  I still don’t think it adds up to some sort of crusade against conservatives, but that’s just me. You can read it yourself. It seems that Lerner was strongly against money in politics and sensitive to the criticism that IRS was letting 501(c)(4) organizations get away with too much political activity.  And along comes the Tea Party, which Lerner sees as “very dangerous”.

One GD thing after another and now we are on Day 542 of the IRS Scandal, by TaxProf count, with no end in sight. Here is the question that is troubling me right now thanks to the e-mails I have been getting from Jenny Beth Martin.  If there is a pretty compelling case that Tea Party Patriots Inc was intended from day 1 to be a political organization, rather than a social welfare organization, would that make any difference in how we view Lois Lerner? ...

The IRS has to collect over two trillion dollars, which is a pretty big job, so it would be better if it did not get caught up in side issues.  Still Lois Lerner was in charge of exempt organizations and there are rules that the IRS was accused of ignoring.  There is a lot of diversity in the grassroots Tea Party groups, but I have a hard time seeing the self proclaimed flagship as anything but a political organization based on how it has been behaving lately.  Does that make the scandal any more or less scandalous?  What do you think?

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/11/the--1.html

IRS News, IRS Scandal, Tax | Permalink

Comments

You missed the point wodun. Nobody should be recognized as a 501(c)(4) unless the org qualifies under the law. It is the Service's job to enforce the law. The error the Service made was back in 1959 when it wrote the RevRul that "liberalized" the law and allowed any significant political activity by "social welfare organizations." Let's go back to the letter of the law and allow the political groups to get their tax exempt status under 527; which is what Congress intended.

Posted by: Publius Novus | Nov 8, 2014 6:14:16 PM

Democrats don't stand for principle, they stand for their interest.

Corruption is not an exception, it is their justification.

Posted by: DonM | Nov 8, 2014 3:34:49 PM

"I have a hard time seeing the self proclaimed flagship as anything but a political organization based on how it has been behaving lately. Does that make the scandal any more or less scandalous? What do you think?"
I don't see why Democrat groups should be allowed to organize this way but no one else. If Democrats want to be taken seriously, they need to stop their own activist groups from getting special tax status and end the practice of the federal government funding their activist groups.

They may have a point if they stand on principle but first they actually have to have a principle to stand on.

Posted by: wodun | Nov 8, 2014 11:36:43 AM