Key Arizona Tea Party groups say IRS did not give them additional review

[bemildred]

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Several groups contacted Friday said they had not had their books audited. But the reason may be simple: The IRS was looking at organizations incorporated as a 501(c)(4), a particular type of nonprofit.

Trent Humphries, former president of the Tucson Tea Party, said his group took specific action to avoid such a review.

"We were warned by other groups that if you try to do type of 501 (c)(4) or anything like that, yeah, they're going to come after you, and hard,'' he said. Humphries, a co-founder of the organization, was a conscious choice not to seek that status.

Traditional charities, organized under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code cannot get involved at all in politics.

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/arizona/politics/article_0cdca1ca-bbe7-11e2-b70a-0019bb2963f4.html

Xpost in LBN.

[LiberalFighter]

1. Couldn't find out from story how they filed.

[bemildred]

2. Well, it is clear not as a 501(c)(4), which is the point.

It is about the filing status being used, not being "conservative".

[BlueStreak]

3. Yes, exactly. it is about idenitifying groups that are abusing tax-free status

Legitimate political groups are not tax-free. The IRS was looking for organizations that wanted to offer tax-free donations to their donors, but still wanted to be in the middle of political campaigns.

For Obama to come out and condemn this is completely irresponsible on his part. He once again is cowering in fear of his adversaries at the slightest threat.

You have to stand up to bullies.

[bemildred]

4. I think he does not want to be distracted by this bullshit.

Which is sensible since distraction is one of the purposes of this bullshit.
Not saying he is right, but it does fit his style.

[Bonduel]

5. 2 questions

1. How many "liberal" groups were audited in the same situation. There had to be "liberal" or "progressive" groups seeking the same ta free status. If we can show that these groups were also targeted then this is not a scandal at all.

2. Hasn't the IRS already admitted to doing this. It seems difficult to rationalize this or make excuses for something they have already apologized for.

I certainly don't believe the Obama administration had anything to do with this but this is bad in my opinion. They should get to the bottom of this and fire those who did this and those who knew about it and lied.

[BlueStreak]

6. Who was audited?

Seriously. Who was inconvenienced by what seems to be a normal internal IRS process for identifying organizations that may be cheating on their tax status?

The only thing I have heard was that the IRS has a scanner that looks for various words when evaluating organizations seeking tax free status. That that included "Tea Party" along with many other keywords. That is perfectly normal. The IRS is allowed to use 20th century tools after all.

I haven't heard of a single case where a teabagger organization was audited wrongfully or otherwise intimidated by the IRS. Can you please identify one, and then we can have a meaningful discussion. Until that happens, this President is flat out wrong for admitting anything wrong and/or apologizing.

[Bonduel]

9. The IRS and the President has admitted this was wrong.

The IRS should not be using their power to go after one political side. It is wrong and we would be screaming if this had come out against a Republican President and rightfully so. I am tired of people making excuses. I don't think the President had any knowledge but it is his presidency and swift action needs to be taken. Now if they can show all the searches they did with the word "green", "progressive", "liberal" and all of the audits they did on those groups then I will pull back on my statement. Until then this is wrong. I don't want my President, who I voted for twice, to be excused for things we would never accept from the other side.

And, by the way, I don't care what the Repugs have done that is worse. We should be the adults, the grown ups. If we excuse this then the next Repug will go farther and we won't have a leg to stand on because we have looked the other way.

[Chan790]

7. 501(c)4's can't accept tax-free donations.

That's only for 501(c)3s.

501(c)4's are tax-exempt in that they don't have to pay taxes and they're not legally required to disclose who their donors are or who's paying their bills and only in a very-limited sense what they're doing with the money...hence why donations to political 501(c)4s are the so-called "dark money" in politics.

501(c)3s are required to disclose their donors because those donations are tax-deductible and they're required to file paperwork accounting for what they're doing with the money because there are a lot more restrictions on what a (c)3 can do with donations than there are on a c(4).

[BlueStreak]

8. Thanks for the clarification. But the point still stands

There are clear advantages from getting EITHER of those determinations. And it is the IRS's job to look into who is seeking any special status. Given that the IRS doesn't have enough personnel to do an in-depth investigation of every possible application, how else could they do this? It makes perfect sense to have first-level filters to put a focus on the applications that are most likely to deserve further attention.

And again, is there a shred of evidence that any deserving organization was denied their status?

[Bonduel]

10. It is not whether they could or had the right to audit these groups

The question is did they abuse their power by only focusing on conservative groups. It sure seems as though they did because they have admitted to it. I wish people would stop making excuses. We will look more credible if we say this is wrong and we have faith that our President will clean this up and fire those who are responsible.

[BlueStreak]

11. What the hell does "focusing on" mean?

All they did was use a computer to scan through applications to find the ones that deserved a human look.

Who was injured? Who was harmed in any way by this? What deserving organization was denied their status?

As if the IRS is not supposed to "focus on" their job?