The IRS Scandal

[kalm]

Obviously both sides are taking advantage of the 501(c)(4) and should be scrutinized. It's laughable that Crossroads GPS and Organizing For America are "social welfare" organizations.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-ask ... f=politics" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

HuffPo

One of the last rats still on the ship.

Nice post Baldy! Full of substance.

[Baldy]

Obviously both sides are taking advantage of the 501(c)(4) and should be scrutinized. It's laughable that Crossroads GPS and Organizing For America are "social welfare" organizations.

It's understandable that IRS agents operate under less than clear guidelines when it comes to vetting applications for 501(c)(4) status. Nor is it true that only conservative-leaning groups were scrutinized. Groups with the term "progressive" in their names -- "Progressive Texas," "Progressive Missouri" and "Progressives United" -- also were audited. And if more conservative groups were scrutinized, it's also true that far more exemption applications were filed from the right than from the left. (Note: 501(c)(4) status exempts the recipient from taxes on the contributions it receives; donors get no deduction.)

Enter Rove and the real 501(c)(4) scandal.

While controversy swirls around penny-ante local tea parties, Rove's Crossroads GPS has been operating for years under 501(c)(4) status, in defiance of the law and despite constant demands from reform groups that the IRS investigate its spending. But to be fair, it's not only conservative political action groups that have avoided investigation. The well-endowed, pro-Obama Organizing for America also operates as a 501(c)(4) while the IRS looks the other way.

Here again, the IRS' failure to define "political" gets in the way. These clearly political operations can claim that 51 percent of their expenditures are "educational," though obviously intended to "educate" the public for political and electoral ends.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-ask ... f=politics" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cool story, bro, and that probably deserves its own thread. The gist of the problem in this conversation is that only one side is being scrutinized.

[Bronco]

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Didn't this guy just testify that he doesn't recall what was discussed at the White house meetings
he must have a very bad memory with this many meetings

IRS Chief's 118 White House Visits Must Be Explained
Investors.com ^ | May 28, 2013 | Editorial

Scandal: One IRS commissioner visited Obama's White House 118 times in 2010 and 2011. His successor also dropped in often. But under George W. Bush, the tax chief visited once in four years. Time for an audit.

As the Washington Examiner noted last weekend, ex-commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service Douglas Shulman went to the White House some 118 times in 2010 and 2011, while Steven Miller, the acting director who took over from Shulman last November, himself made numerous trips there, White House visitor logs show.

Business as usual for one of the most powerful arms of the federal government, you might think. Not so.

Mark Everson, who ran the IRS during most of the George W. Bush administration, from 2003 to 2007, apparently visited a single time, grousing that he felt like he had "moved to Siberia" because the tax collection agency was so out of the policy loop.

[CID1990]

HuffPo

One of the last rats still on the ship.

Nice post Baldy! Full of substance.

Substance is wasted on you.

[kalm]

Nice post Baldy! Full of substance.

Substance is wasted on you.

No...you are.