Quote:

---

The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.

Organizations were singled out because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

"That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review," Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.

"The IRS would like to apologize for that," she added.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice. She did not say when they found out.

Many conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They accused the agency of frustrating their attempts to become tax exempt by sending them lengthy, intrusive questionnaires.

The forms, which the groups made available at the time, sought information about group members' political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.

---

Quote:

---

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal watchdog's upcoming report says senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups in 2011.

The disclosure contradicts public statements by former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who repeatedly assured Congress that conservative groups were not targeted.

On Friday, the IRS apologized for what it acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if those groups were violating their tax-exempt status.

The Treasury's inspector general for tax administration is expected to release the results of a nearly yearlong investigation in the coming week.

The Associated Press obtained part of the draft report.

That report says the head of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups learned that groups were being targeted in June 2011. It does not say whether Shulman was notified.

---

Quote:

---

The fact that the IRS has permitted the LDS and Catholics to get away with using tax exempt resources to campaign does not mean that the IRS should be required to let everybody do it. It means that the IRS needs to do a better job of enforcing the code.

---

Quote:

---

Mike, you can engage in political activity and still be a 501c3 or 4, but it can't be your primary activity.

An organization whose primary activity is political cannot be a non-profit according to those statutes. I'm sure even you would admit that the various teachers' unions are not primarily political organizations. Not as long as they are negotiating contracts, representing members, etc. There are a LOT of teachers in the US and the teachers' unions are very busy even in non-election years. You might be surprised to learn that there are lots of parts of the country where the locals do absolutely no political work at all.

---

Quote:

---

Not to mention that Media Matters still has it's tax-exempt status unquestioned.

---

Quote:

---

The IRS was right to apologize, but they apologized for the wrong thing. They should have put EVERY political group seeking tax-exempt status through this kind of scrutiny. The fact that these groups (both left and right) get to avoid taxes while manipulating elections is embarassing. Of course, the real problem is that they have so much power and so little transparency to start with, but if the only victory we can get right now is to make them pay taxes, let's start with that.

---

Quote:

---

If you are wondering what the fuss is about, then read the article. Excerpt:

Quote:

---

Third, and perhaps most troubling, those tea-party organizations were sent letters of inquiry demanding information that would seldom if ever be demanded of any other applicant in the process. The IRS demanded lists of donors, names of spouses and family members, detailed information about political views and associations — all of that "under penalties of perjury." Many applicants dropped out of the process. The questions were remarkably invasive: For example, the IRS demanded to know not only whether political candidates participated in public forums conducted by the groups, but which issues were discussed, along with copies of any literature distributed at the forum and material published on websites. (The IRS has been less forthcoming with its own materials related to this investigation.)

---

Even if you are opposed to the Tea Party, this should trouble you. Imagine the shoe on the other foot... let's say a hard-line right-wing President gets elected, and the IRS starts going after LBGT groups in this way. Would you still be okay with it? If not, you damn well shouldn't be okay with it now.

Rights are for everyone, not just people you like. And people have the right to not have a goverment agency abuse its power to squash their exercise of free speech.

Are you angry about this? You should be.

---

Quote:

---

An IRS campaign to apply additional scrutiny to conservative groups went beyond targeting "Tea Party" and "patriot" groups to include those focused on government spending, the Constitution and several other broad areas.

The additional guidelines created by the agency were part of a timeline, obtained by Fox News, from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which is looking into the controversial IRS practice. IRS officials apologized Friday for the scrutiny, but new information suggests senior leaders were apprised of the effort as early as 2011 despite public denials from the top.

Republican lawmakers have vowed to investigate and hold hearings, calling the revelations deeply troubling.

"The conclusion that the IRS came to is that they did have agents who were engaged in intimidation of political groups," Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers told "Fox News Sunday." "I don't care if you're a conservative, a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican, this should send a chill up your spine. It needs to have a full investigation."

A top Democrat -- Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus -- also said Monday that his committee would launch a "full investigation" into the matter.

"These actions by the IRS are an outrageous abuse of power and a breach of the public's trust. Targeting groups based on their political views is not only inappropriate but it is intolerable," the Montana Democrat said in a statement. "Americans expect the IRS to do its job without passion or prejudice. We need to get to the bottom of what happened here. ... The IRS will now be the ones put under additional scrutiny."
....

---

Quote:

---

I was under the impression that both republicans aand democrats are conservatives.

---

Quote:

---

The president, with his comments, echoed remarks made by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who asked during testimony in January "what difference" did the controversy over the talking points make.

Obama on Monday dismissed the questions as rooted in "political motivations."

Since Clinton's testimony, though, new details have been made public about the administration's early efforts to explain what happened in Benghazi last September. Despite claims that the White House and State Department were not heavily involved in editing the intelligence community's narrative, emails show State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland pushed to remove references to Al Qaeda and to the intelligence community's prior warnings about security in the region.

Based on those talking points, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice went on five Sunday shows to claim the attack was prompted by a protest over an anti-Islam film.

Further, three State Department whistle-blowers testified last week, with one claiming he was shocked and "embarrassed" to hear Rice's comments since he knew it was a terror attack all along.

---

Quote:

---

The IRS has admitted that members of its Cincinnati office engaged in such activity. But documents suggest at least three other IRS offices did the same.

Letters provided to CNN show IRS officials in Washington and California contacted conservative groups to demand more information before approving the groups' requests for tax-exempt status.

The American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group representing numerous conservative organizations, provided CNN with four such letters: one each from IRS offices in Washington; Cincinnati; El Monte, California, and Laguna Niguel, California.

The words "patriots" or "tea party" figured in the names of each group that received the letter.

---

Quote:

---

A newly obtained watchdog report described how the "inappropriate" IRS program that flagged conservative groups for extra scrutiny led to massive delays, with some organizations stuck waiting years to find out about their applications.

The findings were contained in a highly anticipated and highly critical inspector general's report, obtained by Fox News, on a practice that IRS officials first acknowledged on Friday.

The report revealed that the program began as far back as 2010. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration concluded that it was the result of "ineffective management" and "inappropriate criteria" which must be corrected.

Describing the impact of the IRS program, the report said the flawed criteria led to Tea Party and other groups being singled out and subjected to "substantial delays." More than 80 percent of the cases it reviewed were left open more than one year, and some were left in limbo for more than three years.

---

Quote:

---

A newly obtained watchdog report described how the "inappropriate" IRS program that flagged conservative groups for extra scrutiny led to massive delays

---

Quote:

---

President Obama announced Wednesday that acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller has resigned in the wake of the agency scandal in which conservative groups were targeted

....

Republicans, who along with Democrats have slammed the IRS for the practice, welcomed the resignation Wednesday but made clear they would continue to investigate and press for accountability.

Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., said the resignation "is a necessary first step but more heads need to roll."

---

Quote:

---

That actually makes perfect sense to me.  A virulent anti-tax philosophy is only a tiny hop away from methodical tax evasion.  They should target these groups for extra scrutiny.

---

Quote:

---

Paul further expressed disappointment in his Democratic colleagues for placing a hold on his resolution.

“Each senator took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, yet Senate Democrats chose to block my resolution and thus refused to condemn the IRS for trampling on our First Amendment rights. I am incredibly disappointed in Washington’s party politics and I am determined to hold the IRS accountable for these unjust acts.”

---