The IRS Targets Conservatives

Former IRS Commissioner Visited White House 118 Times During Tea Party Targeting

Katie Pavlich

According to Republican Rep. Jim Jordan and White House visitor logs, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House 118 times in 2010 and 2011. This is the same time period when Tea Party groups were inappropriately targeted and intimidated by the IRS.

Testifying in front of lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Shulman admitted that many of the meetings with the White House were to discuss how to implement ObamaCare.

"The IRS has a major roll in the money flow," Shulman said.

Shulman denied ever discussing 501c(4) groups with White House officials and failed to name who he met with during his visits. At the time Shulman met with the White House throughout 2010 and 2011, Tea Party and Patriot groups were expressing opposition to ObamaCare.

Inspector General Russell George said during testimony that he did not speak with anybody in the White House about targeting of Tea Party groups during his audit and did not ask IRS officials if they communicated with the White House about the targeting.

"We did not question anybody about whether they talked to the White House," George said.

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Yes he was a Bush appointee, he was also an Obama campaign contributor.

 

When it comes to the Constitution, she’s a slow Lerner.

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 22, 2013

 

Breaking: Lois Lerner Sued Christian Coalition In Largest FEC Action in History – Then Was Promoted to IRS Where She Targeted Conservatives

Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, May 22, 2013


Under the direction of Lois Lerner, the Federal Election Commission sued the Christian Coalition in the 1990s. She harassed the Christian Coalition for three election cycles. She lost her case. Lerner even asked one conservative during the case if Pat Robertson prayed over him. (Sound familiar?)

These actions landed her at the IRS where she used the same tactics against conservatives and Christians – only on a much larger scale. 500 conservative and Christian groups were illegally targeted by the Obama IRS during her tenure. For twenty-seven months the Obama IRS refused to approve any Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status. At the same time the Obama IRS approved dozens of progressive applications.

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3022821/posts

JournoList’s IRS Angle Begins to Gel
PJ Tatler ^ | 5-22-2013 | Bryan Preston

Late Tuesday we reported that several lefty bloggers known to be very close to the Obama White House were in fact meeting in the White House. The meeting came a day ahead of hearings in which IRS official Lois Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify to the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee. Lerner even refused to testify about her own previous statements on the IRS abuse scandal.

Today, we may be seeing the results of that Tuesday afternoon confab at the White House.

Josh Marshall (10:15a.m.): Lerner Must Go http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/05/she_has_to_go.php …

Ezra Klein (9:45a.m.): Heads should roll at IRS http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/22/yes-heads-should-roll-at-the-irs/ …10:40 AM - 22 May 2013

Yes, heads should roll at the IRS It's hard to fire civil servants. But that doesn't mean it can't, or shouldn't, be done. Washington Post @washingtonpost

The synchronicity is striking.

It’s also an indication of just how worried the White House is, and how it intends to contain the scandal. First, get reliably friendly bloggers and columnists on board with a story that focuses attention away from the White House. Then, isolate and target someone who has already become a central figure in the scandal and, more importantly, who does not work directly for the White House. Finally, make it appear as if these reliably friendly bloggers actually take the IRS scandal seriously, so they become voices in the larger media advocating for a strong response — just strong enough to look decisive, while keeping the White House outside the main storyline.

 

47% of Democrats think the Obama White House either knew about or directed the IRS to go after conservative groups



According to a new Fox News poll, while it isn't too surprising that 63% independents think that the Obama WH either knew about or directed the IRS to go after conservative groups, it is more surprising to see that 47% of Democrats think that. Indeed, more Democrats think that there is a problem (47%) than think the "White House had absolutely nothing to do with it and knew nothing about it" (41%). It is interesting that Democrats are also much more trusting of the IRS than either Republicans or Independents. (Click on the above figure to make it larger.)

 

This is from yesterday, before the Congressional hearing.

 

The claim that the ongoing IRS scandal is limited to low level employees is falling apart.

The six Cincinnati workers we have identified, who sent scrutinizing letters to conservative groups with words including "patriot, liberty, tea party or 9-12" in their names are Mitchel Steele, Carly Young, Joseph Herr, Stephen Seok, Liz Hofacre and a woman identified only as Ms. Richards.

