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Paul L. Caron
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Saturday, November 19, 2016

The IRS Scandal, Day 1290:  Linchpins Of Liberty Seeks Declaratory Relief That IRS Violated Their First Amendment Rights

IRS Logo 2 Notice Regarding Declaratory Relief to Which plaintiffs Are Entitled, Linchpins of Liberty v. United States, No. 1:13-cv-00777 (D.C. D.C. Nov. 11, 2016):

Based on the applicable law, and the Government’s admissions, there can be no dispute that Plaintiffs are entitled to a declaration that the IRS violated their First Amendment rights by:

(1) engaging in viewpoint-based discrimination when it targeted Plaintiffs’ tax-exempt applications for heightened scrutiny, significantly delayed the processing of those applications, and issued irrelevant and unnecessary demands for information—all because of Plaintiffs’ political-sounding names and/or policy positions (i.e., viewpoints); and

(2) demanding that Plaintiffs disclose such information as donor names, the type of conversations and discussions members and participants had during organizational activities, and the political affiliations of Plaintiffs’ officers and directors, all without any government interest, let alone a substantial or sufficiently important one, as the Government has admitted the accuracy of TIGTA’s finding that such information demands were entirely irrelevant and unnecessary.

United States’ Motion for Summary Judgment as to Remaining CLaims and Supporting Statement of Points and Authorities, Linchpins of Liberty v. United States, No. 1:13-cv-00777 (D.C. D.C. Nov. 11, 2016):

No one disputes that the IRS used certain criteria and engaged in other conduct in processing applications for tax-exempt status that it should not have done, both as found by TIGTA and acknowledged by the IRS itself. Whether what went wrong rises to the level of a constitutional injury is an issue that this Court has yet to decide, and the United States has not conceded that legal point. But something having gone wrong in the processing of applications, whether it constitutes a constitutional injury or not, the point remains that what happened next is exactly what should have happened: an independent oversight body (TIGTA) became involved and conducted an extensive investigation of what happened, it made its recommendations to correct the objectionable conduct, and the IRS implemented all of those recommendations. And all of that took place with the additional and intense scrutiny of Congress exercising its oversight function. Something having gone wrong in the first place, the process to correct that problem worked as it was supposed to, leaving no need for the Court to grant declaratory or injunctive relief.

The fact that the IRS has acted on Plaintiffs’ applications leaves no live or ongoing issues to be resolved as to Plaintiffs’ claims, which centered on the application process. And, as described, the IRS has permanently changed its procedures that gave rise to Plaintiffs’ claims. As a result, Plaintiffs are not entitled to the declaratory and injunctive relief that they seek.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/11/the-irs-scandal-day-1290linchpins-of-liberty-seeks-declaratory-relief-that-irs-violated-their-first-.html

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Comments

If the IRS can't admit what it did, it hardly seems like they can say they came clean and changed their ways.

Posted by: wodun | Nov 19, 2016 2:22:04 PM