Would any attempt at presorting be a violation? Would heightened scrutiny towards groups with “Tax Revolt” in their name be a violation? Is the IRS, in contrast, supposed to randomly select groups for extra scrutiny?
Oh, bullshit. You’re pulling a stupid debate tactic, which is to assume that my lack of agreement with you must be due to dishonesty, because what else could it be? If you can’t grant me the basic decency of assuming I’m not lying to you, then we’re done talking.
[Edit: And it turns out that you’re misremembering. Congress didn’t fund ACORN to get out the vote with Democratic voters. It got money to assist low-income citizens with housing issues.]
Assuming you’ll back off of that particular obnoxiousness, though, I didn’t say it’s not political. I said it’s less political than endorsing a candidate, which is itself less political than running for office.
How many people can you think of that endorsed a candidate under the purview of ACORN (not ACORN Votes, its explicitly political and non-tax-exempt cousin organization)? How many people can you think of that ran for office explicitly saying they were an ACORN candidate?
None, of course, because that’s not what ACORN did.
How many people can you think of that endorsed a candidate under the purview of the Tea Party? How many people can you think of that ran for office explicitly saying they were a Tea Party candidate?
So if I show you that Congress knew about it before the election, you’ll change your mind?
If you are referring to the BHO foundatation, I don’t think anyone is attempting to smear the president with that one. It’s just amusing and, if true, shows how incomptetent the IRS can be.
I think you are incorrect. Although any number of groups that are not conservative may have been scrutinized, the IRS targeted conservative groups. They set up a list of words to search for like “tea party” and “patriot”. The IRS chief admitted targeting conservative groups and stated that there was no such list that would have snared left-wing groups such as “progressive”, etc.
If they were conservative groups, promoting conservative causes, in what way were they not political?
They are just as political as liberal groups supporting liberal causes. The IRS should treat them equally, no?
Also, let’s not forget, the IRS gave the progressive group ProPublica nine confidential applications of conservative groups with pending tax-exempt status. Seen through this lens it is very difficult to make the case that the IRS was not targeting conservative groups.
Well, sure but what do you mean by “equally”? Do you mean that if, in any given year, five hundred conservative groups apply for exemption and only ten liberal groups apply, then they can only investigate ten conservative groups?
If the liberal group has a membership of fifty and a budget in the high three figures, are they equal with a conservative group lavished with funds by wealthy donors?
How did they get picked? By names, yes? They branded themselves, for the most part, didn’t they? Their whole appeal was based on their conservative agenda, as advertised. How then can they claim to be innocent of political intent?
I would assume they would pick groups for additional scrutiny based on the same way they have always done it. In your scenario if the IRS stuck its hand in a hat and pullled out names of orgs to scrutinize then, yes, they would have ended up with more conservative groups. That’s not what happened. They targeted groups based on particular words in their name.
Also, when the targeting began the number of 501(c)(4) applications were down from the previous year. Using the excuse of a flood of applications is a misdirection.
That governs what the IRS can do with information reported. It doesn’t follow that such information must be reported in the first place.
well it seems pretty obvious to me. obviously YMMV. I’m not pretending Tea-Party is non-partisan.
OK, well I’m remembering it differently than you did: “Project Vote is supposed to be separate from ACORN, at least on paper. But as Matthew Vadum writes, “Although legally separate entities, in practice the two are the same, as the congressional testimony of former ACORN/Project Vote employee Anita MonCrief can attest. They share office space, employees, and budgets. Project Vote continues to operate out of ACORN’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.””
well I thought that was obvious just as it’s obvious that trolling for votes in a Democratic area using Democratic operatives is tantamount to endorsing a candidate. I wanted you to admit there is a democratic side to the same coin of IRS oversight.
I actually find it disturbing that you aren’t aware that both parties focus their resources on different candidates. ACORN and Tea Party 501c groups aren’t wandering the countryside like Johnny Appleseed sowing votes.
:dubious:
Change my mind about what?
Sure – except that IRS regulations forbid that kind of criteria being used. In the same way, we might imagine the police department infiltrating anti-WTO groups when their own regulations require a warrant before they do so.
We might applaud the police process and initiative if we hear of it, but that doesn’t erase the violation.
They’re not supposed to select anyone for extra scrutiny.
They are allowed to refer suspicious entries to an investigative unit, but their job was to collect X pieces of information and determine if those pieces of information qualified for 501(c)(4). They were not permitted to independently decide to apply extra scrutiny to particular groups.
Come on, RNATB. Are you kidding?
Every 501(c)(4) organization with annual gross receipts over $50,000 must file a Form 990 with the IRS every year. They must identify each and every donor on Schedule B.
Indeed. Because the names they chose were to reflect their “brand”, which is decidedly political. “Free Doughnuts for the Homeless” is social welfare. “Tea Party” is political.
If you start the Lock and Load Ammo Afficianados, do people join expecting to knit doilies? If you are not supposed to be political and you announce yourself as political, that shouldn’t raise suspicions? If it does raise suspicions, that is unfair bias?
Dunno, maybe. Had they finished processing the previous years filings? Do they need to check to see if people are still in compliance? If their responsibilities are ongoing, then there is the cumulative effect as well as the sudden upsurge.
And by the way, you didn’t really answer my questions. Outside of utterly random selection, what other forms of selection would you insist upon in order to be “equal”?
Certainly, and again, I think they acted foolishly. My disagreement isn’t over that; my disagreement is over whether they were showing a double standard.
We don’t have the necessary information to answer that question.
Well other than an IRS Commissioner admitting it happened.
Agreed.
Disagreed.
Me, I find it disturbing that you aren’t aware that the Republican Party has the elephant as their symbol. I mean, as long as we’re making up things to be disturbed about and accusing the other person of not knowing things they obviously know.
Once more: I fully acknowledge that ACORN knew what they were about when they did voting drives. They knew it would benefit Democratic candidates.
However, their actions are also justifiable in a social welfare means: they were increasing voter turnout by going to areas where there were high numbers of nonvoters and registering them.
That’s very different from Tea Party folks who endorse candidates or run for office themselves.
Where’s that in the code?