That’s right-they went after groups that sounded like political parties. They are supposed to.
What part of the law are you having trouble with here?
This is kind of an inexact analogy, but if I widely circulate my view that marijuana should be legal, is it improper for the cops to search my house regularly?
What is wrong with it is that the application of the law should be equal to everyone. It was wrong when the Bush justice department was firing US attorneys because they were not manufacturing cases against democrats for voter fraud, and it is wrong when the IRS does it too. An investigation should be conducted down to every employee doing this. I suspect that the people doing it are non-tea party republicans doing it on suggestion from the Karl Rove wing.
Sure. But how about if you get all your money from the billionaire paraphernalia mogul Tommy Chong? How about if you spend all that money supporting Congressman Throckmorton (R-Etard) but without ever directly endorsing? So that Tommy Chong, who can only legally spend a given amount of money supporting candidates effectively gets a tax break for supporting Congressman Throckmorton?
Does any of that apply here?
I meant what I wrote. If the IRS targeted MoveOn.org because of the positions they hold or espouse, would be inappropriate. If the IRS targeted Tea Party groups because of the positions they hold or espouse, that would be inappropriate.
It’s a bit grey because non-profit status orgs have limited ability to push for particular candidates and other rules governing their status, so if they were checking that or something in their applications indicated they would not be able to meet these requirements then additional scrutiny may be appropriate. I don’t think this is what happened.
If it is wrong for Group 1 to do action “A”, it is equally wrong for Group 2 to do totally unrelated action “B”. What?
The IRS says it was trying to select out 501(c)(4)s that were politically motivated (and thus likely to be electioneering) for review vs those that weren’t. I agree what they should’ve done (and what they did do, once the IRS officials outside the Cincinnati office found out about the criteria they were using), is use some criteria that doesn’t refer to the specific beliefs of the groups.
But as a practical matter, if your a IRS bureaucrat in 2010 looking at which groups applying for tax-exempt status are participating in political activity, and trying to come up with a heuristic to quickly tag them as such, your going to end up with a bunch of rightwing buzzwords. The bureaucrats political motivation isn’t really relevant, the nature of the US politlcal scene that year was such that most politically active groups being formed were rightwing ones.
They shouldn’t have used those buzzwords (or at least, they should’ve gone back and pulled some buzzwords from 2005-2007 applications, to fill out the liberal side), but I don’t think the explanation for why the did so is particularly unlikely.
“Rich assholes”. Is that one category or two?
Also, I’m not following your reasoning here. Is the IRS to make the determination of who has “good sense” and who doesn’t when they decide whom to scrutinize more than others?
Emphasis added. Why? Left-wing groups don’t have buzzwords attached to them? And, of course, one would hope that these guys are less worried about doing things “quickly” than correctly.
What if Tea Party groups were targeted because they don’t exactly hide the fact that they are political in nature and support specific individuals?
That was not intended to be taken literally. I am left to believe that you knew that and was just giving me some shit, or you have as much sense of humor as a brick.
C’mon, John, seriously? You really thought I was suggesting a “good sense” criterion for tax law purposes? No shit?
From the Washington Times:
(my bold)
The rules governing non-profit status don’t say you can’t be political at all. They are very specific in what is off limits. The things that were being targeted were not what was off limits, advocating for a particular candidate, etc. That is why this was inappropriate.
err..for the reason I gave in my post.
Most new groups being formed in 2010 were rightwing ones, so if you were associating buzzwords with new political groups, you ended up with a bunch of rightwing words. If you did the same analysis in 2005, the heyday of Moveon and the netroots movement, you’d end up with a bunch of leftwing (and I imagine specifically, anti-war) groups. The IRS should’ve created (and did create) a more politically blind criteria. But in the end, I suspect that would’ve just been a cosmetic change, the groups investigated would’ve been rightwing groups because those were the groups being formed.
That’s the IRS’s story anyways. I find it plausible, and so disagree with Oakminster that the IRS’s motivations were obviously political, but we’ll find out more when the full report is released.
The IRS commissioner during the probe was Donald Shulman, a holdover from the Bush administration. He left his job last November. There’s an acting commissioner right now, but he assumed his acting role well after the Cincinnati probe ended. So if heads have to roll wouldn’t it be that guys? who’s already gone? or the acting commissioner who had nothing to do with it?
From Algher’s link:
Extra scrutiny of applications they already have is hardly the same as getting repeated search warrants. Were the groups forced to appear? Submit additional paperwork for no non-political reason?
This only goes for anti-tax groups. I see no justification in targeting more general anti-government groups unless they are treading a fine line as supposedly charitable political organizations.
To say anything but any ilegal thing should never be a reason for any legal action. Police can´t search your house without a court order and, as I said, there is no legal reason to any court action.
Most? What was the ratio of right-wing to left-wing groups being formed?
Dunno. As I said, its the IRS’s story. Presumably the full report will say whether the numbers and internal communications back them up. But I certainly find it plausible that 2010 featured a lot more new tea-party type groups then similar left-wing groups.
I agree it sounds much less burdensome than that- especially if they didn’t even have to do any extra paperwork. But the point is that allowing government agencies to take extra looks at people based on their political views is difficult territory, and advocating for changes in the last doesn’t give the government an excuse to assume you’re violating the law. And I think it should be stressed that people who are saying it makes sense for the IRS to scrutinize Tea Party members based on the Tea Party’s politics are missing some key details of the story - and they’re inadvertently endorsing with the ‘the tyrannical IRS is persecuting us!’ story that you know some people are going to want to tell.
And if there’s less to this story than it appears, I wouldn’t be surprised.
I didn’t see where you said it was the IRS’s story, but note that your original claim was not just “most” but “almost all”. I would find that very remarkable, if true.