When the IRS targeted liberals
While few are defending the Internal Revenue Service for targeting some 300 conservative groups, there are two critical pieces of context missing from the conventional wisdom on the scandal. First, at least from what we know so far, the groups were not targeted in a political vendetta but rather were executing a makeshift enforcement test (an ugly one, mind you) for IRS employees tasked with separating political groups not allowed to claim tax-exempt status, from bona fide social welfare organizations. Employees are given almost zero official guidance on how to do that, so they went after Tea Party groups because those seemed like they might be political. Keep in mind, the commissioner of the IRS at the time was a Bush appointee.
The second is that while this is the first time this kind of thing has become a national scandal, its not the first time such activity has occurred.
I wish there was more GOP interest when I raised the same issue during the Bush administration, where they audited a progressive church in my district in what look liked a very selective way, California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said on MSNBC Monday. I found only one Republican, [North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones], that would join me in calling for an investigation during the Bush administration. Im glad now that the GOP has found interest in this issue and it ought to be a bipartisan concern.
The well-known church, All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena, became a bit of a cause célèbre on the left after the IRS threatened to revoke the churchs tax-exempt status over an anti-Iraq War sermon the Sunday before the 2004 election. Jesus [would say], Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine, rector George Regas said from the dais.
Read more: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/when_the_irs_targeted_liberals/
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)was in trouble. Did Romney ever put down on the 47%, never stops.
underpants
(182,271 posts)And it wasnt just churches. In 2004, the IRS went after the NAACP, auditing the nations oldest civil rights group after its chairman criticized President Bush for being the first sitting president since Herbert Hoover not to address the organization. They are saying if you criticize the president we are going to take your tax exemption away from you, then-chairman Julian Bond said. Its pretty obvious that the complainant was someone who doesnt believe George Bush should be criticized, and its obvious of their response that the IRS believes this, too.
Then, in 2006, the Wall Street Journal broke the story of a how a little-known pressure group called Public Interest Watch which received 97 percent of its funds from Exxon Mobile one year managed to get the IRS to open an investigation into Greenpeace. Greenpeace had labeled Exxon Mobil the No. 1 climate criminal. The IRS acknowledged its audit was initiated by Public Interest Watch and threatened to revoke Greenpeaces tax-exempt status, but closed the investigation three months later.
Those cases mostly involved 501(c)3 organizations, which live in a different section of the tax code for real charities like hospitals and schools. The rules are much stronger and better developed for (c)3?s, in part because theyve been around longer. But with social welfare (c)4 groups, the kind of political activity we saw in 2010 and 2012 is so unprecedented that you get cases like Emerge America, a progressive nonprofit that trains Democratic female candidates for public office. The group has chapters across the country, but in 2011, chapters in Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada were denied 501(c)4 tax-exempt status. Leaders called the situation bizarre because in the five years Nevada had waited for approval, the Kentucky chapter was approved, only for the other three to be denied.