Taxes

5/13/2013 @ 10:26PM |934 views

Congress And The President Want You To Get Mad At IRS Over Tax Exempt Targets (Just Not At Them)

Kelly Phillips Erb, Contributor

I cover tax: paying tax is painful but reading about it shouldn't be. 

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 26: Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee January 26, 2012 in Washington, DC. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

“IRS Issues Apology for Targeting Tea Party Group”

I’ll admit that headline caught my attention – but probably not for the reasons you think. The targeting bit didn’t give me pause at all – but the apology did. The Internal Revenue Service rarely apologizes. On the other hand, the IRS has always given a second glance to organizations with political ties. Always.

IRS Drops Investigation Into Contributions (Tax World Drops Jaw)

   

Kelly Phillips Erb Contributor

 

IRS Set To Close Next Week 


  Kelly Phillips Erb Contributor


 

In case you missed the story, here’s what happened: the IRS, in a weak moment, admitted that it had been targeting certain applications for tax-exempt status based on key words and politically charged language. This wasn’t a planned statement but rather popped up when Lois Lerner, the head of the tax exempt organization section of IRS, made the confession at an American Bar Association event last week.

While initial reports said that the IRS targeted groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, reports now indicate that the agency used a much broader brush, applying extra scrutiny to applicants critical of the government or engaging in other kinds of speech that is political in nature. And that part, quite frankly, isn’t a surprise. Let me tell you how the IRS feels about political speech: they are not fans. The IRS is very clear that “[s]ection 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct.”

There are 29 different nonprofit types of organizations under section 501(c) of the Tax Code for tax exempt purposes but the ones that get the most attention are 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4). The applications that appear to have been targeted most for additional scrutiny in this case are section 501(c)(4) organizations. Those are defined under the Code as:

Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare, or local associations of employees, the membership of which is limited to the employees of a designated person or persons in a particular municipality, and the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes.

While the rules are similar, there is, however, an important distinction here as between 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations: the latter may participate in political campaigns and elections, so long as the organization’s primary activity is the promotion of social welfare. Donations are not generally deductible and any income devoted to political activities is not tax exempt.

And while the criteria for the 501(c)(4) does allow for some (with an emphasis on some) politicking, the rules are largely the same as those for 501(c)(3) organizations; in fact, the IRS manual actually states that “there is considerable overlap between IRC 501(c)(4) and IRC 501(c)(3).” The politicking must not outweigh other goals of the organization and the primary activity must still be the promotion of social welfare. The IRS Regs at 1.501(c)(4)–1(a)(2)(ii) make it clear that “the promotion of social welfare does not include participation in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any political candidate.” Additionally, the rules for determining what constitutes intervention in a political campaign for an IRC 501(c)(4) organization are the same as those governing IRC 501(c)(3) organizations.

So what’s the appeal? The key draw is that unlike 501(c)(3) organizations, 501(c)(4) organizations are not required to disclose the the names of their donors publicly; they are also not required to pay attention to those pesky contribution limits for campaign finance purposes. That combination has made the organizations extremely attractive to so-called Super PACs who have been accused of using the organizations to circumvent existing campaign laws.

That makes these organizations extremely controversial. The IRS has shown increasing concern about the potential for abuse. This accelerated a few years ago after the darling of the time, section 527 groups, began to get a bad rap based largely on the Swift Boat saga during the Bush-Kerry 2004 election and Hillary Clinton supporters’ American Leadership Project in 2008. The bad taste those efforts left in the mouths of taxpayers forced political strategists to switch gears – and they focused their sights on 501(c)(4) organizations.

The IRS scrambled to react to this influx of new organizations. And they clearly reacted badly. Very badly. But while it’s easy to make assumptions about who did what and when and why, it’s important to slow down and figure out the facts.
The question that will likely get the most focus is whether this behavior was the result of a directive. So far, there’s no evidence to support such a charge.

Realistically, no matter who is President, there is very little direct oversight from the Oval Office over tax exempt organizations: it’s just not a priority for any administration. The majority of the targeted applications were submitted between 2010 and 2012 while President Obama was in office. That is not disputed. Who was at the head of the IRS during that term? Doug Shulman, an appointee of former President Bush. Do I think either of President Obama or former President Bush ordered Shulman to focus on tax exempts? Of course I don’t. In fact, I think the focus on the Oval Office is misplaced in terms of directives (reactions are another issue altogether).

