Paul L. Caron
Dean





Wednesday, September 9, 2015

The IRS Scandal, Day 853

IRS Logo 2American Thinker, Political Elites Violating Tax Return Confidentiality Laws in Ways That Would Land Citizens in Jail:

A friend-of-the-court brief filed by 58 organizations this week asks the Supreme Court to hear the case Center for Competitive Politics v. Kamala Harris, Attorney General of California. The brief describes how Ms. Harris is violating the First Amendment protections of private association described in the 1958 landmark decision NAACP v. California, where the Alabama attorney general sought the names and addresses of NAACP members to stifle the civil rights movement.

The National Organization for Marriage, whose donor names were leaked by the IRS to hostile blogs, and nationally recognized conservative nonprofit organizations such as Media Research Center, Concerned Women for America, Citizens United, Family Research Council, Faith & Freedom Coalition, the Weyrich Lunch, Leadership Institute, and Project Veritas are among the 58 organizations on the brief.

The brief describes how Ms. Harris is using extortionate demands to intimidate and censor nonprofit advocacy organizations and charities by requiring they file with her a confidential tax return schedule showing their top donors. Those demands are worse than what the Alabama attorney general tried because they violate federal law protecting confidential tax return information. The New York attorney general is doing the same as Ms. Harris.

The larger problem in America is that political elites violate the law in ways that would result in fines or even jail for citizens, but too often the courts protect lawbreaking by the ruling class.

From the brief:

It is appropriate here to note that controversial former IRS official Lois Lerner collaborated extensively about Form 990 information and enforcement issues with state charitable solicitation officials and their umbrella organization, the National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO), an affiliate of the National Association of Attorneys General.

At the same time her Tax Exempt division at the IRS was engaging in ideologically discriminatory policies, Ms. Lerner was collaborating with state officials to help “ramp up” their regulation of nonprofit organizations. ...

Ms. Lerner collaborated with state charity officials on her office’s redesign of IRS Form 990, noting their existing “compliance relationship” would increase.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/09/the-irs-scandal-day-854.html

IRS News, IRS Scandal, Tax | Permalink

Comments

Where is the Republican leadership (or non-leadership)? I don't recall Watergate taking years to resolve.

Posted by: Dale Spradling | Sep 10, 2015 7:15:29 AM

Essentially a nation wide effort to persecute dissidents. Very apt connection to how Democrats used to attack minorities in a similar way.

Posted by: wodun | Sep 9, 2015 10:35:02 AM

Yeah...and the Obama DOJ cares not one wit.

Posted by: VoteOutIncumbents | Sep 9, 2015 8:05:23 AM