Maybe the IRS WASN’T Wrong About the Tea Party Groups

[BlueStreak]

29. And how do you know that?

I have not seen it reported ANYWHERE that the IRS ONLY took "patriot" and "Tea Party" as keywords. I believe this situation is that they scanned for a longer list of keywords, but these were the only two that the right wing manufactured outrage machine wants to talk about.

It is about priorities. It makes no sense to spend the same amount of time looking at

"Central City Food Gleaners for the Homeless"

and

"Patriots who are Fed Up to Here with Presidents that - um - Aren't Like Us"

In 10 minutes, you can easily determine if the first of those looks like its activities will match the title and be done with it.

About a decade ago, I formed a 501(c)(3) for volunteers who give instrumental music instruction to central city kids that are not likely to ever have private teachers. Our group is obviously charitable, with only one position paid. Yet it still took over a year to get our determination letter. What we should be talking about are these fraudulent "social welfare" groups abusing the tax code and wasting the IRS' resources, making it harder for legitimate 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s to get their determinations.