But was all of this done at the hands of a small group of Cincinnati employees working together? During Friday's congressional hearing, that appeared to be the theme. Now, that explanation just became less likely.

Thanks to two FOX19 sources connected to the IRS, we now understand the chain of command for these workers.

Mitchel Steele, Carly Young, Joseph Herr and Liz Hofacre are IRS agents. Stephen Seok is a supervisor IRS agent.

But according to the IRS employee directory that FOX19 has obtained exclusively, each of these agents has a different manager and then above them a different territory manager.

That is important because while it may sound reasonable to the average person that these workers began targeting groups on their own, the IRS structure is designed to prevent that.

Here is how that works.

When an application for tax exempt status comes into the IRS, agents have 270 days to work through that application. If the application is not processed within those 270 days it automatically triggers flags in the system. When that happens, individual agents are required to input a status update on that individual case once a month, every month until the case is resolved.

Keep in mind, at least 300 groups were targeted out of Cincinnati alone. Those applications spent anywhere from 18 months to nearly 3 years in the system and some still don't have their non-profit status. 300 groups multiplied by at least 18 months for each group, means thousands of red flags would have been generated in the system.

So who in the chain of command would have received all these flags? The answer, according to the IRS directory, one woman in Cincinnati, Cindy Thomas, the Program Manager of the Tax Exempt Division. Because all six of our IRS workers have different individual and territory managers, Cindy Thomas is one manager they all have common.

It turns out Cindy Thomas' name is one we have heard before. The independent journalism group ProPublica says in November of 2012 they had requested information on conservatives groups that had received non-profit status. Along with that information, the IRS released private information on nine conservative groups that had not yet been approved and personal information had not been redacted. The person who signed off on that release, Cindy Thomas.

What this means for you... consider this chain of command since the story broke.

Former Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller… retires

Joseph Grant, Commissioner of Tax Exempt and Government Entities... retires.

Lois Lerner, Head of Exempt Organization…says she will invoke her 5th amendment right to not incriminate herself when called before Congress on Wednesday.

Holly Paz, Director of Exempt Organizations, subpoenaed to Washington to be interviewed by members of Congress.

All of this IRS leadership, in Washington D.C.

Then one level down is Cindy Thomas, the highest ranking employee in Cincinnati in this Tax Exempt and Government Entities Department that no one in Congress is talking to... yet.

link

 

IRS Morality: Defend Planned Parenthood, Deluge Adoptive Families with Audits
link

By David French


Earlier this week, in a feeble attempt at humor on Facebook, I posted: “If you haven’t been audited by the IRS during the Obama administration, can you even call yourself a conservative?” Given the scale of the abuses, I should probably just shorten it and say, “Only RINOs don’t get audited.” My wife and I got audited in 2011, with the IRS examining every inch of our adoption the previous year. The process was painful, but we got through it, and our refund may have been adjusted by a few dollars (the amount of the adjustment was so small, I don’t actually remember). In other words, the audit was a gigantic waste of time — for the IRS and for our family. A Facebook commenter, however, pointed me to a report that made me rethink the experience.

As we get word that the IRS has harassed a number of pro-life groups, including at least one alleged demand that a pro-life group not picket Planned Parenthood, check out this statistic: In 2012, the IRS requested additional information from 90 percent of returns claiming the adoption tax credit and went on to actually audit 69 percent. More details from the Taxpayer Advocate Service:

During the 2012 filing season, 90 percent of returns claiming the refundable adoption credit were subject to additional review to determine if an examination was necessary. The most common reasons were income and a lack of documentation.

■ Sixty-nine percent of all adoption credit claims during the 2012 filing season were selected for audit.

■ Of the completed adoption tax credit audits, over 55 percent ended with no change in the tax owed or refund due in fiscal year 2012. The median refund amount involved in these audits is over $15,000 and the median adjusted gross income (AGI) of the taxpayers involved is about 64,000. The average adoption credit correspondence audit currently takes 126 days, causing a lengthy delay for taxpayers waiting for refunds.

While many returns had missing or incomplete information (more on that in a moment), what was the outcome of this massive audit campaign? Not much:

Despite Congress’ express intent to target the credit to low and middle income families, the IRS created income-based rules that were responsible for over one-third of all additional reviews in FY2012.