There has also been a lot of discussion about whether this behavior was a violation of the right to free speech under the First Amendment. As Americans, we completely have the right to free speech. Agreed. But let’s take a peek at the text:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Sure, you have the right to say what you want. Shout it from the mountaintops. Just don’t use the Tax Code to subsidize and/or justify it. While it is a free country and we do have the freedom of speech, the Tax Code has had, since 1954, prohibited tax-exempt organizations “from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of [or opposing] any candidate for elective public office.” And that includes churches. And every other tax exempt organization. Crossing that line can result in the loss of tax-exempt status. It doesn’t matter if you’re conservative, center or liberal.

In fact, the 2008 election – a few years before this increased scrutiny – saw the IRS investigating a number of incidents of tax exempt organizations (largely churches) using their platforms to support or oppose candidates and issues.
First Baptist Church of Buena Park Pastor Wiley Drake was investigated for formally endorsing Mike Huckabee for President on church letterhead – and later praying that those who objected to his endorsement would die. During that same race, Bill Keller of liveprayer.com was called out for advising his followers that a vote for Mitt Romney was a vote for Satan because, writing, “Romney winning the White House will lead millions of people into the Mormon cult…” And, who can forget Pastor James David Manning of Atlah World Ministries, made headlines for repeatedly calling then Senator Barack Obama a pimp before later referring to him as an “emissary of the devil”?
As I wrote that same year:

[W]hether you’re Pastor Manning speaking from the pulpit, Joe Paterno, Coach of Penn State University’s football team on the field or Gail J. McGovern, President and CEO of the American Red Cross speaking from the front lines of natural disasters, your speeches, articles and appearances will be subject to scrutiny (to be clear, the last two folks are merely examples of high profile leaders of tax exempt organizations and are not examples of folks who have said anything inappropriate with respect to the elections). Tax exempt organizations are aware of the rules that govern them – and most have guidelines in place to remind employees and representatives of the dangers of ignoring the rules against politicking. The ramifications, if such rules are broken, can be severe, including loss of tax-exempt status.

Anyone who was aware of what was going on in the tax exempt world after 2008 knew that these 501(c)(4) organizations (and, in fact, a number of 501(c)(3) organizations) were trying their darnedest to get around those rules.

I suggested that the move to expand the role of politics in tax exempt organizations would increase, thanks to the internet, with such organizations becoming “even bolder in their approach.” And that’s exactly what happened.

That’s exactly why I’m not giving IRS a pass here. It could not have come as a surprise to IRS that applications for tax exempt would heat up after the 2004 and 2008 elections. In fact, over the time period that’s now being questioned, those applications doubled. There should have been a strategy in place – and it’s clear now that didn’t happen.

Similarly, to pick and choose which organizations deserve a second glance based on key words is, to quote Lerner, “absolutely inappropriate.” But I don’t even think that was politically motivated per se. I think it’s lazy. And the worst kind of lazy. It’s like pulling over all of the red sports cars because you assume red cars tend to speed more rather than actually get the radar gun out. According to what we know so far, about 75 groups were selected for extra inquiry due to those key words; that constituted about 25% of all of the groups flagged for additional examination. None of those groups were ultimately denied status. That outcome suggests that while there was a link between politics and scrutiny, politics didn’t sway the final determination.

To be clear, I’m not saying that these arguments don’t have anything to do with politics. I think politics have played a huge part in all of this from start to finish. But I think you need to dig a little deeper and not make it a surface “us versus them” issue. That’s the easy way out.

If you look back to 2011, the IRS raised eyebrows when it announced that it would no longer pursue an investigation into certain donors to nonprofit groups for the purpose of political ads. Specifically, the IRS was investigating whether donors to certain tax-exempt organizations organized under – you guessed it – section 501(c)(4) of the Tax Code would be liable for gift tax on those donations. The IRS had taken the position for about thirty years that those transfers were subject to the federal gift tax but they had not made much noise about enforcing it. That’s not surprising since the IRS often has rules on the books that they don’t make an issue until something happens. So something must have happened in 2011 to make transfers to 501(c)(4) organizations an enforcement target. My non-cynical guess at the time was “that the sheer numbers – and dollars – of transfers have increased and that’s attracting attention.”

