The more we learn about the latest IRS scandal, the harder it is to evade what it is all about: the systematic thwarting— for years on end — of legitimate applications for tax-exempt status submitted by Tea Party and other conservative groups.
It’s getting pretty thick and deep in the redoubts of those still claiming that only a few rogue, overwhelmed IRS clerks fashioned the policy “accidentally.”
Far from being limited to the inadvertent machinations of a few harried, bungle-prone IRS clerks huddling furtively in airless, lightless, low-ceilinged Cincinnati basement rooms, the scheme to put the Tea Party applications on the glue-laced slow track has its origin in the nation’s capital. We’re now learning that the IRS chief counsel himself is implicated in the determination to be dilatory.
That’s a guy named William Wilkins. Appointed by the President.
Some also still claim that left-leaning non-profits were as much beleaguered by unwarranted IRS delays as right-leaning non-profits. The facts don’t support this notion. Some “progressive” and “Occupier” groups seem to have undergone slow review, but not the same pattern of excessive inquiry and drill-down information mining that has emerged for conservative groups.
Moreover, an IRS abusing our civil liberties equally isn’t the answer.
As Carol Liebau noted last week, the latest revelations confirm that “there was, in fact, a dedicated ‘Tea Party Coordinator’ at the IRS, a position that has no analogue on the left.…” IRS targeting does not equal standard scrutiny. “The term refers to concerted efforts to harass law-abiding Americans (seeking tax-exempt status) based on their (right-leaning) viewpoint alone.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
6 replies on “IRS’s Targeting Was Targeting”
None of these organizations deserve tax-exempt status. All are purely political organizations.
If one were to abolish the income tax and therefore deductiblity issues it still would not change that the government is selections certain persons and groups for selective treatment, and in this case as a result of their anticipated protected free speech activities.
Freedom, or tyranny. Dangerous, repulsive and illegal. This abuse of power must not only be stopped, it must be punished regardless of the leanings of the oppressed.
All the years of thinking that the two political groups fit stereotypes. The lib-progs have viewed Repubs as evil and corrupt, while the Repubs have viewed the lib-progs as merely stupid.
Turns out that the Repubs were stupid for not realizing that the lib-progs were evil and corrupt.
Why is everyone so surprised!!!
Rick_in_VA,
Why, indeed? It appears to be part of a pattern. The latest IRS ‘mistake’ to be revealed was a tea-party-supported political candidate whose IRS file was ‘accidentally’ breached and false information leaked. Reminds me of a certain senatorial candidate who managed to benefit by the ‘leak’ of his opponent’s ‘sealed’ divorce records.
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