Paul L. Caron
Dean





Saturday, April 9, 2016

The IRS Scandal, Day 1066

IRS Logo 2 Renew America, Most Dangerous Year for Free Speech in U.S. History:

President Obama loses his bully pulpit and billy club on January 20, 1017. That means he has less than nine months to destroy as much of the Constitution as he can, and "fundamentally transform" the United States into something the Founders would not recognize.

We've already seen what his IRS has done to squash the free speech of Tea Party groups, which probably gave him the 2012 election. Despite all the negative publicity and Lois Lerner's wretched invocation of the Fifth Amendment before Congress, the IRS continues to deny conservative groups at a prodigious clip and to leave other conservative groups twisting in the wind.

The IRS rejected a total of 67 tax-exempt status applications last year, and 57 of them were from religious groups. Another 5,681 applications were left in legal no-man's land, which has exactly the same effect as a flat-out denial.

Update:  See the response by Professor Philip Hackney (LSU) in The IRS Scandal, Day 1067 that the Renew America article linked to above "contains incorrect information that appears to me to be a deliberate falsehood."

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/04/the-irs-scandal.html

IRS News, IRS Scandal | Permalink

Comments

See Professor Hackney's post of April 10, debunking this "news" article.

Posted by: Publius Novus | Apr 10, 2016 2:44:45 PM

Still shocked that the MSM won't touch this scandal that should bring down this administration with a ten foot pole. The corruption of the media continues apace.

Posted by: VoteOutIncumbents | Apr 10, 2016 5:05:07 AM

It is unfortunate that the IRS has not completed processing 5,681 tax exempt organization applications. The IRS also has well over 950,000 unanswered pieces of correspondence from taxpayers. Audit and prosecution rates are declining steadily. Last year only 38% of taxpayers were able to get through on the Service's telephone help lines. Since 2010, the IRS' budget has been cut a little over 16%. When you hear hoofbeats on Broadway, do you expect to see a zebra or a horse trotting down the street?

Posted by: Publius Novus | Apr 9, 2016 11:31:29 AM

Hmm, it looks like the illegal actions are ongoing, meaning they are happening because the President wants them to.

Posted by: Wodun | Apr 9, 2016 11:04:16 AM

Personally, I believe this is going on by design. Republicans and Democrats are afraid of the tea party so they're stretching this out as long as they can. None of these investigations has slowed the IRS down, from the look of things. If Republicans wanted this to stop, they would have impeached John Koskinen a long time ago, but they didn't. You have to ask why?

Posted by: bflat879 | Apr 9, 2016 9:27:03 AM

the last liine you quote is wrong. a denial can be appealed or other action can be taken such as changing from a c3 to a c4 and reapplying. an application in limbo cannot be appealed and changing an application under consideration is harder than just reapplying under a different section after a denial.

Posted by: max | Apr 9, 2016 9:21:59 AM

1066 has a certain resonance.

Posted by: ezag | Apr 9, 2016 9:03:16 AM