The more cynical answer circulating at the time was that it was politically motivated. Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, vowed to look into what happened, claiming that he was “troubled that the IRS did not explain why the investigations were started in the first place” and added that he will “continue my investigation until the complete story behind the actions of the IRS has been told.”

Sound familiar?

This week, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) seemed to take a page from that playbook by ordering “that the subcommittee should investigate that additional issue as well.” He also vowed to “continue to work… to ensure the integrity of our political process and of enforcement efforts.”

Right. It’s easy for Congress to sit back and complain about IRS’ bad behavior. And again, yes, I think they erred. And they lied about it which is even worse. And those are terrible, terrible acts. But Congress has happily given them plenty of rope.

The IRS has practically begged for clarity on the issue of 501(c)(4) organizations. With respect to the gift tax, for example, they publicly stated that “it is possible that Congress may choose to clearly articulate through legislation the applicability of the gift tax to contributions to 501(c)(4) organizations.” And Congress did not. They chose instead to look the other way, as they continue to do. Congress is one of the the biggest beneficiaries here (presidential candidates are a close second) since these organizations are how many election campaigns are supported, even if indirectly.

So mark my words: this round of screaming will end with no real reform. Not with respect to campaign finance. Not with respect to IRS. Not with respect to tax exempt organizations. There will be, instead, lots of hand slapping and finger waggling. The Republicans will crow and the Democrats will vow “to get to the bottom of this” – just like 2011 – and nothing will really happen.

I am not saying that means that we should look the other way. Someone at IRS knew this was happening. It’s clear that those at the top knew something (it has been reported that Shulman was alerted to the issue in 2012) and that it wasn’t the work of a handful of rogue operatives. It was a plan. And then IRS lied about it. And they should be held accountable.

But it still disturbs me that no one in Washington really seemed to care until the behavior went public. When Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) now complains that he asked for answer three times last year because he had heard that there might be issues, it should give you pause. Why didn’t he push harder? Why didn’t anyone ask these kinds of questions publicly? Why wasn’t he – and the President – and every other Washington official that can now get themselves in front of a camera making the same kind of noise last year? Or in 2011?

I would suggest that we all really know the answer.
–

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Here's just one bad piece of possible fall-out from the IRS revelation

Daily Kos

News, Community, Action

Mon May 13, 2013 at 04:37 PM PDT

Here's just one bad piece of possible fall-out from the IRS revelation

by Meteor BladesFollow

Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon suggests:

After an election in which hundreds of millions of dollars were funneled through “dark money” nonprofit groups by people like Karl Rove, campaign finance advocates fear the nascent IRS scandal involving these very organizations will make the already difficult task of regulating them nearly impossible.

Organized under section 501(c)4 of the tax code, organizations like Rove’s Crossroads GPS are social welfare organizations that are legally barred from making politics their “primary purpose” — at least in theory. In practice, many of these groups are plainly political, but the IRS has never defined what differentiates an improper political group from a bona fide social welfare group, so they’ve been able to flout the intent of the law with impunity. With growing public awareness after the 2012 election, campaign finance reform advocates thought they may be able to finally get the IRS or Congress to impose some new rules. But scandal may blow all of that up.

“The IRS is not really in a position right now to rewrite the rules that apply to social welfare organizations. And it’s not going to be the right time for that for at least a little while,” Lisa Rosenberg, a government affairs lobbyist at the Sunlight Foundation, told Salon. “Everything they do now, at least in the near future, is going to be glossed with this taint of impropriety.”

It didn't bother the right wingers when the IRS investigated the NAACP after it criticized the Bush administration. And it didn't bother them when the IRS investigated a Pasadena, California, church for criticizing Bush. But now that it's been revealed that the IRS has gored their ox, they're up in arms about it.

It's early yet to have any idea where this story will go. We know, of course, that the Republicans will push it and the other fresh scandal—on wiretapping journalists—at least as hard as they have pushed the faux scandal of Benghazi® for the past seven months.

