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Friday, August 12, 2016

The IRS Scandal, Day 1191

IRS Logo 2Investor's Business Daily editorial, Will Predatory IRS Finally Be Brought To Justice?:

The Law: Two months ago, it looked as if the IRS scandal over targeting conservative groups had reached a legal dead end. But an appeals court, in a stunning reversal, revived it this week. Will justice finally be done?

We hope so.

The Washington, D.C., Circuit Court, overturning a June lower-court decision, let the suit go forward because, as LSU law professor Philip Hackney noted in the Surly Subgroup blog, "it found that the IRS had not voluntarily ceased its unlawful actions."

In other words, the IRS is still doing what it was accused of in the first place and was supposed to halt.

In particular, the court reinstated two specific complaints made by True The Vote and other Tea Party groups that claimed the IRS had acted in a biased way toward conservative organizations that applied for tax-exempt status.

The two complaints were that the IRS had violated the group's First Amendment rights, and that it had also violated the Administrative Procedures Act — both serious complaints that could land people in jail.

Senior Judge David B. Sentelle was particularly scathing in writing the unanimous decision by a three-judge panel, calling the IRS' contention that it was no longer violating the conservative groups' rights "absurd." ...

The egregious use of a powerful arm of the federal government for explicitly political purposes should never be tolerated. It's the stuff of petty dictatorships, more suitable to a government run by Turkey's Erdogan or Venezuela's Maduro than to a great republic such as the U.S.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/08/the-irs-scandal-day-1191.html

IRS News, IRS Scandal, Tax | Permalink

Comments

Even if the IRS did stop the illegal persecution, after years of doing it, the case still should have gone forward to hold the guilty parties accountable.

Do criminals who are beating someone up get off with no punishment because they stopped?

Posted by: wodun | Aug 12, 2016 11:51:08 AM

I checked Surly Subgroup and found their 'defense' of the IRS to be pretty pathetic. It seems to be saying [I could only read 1/2 or so before I could take no more] that because the IRS has and continues to do similar things to other groups merely targeting specific groups on a partisan basis is okay. I wonder how they'd feel about that if the IRS started hounding Leftwing groups.

Posted by: jorgxmckie | Aug 12, 2016 10:37:40 AM