■ Of the $668.1 million in adoption credit claims in tax year (TY) 2011 as a result of adoption credit audits, the IRS only disallowed $11 million — or one and one-half percent — in adoption credit claims. However, the IRS has also had to pay out $2.1 million in interest in TY 2011 to taxpayers whose refunds were held past the 45-day period allowed by law.

So Congress implemented a tax credit to facilitate adoption – a process that is so extraordinarily expensive that it is out of reach for many middle-class families — and the IRS responded by implementing an audit campaign that delayed much-needed tax refunds to the very families that needed them the most. Oh, and the return on its investment in this harassment? Slightly more than 1 percent.

This audit wave got almost no media coverage, but what was the experience like for individual families? In a word, grueling. Huge document requests with short turnaround times were followed by lengthy IRS delays in processing, all with no understanding for the unique documentation challenges of international adoption. Here’s how one adoptive family described the experience:

It was early June when a letter arrived from IRS explaining that we (and lots of other adoptive parents, as it turns out) were being audited re: our adoption tax credit. The folks at IRS gave us 30 days to gather our receipts, invoices, cancelled checks, etc. to document our expenses and submit said documents to their tax examiner. If we couldn’t comply within the time limit, they would set aside our request for a credit and we would be out of luck, meaning no more of our money would be refunded to us. If we got them the paperwork, then they would review our records and decide how much more of our money they would refund to us. (Am I bitter? Just a tad bit . . .)

Anyway, this might seem to be an easy fix to those unfamiliar with foreign adoption. After all, if you adopt, you work with an agency and that’s a business, right? Businesses give receipts and invoices, right? And everyone has cancelled checks, rights? Um, not so much. See, we adopted from Kazakhstan…on the other side of the freakin’ earth…and it’s a cash economy…that uses its own currency…and English isn’t the language of Kazakhstan. The aforementioned issues presented a teensy problem to securing what IRS needed in a timely manner.

She went on to explain the challenges of documenting expenses (challenges we shared in our own audit, when I ultimately decided it was simply futile trying to document how we spent all the cash we took to Ethiopia). Her post concluded as she wrapped up the audit and waited for the IRS to respond:

Anyway, here we are, 30 days later. For the last several days, my dining room table has been covered with documents. I’ve been reliving my bad old times of adoption dossier preparation but in reverse this time. I finally got it all compiled, copies made, and the huge package of receipts, invoices, translations and conversions sent off to the IRS via Express mail. Now we wait for an answer…to see how much of our money the IRS will give us back. Let’s see if they can turn it around in 30 days like I had to. Bitter??? Nooooo, not me.

Is it the IRS’s job to frustrate and obstruct the intent of Congress by targeting vulnerable families? Once again, here’s the Taxpayer Advocate Service:

With respect to the Adoption Credit, and in particular the credit for adoption of special needs children, the IRS has failed abysmally to take into account that over 45 percent of adopting families are at or below 200 percent federal poverty level, presenting particular communication and functional literacy challenges even as they are desperately in need of the funds which Congress has sought to deliver to them.

As an adoptive family, it’s sometimes difficult to describe the immense challenges in gathering paperwork, opening your lives to social workers for home studies, then expensive travel to sometimes-corrupt foreign locales to then launch a new life with a child you love immensely but who is also experiencing his or her own culture shock and adjustment. All of this places a great strain on family finances and emotions. To then face an audit on the other side? All so the IRS can collect a whopping 1 percent additional revenue? It’s beyond the pale. If the IRS is concerned about fraud, it can audit random samples, not the vast majority of adoptive families claiming the credit.

The IRS is a broken institution. Yet despite its moral and legal corruption, it still wields immense power. As Congress investigates wrongdoing, it’s past time to consider fundamental tax reform. In other words, starve the beast. It has proven it can’t be trusted with power.

 

I work at an alternative campus. I have class one period a day. They rest of the day I work as the librarian.

Thanks for caring.

 

If Obama can take credit for good things happening in the country, why can't he take credit for the bad that is happening as well?

We have grown each year at 0.9% for the past four years.

Any good economic news is due to the hard work and ingenuity of the American public.

But when something bad happens it was some rogue agent. Sounds a little Alex Jonesish to me.