@coldjoint,
Quote:@parados,
Quote:
Tax exempt groups that violate the law are not exempt from investigation or prosecution, Pinkie.
They are if they are progressive. Got that?
Wrong again, bucko.
Issa Told Treasury IG: Ignore IRS Treatment Of Liberal Groups
June 27, 2013 | Filed under: Featured,Liberaland | Posted by: dave-dr-gonzo
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How (not) to gin up a scandal:
The bombshell IRS audit released in May omitted information about liberal groups at the request of House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s office.
A spokesman for Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George told The Hill on Tuesday that Issa had requested investigators “narrowly focus on tea party organizations.”
The subsequent audit concluded the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” to single out for additional scrutiny tea party groups that applied for tax exempt status. The findings lead almost every politician, including President Barack Obama, to denounce the IRS. Several Republicans suggested the audit indicated the White House had a Nixonian “enemies list.”
Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, Issa said the IRS appeared to have been targeting Obama’s political opponents “perhaps not on his request” but “on his behalf.”
But new documents have revealed that liberal and progressive groups received similar treatment from the IRS. The “inappropriate criteria” used to single out tea party groups — so-called “Be On the Look Out” (BOLO) memos — also singled out progressive and “Occupy” groups.
OR
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/irs-scrutinized-liberal-groups-94556.html
IRS scrutinized some liberal groups
By DAVID NATHER | 7/22/13 1:58 PM EDT
After a political group in Texas asked the IRS for a tax exemption last year, it got a lengthy, time-consuming list of questions — like a request for the minutes of all the board meetings since the group got started.
And a California-based group got turned down completely in 2011, because the IRS concluded that it was set up “primarily for the benefit of a political party.”
These two stories sound like they’d fit right into the raging IRS scandal over its treatment of conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status.
(PHOTOS: 10 slams on the IRS)
The only difference: these two groups — Progress Texas and Emerge America — were unabashedly liberal.
POLITICO surveyed the liberal groups from an IRS list of advocacy organizations that were approved after the tougher examinations started. The review found some examples of liberal groups facing scrutiny similar to their conservative counterparts — they were asked for copies of web pages, actions alerts, and written materials from all of their events.
But those harsh investigations were more rare than what POLITICO had found when it surveyed conservative groups at the beginning of the scandal. And the questions themselves appear less invasive, overall.
So while liberals have some reason to complain about the IRS, the disparity in treatment does help explain why the conservative piece became a runaway story while the liberal side did not.
(PHOTOS: IRS hearing on Capitol Hill)
Plus, many liberal groups just weren’t as bothered by the questions they did get.
Progress Texas was the only one that came forward during the height of the scandal, releasing its own IRS letter to prove it had been hassled, too. It even had a cover letter from Lois Lerner, the embattled IRS official at the center of the scandal.
But even then, its leaders didn’t really feel hassled.
“If you’re going to ask for exceptional treatment, you should expect to go through exceptional screening,” said Ed Espinoza, the executive director of Progress Texas. “We all play by the same rules, and if they don’t like the rules, they don’t have to play.”
(Also on POLITICO: 5 questions for tax inspector general J. Russell George)
At a hearing on Thursday, Rep. Darrell Issa asked the IRS inspector general to look into where liberal groups were targeted. But most of the momentum is behind Congress staying on the trail of the conservative targeting. Top Republicans are trying to pry more information out of the agency about the role of the IRS Chief Counsel’s office, after career IRS officials testified that Lerner sent Tea Party applications there as part of a lengthy review process.
The bottom line is, Republicans have more fuel to keep the scandal alive — and liberal groups just aren’t about to march in the streets.
“In my mind, I didn’t find it to be onerous. I just thought they were doing their due diligence,” said Denise Cardinal of Progress Now, the umbrella organization for state progressive groups like Progress Texas.
Her group was one of the ones that got off easily. Its IRS letter — which came from the same Cincinnati office that investigated the conservative groups — asked just four follow-up questions, mostly about its relationship with its state affiliates.
Cardinal said some of the state groups did get lengthier sets of questions. And Alliance for a Better Utah, one of those state affiliates, is still waiting for the IRS to approve 501(c)(3) status for its education and voter registration operation. That’s causing problems because it can’t apply for foundation and grant money while that application to become a charitable organization is in limbo, according to Maryann Martindale, the group’s executive director.