This time, however, many Democrats, including some who have not heretofore been critics of the administration, will surely be asking some tough questions of their own. As well they should. What's intolerable when done under a Republican administration is not just as intolerable under a Democratic administration. It's worse. We have a right to expect better behavior. We have plenty of past and recent examples to the contrary and this cannot be allowed to be written off as mere partisanship on the part of Republicans. They will certainly use it to partisan advantage. But that doesn't make it a non-issue.

The best that can come out of both these scandals are quick-and-thorough, get-to-the-bottom-of-it probes into what happened, why it happened and who made it happen. Followed by some personnel departures no matter how high they reach.

Tags

• IRS
• Recommended
• scandal
• Tea Party

 

Republicans breaking government with ongoing cabinet obstruction

Daily Kos

Fri May 10, 2013 at 08:54 AM PDT

Republicans breaking government with ongoing cabinet obstruction

by Joan McCarter

 

attribution: Harperdrewart/Dreamstime.com

The most effective way Republicans have found to make their political argument that government is bad is to actually break it, to keep it from functioning. And they've had remarkable success, from slashing budgets in previous budget fights to the sequester. They're also doing it with the filibuster and other delaying tactics, like boycotting confirmation hearings. And they're, of course, doing the Chamber of Commerce's and Wall Street's and Big Oil's bidding by focusing their efforts in particular on those agencies that regulate big business.

Obama’s choices to lead the Labor Department and the Environmental Protection Agency have been delayed by feuds over their past positions and the policies of departments they aspire to lead. His nominee to lead the Energy Department had been stalled, though an agreement was reached late yesterday for a confirmation vote. [...] “The confirmation process is increasingly turning into a hostage situation,” said Ross Baker, a political science professor atRutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.[...]
Senate Republican leaders say the criticism is unfounded, and that the recent holdups are part of a careful examination of nominees whose records raise important questions.
“We’ve processed a lot of nominations, but some of the nominees the president has put up are really problematic,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican leader. “Congress has a role to play, in terms of advice and consent. They need to relax a bit and let the Senate do its job.”

That's just a lie from Cornyn, proven by the flat-out refusal of the entire Republican Senate caucus to allow a vote on Richard Cordray, which they freely admit isn't because of a problem with the nominee, but because they want to nullify the law that created his agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Senate Republicans are spitting on their constitutional role of advice and consent. In doing so, they're not just breaking the Senate, they're breaking the government, all three branches of it. 

It helps that more news organizations are recognizing just how extraordinary this level of obstruction is, because that will help convince the people who have power to do something about it—Senate Democrats—to finally put an end to it with rules reform.

Please send an email to your Democratic senator(s) telling them to re-open filibuster reform so that we can have a functioning Senate and government.

Originally posted to Joan McCarter on Fri May 10, 2013 at 08:54 AM PDT.

Also republished by Daily Kos.

Tags

• Filibuster
• Nominations
• procedure

IRS wrongdoing threatens to become a major issue for Democrats says the GOP who will make it so

The Washington Post

THE FIX

by Chris Cillizza

IRS wrongdoing threatens to become a major issue for Democrats

Posted by Chris Cillizza and Sean Sullivan on May 13, 2013 at 6:30 am

The situation surrounding the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups worsened over the weekend with a series of revelations that suggest it could grow into a major political problem for Democrats over the coming months.

The IRS.

“Politicizing the IRS was one of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon,” noted Doug Schoen, who handles polling for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “That being said, we are still a very long way from that point.” But, Schoen added: “The allegations are very, very serious, and it is simply impossible to believe that it was just Lois Lerner and some low-level employees in Cincinnati who came up with this scheme to systematically focus on Tea Party and ‘patriot’ groups.”

Here’s a quick summary of what we learned this weekend:

* It wasn’t just groups with the words “tea party” or “patriot”  that were flagged for extra scrutiny, but also groups that criticized the government or sought to educate people about the Constitution, according to an audit requested by the inspector general for the IRS.

* Lerner, the head of the tax-exempt division at the IRS, was made aware of the targeting of conservative groups in June 2011.

