TaxProf Blog

Paul L. Caron
Dean





Friday, December 19, 2014

The IRS Scandal, Day 589

IRS Logo 2Forbes:  20 Facts About IRS Targeting, Those Emails And The White House, by Robert W. Wood:

The IRS scandal started 587 days ago in May 2013, but it actually goes back years earlier. President Obama’s testy “not even a smidgen of corruption” remark to Fox News in February 2014 showed fatigue. There was simply no evidence that the IRS was used for political targeting, he made clear. Maybe, but here are 20 things every American taxpayer should know about it: ...

What will item 21 be? Or 22 or 23? You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist searching for a grassy knoll or second shooter to want to know. Whether the explanation is a spontaneous demonstration from a youtube video, conclusive evidence that some folks down at the IRS were confused, or something else, we should know. If those IRS employees were truly  self-starters, free-thinkers who were targeting without direction from their bosses, perhaps they shouldn’t get bonuses, not big ones anyhow.

Besides, computer crashes don’t mean anything, even if it was a full year into the federal investigation when the IRS revealed that all those emails from the key two year period had been long gone for some time. Now, they are back and we may soon be able to see them, as well as the even more important communications between the IRS and DOJ.

Everyone may have had the best of intentions here. No one may have intended any breach of law. And maybe the IRS should not have to administer our insanely complex tax law, but it does. And without regard to political party, every American should want to get to the bottom of this once and for all.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/12/the-irs-scandal-9.html

IRS News, IRS Scandal, Tax | Permalink

Comments

Oh please Wodun. Some facts already. It was not a coordinated campaign run out of Washington. It was run out of Cincinnati. All of the 501{c}{4}s were run out of Cincinnati. When the Cincinnati employees needed guidance, they asked for help from Chief Counsel in DC. Carter Hull got the cases in DC and asked for a few more so he could see what was going on. Lerner (whom I agree was unethical and too clever by half) twice directed Cincinnati to cease and desist from the BOLO methodology. But so far there is 0 evidence that it went beyond the IRS.

Posted by: Publius Novus | Dec 19, 2014 7:52:11 PM

"Everyone may have had the best of intentions here."

There is zero reason to give this, or any other administration, the benefit of the doubt. The current administration has shown itself to be exceptionally dishonest on a range of issues and specifically on the IRS scandal since it was made known to the public.

The public, other than the victims, learned of this when Lois Lerner planted a question at a press conference. This was unethical and not exactly honest. It also wasn't honest when Lerner and Obama blamed it on rogue employees.

Later we learned it wasn't just a couple employees at one office but a coordinated campaign being run out of DC. All of the non-Democrat applications were sent to a special unit while other applications went through the normal system. It has all been a pack of lies.

Then there is all of the computer crashes, missing emails, lying about the emails, refusing to tell courts and congress emails were missing, and on and on.

Posted by: wodun | Dec 19, 2014 2:09:46 PM