Paul L. Caron
Dean





Tuesday, November 8, 2016

The IRS Scandal, Day 1279: WSJ — Another Federal Court Says The IRS Continues To Harass Conservative Groups

IRS Logo 2Wall Street Journal editorial, IRS vs. Tea-Party Patriots: New Evidence That Harassing Conservatives Has Continued:

The Obama Administration is nearing the end but the legal challenges to the IRS targeting of conservative groups are far from over. On Friday federal Judge Michael Barrett granted a preliminary injunction against the IRS on strong evidence of viewpoint discrimination by the agency.

Judge Barrett ruled (NorCal Tea Party Patriots v. IRS) that the Texas Patriots Tea Party (TPTP) “has made a strong showing of a likelihood of success on the merits.” He added that “TPTP has put forward evidence demonstrating that the IRS targeted TPTP’s application for special scrutiny and delayed processing because it met the political advocacy criteria found to be inappropriate in the 2013 TIGTA Report.”

This case is especially notable because the targeting of TPTP occurred after the time that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said the IRS had been using the inappropriate targeting criteria. The group, which is based near Fort Worth, applied for tax-exempt status in summer 2012 and was flagged in September 2012 for extra scrutiny as a tea-party group. According to the Treasury report, the IRS’s use of targeting criteria stopped in May that year. ...

Judge Barrett’s injunction requires the IRS to process the group’s application as it would any other, but the tax agency needs a top to bottom house-cleaning.

New York Post, From the Right: IRS Targeting Never Stopped:

Remember the IRS scandal over the agency targeting conservative nonprofits? Well, it’s still happening, writes Rick Moran at PJ Media: “A federal judge in Ohio has had it with the IRS foot-dragging on applications from conservative organizations for exempt status and has ordered the agency to quit stalling.” The order, contained in a filing unsealed Friday, makes clear that “three years after being assured by the IRS that they had stopped singling out conservative organizations for special scrutiny, the targeting continues,” Moran says. It also shows the IRS’ utter contempt for the investigation, according to Moran. The targeting will continue, Moran says, “until a judge holds a couple of IRS managers in contempt and lets them cool their heels in jail for a few days.”

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/11/the-irs-scandal-day-1279-wsj-another-federal-court-says-irs-continues-to-harass-conservative-groups.html

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