* The Cincinnati office was not filled with low-level apparatchiks. It was the division specifically tasked with evaluating applications for such nonprofit groups.

If Republicans were angry about the IRS story when it broke on Friday, they were downright outraged by the end of the weekend. Maine Sen. Susan Collins — a moderate if ever there was one in the current Senate – called the IRS targeting of conservative groups “absolutely chilling.”  House Republicans promised hearings and a broader investigation.

What became clear in the first 72 hours of the story was that this (a) wasn’t an isolated, dumb incident by some random field office, (b) was something high-level officials were aware of, and (c) was going to be in the news cycle for quite some time.

The problem for Democrats is that the IRS’s targeting of conservatives plays directly into a long-held belief by many Republicans (and even some independents) that official government arms are being used to carry out political agendas.

“Any political scandal that begins by validating previously held contentions of a political opposition is bound to be trouble,” said one senior Senate GOP operative. “When it includes denials that have been proven false, it gets much worse.” Acknowledged a longtime Democratic congressional hand: “This just feeds the right-wing paranoia that the government is out to get them. On top of Benghazi hearings and e-mails, not a good week for the [Obama] administration.”

Expect the IRS story to move forward on two fronts: one congressional, the other political. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is already promising a House investigation into who knew what and when as it relates to the IRS actions. And expect Republicans in and out of office to pick up on the IRS’s admission on the campaign trail as they try to tie their Democratic opponents to the unsavory nature of the tax collecting agency’s actions.

“For Republicans, this will be the gift that keeps on giving,” predicted Todd Harris, a Republican consultant and an adviser to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. “There won’t be a GOP campaign in the country that doesn’t use this to raise money.”

IRS targeted groups critical of government, documents from agency probe show

Washigton Post

WP Politics

IRS targeted groups critical of government, documents from agency probe show

 

Susan Walsh/AP - The exterior of the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington March 22, 201

 

By Juliet Eilperin, Published: May 12

At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials singled out for scrutiny not only groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names but also nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general.

The documents, obtained by The Washington Post from a congressional aide with knowledge of the findings, show that the IRS field office in charge of evaluating applications for tax-exempt status decided to focus on groups making statements that “criticize how the country is being run” and those that were involved in educating Americans “on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

The staffers in the Cincinnati field office were making high-level decisions on how to evaluate the groups because a decade ago the IRS assigned all applications to that unit. The IRS also eliminated an automatic after-the-fact review process Washington used to conduct such determinations.

Marcus Owens, who oversaw tax-exempt groups at the IRS between 1990 and 1999, said that delegation “carries with it a risk” because the Cincinnati office “isn’t as plugged into what’s [politically] sensitive as Washington.”

Owens, now with the firm Caplin & Drysdale, said that before the agency’s most recent reorganization, it had a series of “tripwires in place” that could catch unfair targeting, including the fact that the IRS identified its criteria for special scrutiny in a public manual.

“There’s no longer that safety valve, and as a result, the IRS has been rolling the dice ever since,” said Owens, who worked at the agency for nearly a quarter-century and now represents some organizations seeking tax-exempt status.
The IRS came under withering attack from GOP lawmakers Sunday. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate Republican, described the practice as “absolutely chilling” and called on President Obama to condemn the effort.

“This is truly outrageous,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that even though White House spokesman Jay Carney has said the matter deserves an investigation, “the president needs to make crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable in America.”

In March 2012, then-IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, told Congress that the agency was not targeting conservative groups. On Sunday, the agency declined to answer questions about whether senior officials asked IRS exempt organizations division chief Lois G. Lerner and her staff in Cincinnati about this heightened scrutiny before testifying it did not take place.

“There has to be accountability for the people who did it,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding: “And, quite frankly, up until a few days ago, there’s got to be accountability for people who were telling lies about it being done.”

The appendix of the inspector general’s report — which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be publicly released — chronicles the extent to which the IRS’s exempt organizations division kept redefining what sort of “social welfare” groups it should single out for extra attention since the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision allowed corporations and labor unions to raise and spend unlimited sums on elections as well as register for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, as long as their “primary purpose” was not targeting electoral candidates.

