Feel free to read the IG’s report, Sam. Since your side lied about this from Day 1… as they lie about so many things… I don’t think it’s up to us to answer your questions.
Lois Lerner also said that conservative groups were targeted. If there was a lie, it originated with her and her attempts to throw the Cincinnati office under the bus.
It’s perverse that they take advantage of the tax code in that fashion regardless of what politics they’re supporting or what party they’re with. It helps to delegitimize actual charities and makes people leery of donating to help those in need because they aren’t certain where those funds are going. No group should get away with it any longer than it takes for their next tax filing to be reviewed.
A conservative twitterer pointed us to the problem in the IG report:
The conserative complaints weren’t about nine years, they were about two years. Using seven years after the scandal came out and presumably resulted in some changed behavior as a benchmark is bullshit.
That is the best anonymous source I’ve ever seen posted in Great Debates. I’d rank it a little below “my post is my cite” for brazenness but right up there for validity.
Why would you need a link to the conservative twitterer pointing it out when it’s right there in the NY Times article that the IG analyzed nine years, when the scandal was about two years of targeting?
I mean, I probably should give Alex Griswold credit, but I didn’t know you’d be so concerned about that.
Conservative twitterer needs to go back from the drawing board. Are you posting from the future?
Since the scandal broke in 2012, it would be tricky for the IRS IG to find seven years of subsequent data to report on. The report is based on data from “August 2004 through June 2013.”
You’re right, I goofed there. Still, why would you look at four years of Bush’s IRS and use that as evidence that there was no scandal? “Native American claims that the US government oppressed them are overblow. Over the last 40 years, only 15 Native Americans have been killed by government agents.”
Who is Alex Griswold and why should I give his statements any consideration?
If I offer you counter-analysis from Ben Dwayover that contradicts Mr. Griswold, would you accept that as proof that Mr. Griswold was wrong? Here: this is from some writer
Sure, if it’s from the NY Times article. The investigation covered NINE years. That’s from the Times. Why would an investigation of the IRS scandal cover four years of the BUsh administration?
Because the bipartisan Senate panel has already reported that any “targeting” by the IRS was not the result of pressure from the administration. So if it existed, it was because IRS personnel were pursuing personal grudges against right-leaning groups. Those would be civil service personnel, so it makes no difference who the POTUS was.
It might. But presumably the same Senate panel which concluded that the Obama administration wasn’t telling the IRS to target anyone would have noticed if the Bush administration was.
My issue is not that the IRS supposedly “targeted” Tea Party organizations for scrutiny; it’s that the IRS granted it to them and other groups despite evidence that some of them did not qualify. From the IRS website:
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It’s no secret that Tea Party organizations have participated in campaigns, including those in opposition to candidates. From the article, “Our Country’s Future” in the October 4, 2012 edition of the online publication *Wake Up America! * of the 501(c)(3) Katy Tea Party:
The Senate Finance Committee concluded back in 2015 that the IRS is primarily guilty of–prepare to be shocked–massive incompetence and inefficiency. The IRS was incredibly and inexcusably slow at processing applications–or, more accurately, NOT processing applications. But the bigger issue, in my book, is that they granted nonprofit status to organizations that clearly didn’t meet the requirements.
I"m sure you’re right that that was the IRS’s reasoning, but I wouldn’t say the Tea Party was organized exclusively to promote social welfare. I suppose you could stretch what constitutes “social welfare” pretty wide, but then contributions to either the GOP or the Democratic Party would be tax-deductible, and they’re not. The ways of the IRS are inscrutable to man…and to the IRS, apparently.