The number of political groups applying for tax-exempt status more than doubled in the wake of the Citizens United ruling, forcing agency officials to make a slew of determinations despite uncertainty about the category’s ambiguous definition.

Of the 298 groups selected for special scrutiny, according to the congressional aide, 72 had “tea party” in their title, 13 had “patriot” and 11 had “9/12.” Lerner, who apologized Friday for the targeting of such groups, described it as a misguided effort to deal with a flood of applications for tax-exempt status. She did not release the names of the groups.

On June 29, 2011, according to the documents, IRS staffers held a briefing with Lerner in which they described giving special attention to instances where “statements in the case file criticize how the country is being run.” She raised an objection, and the agency adopted a more general set of standards. Lerner, who is a Democrat, is not a political appointee.

But six months later, the IRS applied a new political test to social welfare groups, the document says. On Jan. 15, 2012, the agency decided to look at “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement,” according to the appendix in the IG’s report.

The agency did not appear to adopt a more neutral test for 501(c)(4) groups until May 17, 2012, according to the timeline in the report. At that point, the IRS again updated its criteria to focus on “organizations with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention (raising questions as to exempt purpose and/or excess private benefit.)”

Campaign reform groups have been pressing the IRS for several years to conduct greater oversight of nonprofits formed in the wake of the Citizens United case, given that many have become heavily involved in elections. “But this isn’t the type of enforcement we want,” said Paul Ryan, a senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. “We want nonpartisan, non-biased enforcement.”

Loyola Law School professor Ellen Aprill, who specializes in tax law, said any groups that have applied for tax-exempt status has “opened themselves up to scrutiny” by the IRS. “It’s part of their job to look for organizations that may be more likely to have too much campaign intervention,” she said. “But it is important to try to make these criteria as politically neutral as possible.”

Aprill said one of the problems is the agency’s top officials have not provided clear enough guidelines on what constitutes too much political activity for a social welfare group because it’s been “a hot potato,” and that now with this new controversy, “it’s going to make it even more difficult to do so.”

Toby Marie Walker, president of the Waco Tea Party, said the IRS subjected her group to a series of unreasonable requests after it applied for tax-exempt status in June 2010. The requests came in early 2012, Walker said, after being initially informed by an official in the Cincinnati field office that he was “sitting on a stack of tea party applications and they were awaiting word from higher-ups as to how to process them.”

The agency asked the group’s treasurer to supply information on its “close relationship” with current candidates and elected officials as well as future candidates, along with detailed information about its contributors and members. It also asked for transcripts of any radio interviews its officials had done and hard copies of any news articles mentioning them.

“That would take me years to do,” Walker said, noting that in some cases, Chinese media outlets referred to her organization. “Am I responsible for every news article across the globe?”

The group had even more difficulty providing transcripts and details of speakers at its events, since they hosted informal gatherings such as “rant contests” where anyone could come and express their views.

While the IRS awarded the Waco Tea Party tax-exempt status about six weeks ago, Walker said the group was now considering suing the agency since the process not only consumed time and effort but prompted the group to scale back its 2012 get-out-the-vote operation. “We were afraid to do it and get in trouble,” she said.

Sal Russo, chief strategist for the Tea Party Express, said that even though the agency’s actions intimidated tea party adherents, he gives the IRS “credit for standing up and admitting” it targeted them. And while only two of the agency’s officials — the commissioner and the chief counsel — are political appointees, Russo said the administration needs to conduct better oversight.

“The culture is set at the top,” Russo said. “Obviously you can’t control what every employee does. But you have to set a standard, particularly with the IRS, to be squeaky clean.”


Josh Hicks and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Discuss this topic and other political issues in the politics discussion forums.

TPM  (talkingpointsmemo)

IRS Knew Tea Party Was Targeted In 2011 

 

 

 

 

Stephen Ohlemacher May 11, 2013,

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011, according to a draft of an inspector general’s report obtained by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner.

The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.

But on June 29, 2011, Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog’s report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with “Tea Party,” ”Patriot” or “9/12 Project” in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says.

The 9-12 Project is a group started by conservative TV personality Glenn Beck.
Lerner instructed agents to change the criteria for flagging groups “immediately,” the report says.

The Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration is expected to release the results of a nearly yearlong investigation in the coming week. The AP obtained part of the draft report, which has been shared with congressional aides.

Among the other revelations, on Aug. 4, 2011, staffers in the IRS’ Rulings and Agreements office “held a meeting with chief counsel so that everyone would have the latest information on the issue.”

On Jan, 25, 2012, the criteria for flagging suspect groups was changed to, “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement,” the report says.

While this was happening, several committees in Congress were writing IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman to express concern because tea party groups were complaining of IRS harassment.

In Shulman’s responses, he did not acknowledge targeting of tea party groups. At a congressional hearing March 22, 2012, Shulman was adamant in his denials.

“There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people” who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman said at the House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing.

The portion of the draft report reviewed by the AP does not say whether Shulman or anyone else in the Obama administration outside the IRS was informed of the targeting. But it is standard procedure for agency heads to consult with staff before responding to congressional inquiries.

Shulman was appointed by President George W. Bush, a Republican. His 6-year term ended in November. President Barack Obama has yet to nominate a successor. The agency is now run by an acting commissioner, Steven Miller.
The IRS had no immediate response on Saturday.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

IRS

Toxic Chemicals and Toxic Metals: Cadmium, Mercury and Phthalates—Oh My!

Published on Sunday, May 5, 2013 by Think Forward Blog

Cadmium, Mercury and Phthalates—Oh My!

by Kathleen Schuler

 

Over 5000 children’s products contain toxic chemicals linked to cancer, hormone disruption and reproductive problems, including the toxic metals, cadmium, mercury and antimony, as well as phthalates and solvents. A new report by the Washington Toxics Coalition and Safer States reveals the results of manufacturer reporting to the Washington State Department of Ecology.





Makers of kids’ products reported using 41 of the 66 chemicals identified by WA Ecology as a concern for children’s health. Major manufacturers who reported using the chemicals in their products include Walmart, Gap, Gymboree, Hallmark, H & M and others. They use these chemicals in an array of kids’ products, including clothing, footwear, toys, games, jewelry, accessories, baby products, furniture, bedding, arts and crafts supplies and personal care products. Besides exposing kids in the products themselves, some of these chemicals, for example toxic flame retardants, build up in the environment and in the food we eat.

Examples of product categories reported to contain toxic chemicals include:

• Hallmark party hats containing cancer-causing arsenic
• Graco car seats containing the toxic flame retardant TBBPA (tetrabromobisphenol A)
• Claire’s cosmetics containing cancer-causing formaldehyde
• Walmart dolls containing hormone-disrupting bisphenol A

The chemical reports are required under Washington State’s Children’s Safe Products Act of 2008. A searchable database of chemical use reports filed with the Washington State Department of Ecology is available at http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/swfa/cspa/search.html.

Like Washington, the Minnesota Department of Health has published a list or priority chemicals in children’s products. Eight of the nine chemicals on this list are also on the Washington list. The nine priority chemicals are lead, cadmium, bisphenol A, formaldehyde, two brominated flame retardants and three phthalates. However, in Minnesota, manufacturers are not required to report if they use a priority chemical in a children’s product—so both states agencies and consumers are in the dark when it comes to these chemicals.  Last month Minnesota’s Senate Commerce Committee voted down the Toxic Free Kids Act of 2013, a bill that would have required such reporting.

Minnesota can take a lesson from the Washington experience. Manufacturers were able to produce this information without undue burden and yes these chemicals are in products our kids are chewing on, touching and inhaling every day! It’s time for Minnesota to follow Washington’s lead and require manufacturers to submit the same type of data.   I urge the Minnesota Legislature to come back in 2014 and pass the Toxic Free Kids Act.

© 2013 Institute for Trade and Agricultural Policy (IATP)

Kathleen Schuler, MPH, is a senior policy analyst in the Food and Health Program at the Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy, which advocates for policies that protect human health and the environment from the toxic chemicals that contaminate our food system and our bodies. Kathleen is also Co-Director of Healthy Legacy, a Minnesota-based campaign that advocates for public policies and business practices that focus on safer products and safer production methods.