The IRS targeting of tea party members

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Bone

Correction: Katy Tea Party is a 501(c)(4) entity from what I can tell. About a 501(c)(4) entity:

In clarifying, the IRS says:
There’s probably some hair splitting there, but there could be daylight.

Almost all the scrutiny was towards 501(c)(4) groups because the line on political activity for 501(c)(3) groups was pretty brightly drawn (its why churches can’t be too overtly political). 501(c)(4) status was less strictly enforced mostly because the tax advantage was not as great (donations are not deductible but donations to them are not counted as income to the organization either). A lot of the Tea party groups elected to be 501(c)(4) and they frequently seemed too political so they start to target them. its a form of profiling. If you have the words “tea Party” in the name of your social welfare organization, you got flagged to be checked for too much political activity.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@nelliebly

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.

501(c)(4) donations are not tax deductible.

[DrDeth]

@Bone

From the IG report:

It’s accurate to say that the IRS targeted tea party groups. They also targeted others. I’m pretty comfortable with what I wrote in May-2013:

I disagree. By no means did the iRS target tea party groups. They targeted groups with political sounding names, purely to take a shortcut in cutting down a backlog.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

The strange part is where we got the idea that Tea Party groups aren’t primary political institutions.

[DrDeth]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

The strange part is where we got the idea that Tea Party groups aren’t primary political institutions.

And by and large they mostly were anyway.

[Bone]

@DrDeth

I disagree. By no means did the iRS target tea party groups. They targeted groups with political sounding names, purely to take a shortcut in cutting down a backlog.

That’s not what the IG report says.

In addition, several
organizations applying for Internal Revenue Code (I.R.C.) Section (§) 501(c)(4) tax-exempt
status made allegations that, because of their political leanings, the IRS: 1) targeted specific
groups applying for tax-exempt status, 2) delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications,
and 3) requested unnecessary information from targeted groups. Soon thereafter, we conducted
an audit of the process and criteria the IRS informed us it relied on for selecting potential
political cases1 for further review from May 2010 through May 2012.
We found that the IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review organizations
applying for** tax-exempt status based upon their names**2 or policy positions3 instead of indications
of significant potential political campaign intervention.

…

1 Until July 11, 2011, the Rulings and Agreements office within the IRS’s Exempt Organizations function referred to
these cases as** “Tea Party” cases.** Afterwards, the Exempt Organizations function referred to the cases as
“advocacy” cases.

They targeted based on names. One of the names targeted was “tea party”. That’s from page 1.

In August 2015, the Senate Committee on Finance concluded a more than two-year investigation
into the IRS’s actions and issued a bipartisan report.6
It found that “…from 2010 to 2013,
IRS management was delinquent in its responsibility to provide effective control, guidance, and
direction over the processing of applications for tax-exempt status filed by Tea Party and other
political advocacy organizations.”

And this:

It should be noted that when the Determinations Unit began identifying cases with political
issues in Calendar Year 2010,** the Tea Party case coordinators did not accept “progressive” cases
for review. Instead, they sent them back to general inventory or the person who referred them
because they did not meet the Tea Party criterion.** Progressive cases did not appear on the
political issues tracking sheet until the advocacy criteria on the Emerging Issues tab of the
BOLO listing were changed to a broader definition in July 2011 at the request of the former
Director, EO.

They had “Tea Party Case Coordinator” positions.

If that doesn’t fit your definition of “targeting”, well, okay.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@DrDeth

I disagree. By no means did the iRS target tea party groups. They targeted groups with political sounding names, purely to take a shortcut in cutting down a backlog.

@Bone

That’s not what the IG report says.

They targeted based on names. One of the names targeted was “tea party”. That’s from page 1.
And this:

They had “Tea Party Case Coordinator” positions.

If that doesn’t fit your definition of “targeting”, well, okay.

The problem is that the way you’re saying it is misleading, Bone. Saying “they targeted tea party groups” implies that other groups that were not tea party groups were not targeted; that isn’t the case. It also implies that tea party groups were the only group under scrutiny, which also was not the case. It’s akin to claiming that a raid by ICE “targeted short people” because short people were picked up in the raid.

Is it really necessary to try and mislead people on this issue? Aren’t the facts enough?

[Bone]

@Snowboarder_Bo

The problem is that what you’re saying is misleading, Bone. Saying “they targeted tea party groups” implies that other groups that were not tea party groups were not targeted; that isn’t the case. It also implies that tea party groups were the only group under scrutiny, which also was not the case. It’s akin to claiming that a raid by ICE “targeted short people” because short people were picked up in the raid.

Is it really necessary to try and mislead people on this issue? Aren’t the facts enough?

That’s kind of exactly what I said.

@Bone

It’s accurate to say that the IRS targeted tea party groups. **They also targeted others. **

No implication necessary - I said it explicitly, and quoted from the report the ratio of groups targeted.

It’s also not accurate that they just happened to give scrutiny to Tea Party groups, or short people in your example. They explicitly referred to these types of organizations. They also targeted ACORN type groups. There were 17 categories of groups that got flagged as well, which is detailed in the report. Not sure how that’s misleading and I think from the get go that was clear what was happening, hence my May-2013 post saying basically the same thing.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@Bone

That’s kind of exactly what I said.

No implication necessary - I said it explicitly, and quoted from the report the ratio of groups targeted.

It’s also not accurate that they just happened to give scrutiny to Tea Party groups, or short people in your example. They explicitly referred to these types of organizations. They also targeted ACORN type groups. There were 17 categories of groups that got flagged as well, which is detailed in the report. Not sure how that’s misleading and I think from the get go that was clear what was happening, hence my May-2013 post saying basically the same thing.

If everyone was “targeted” the use of the word becomes meaningless; is that what you’re trying to illustrate?

[Bone]

Not everyone was targeted. Specific things were targeted. The criteria was in the report - there were 17 criteria that they documented their efforts around. So it’s fair to say they targeted the string “We the People” because that’s located on page 91. It’s not fair to say they targeted people named Jennifer. Have you read the report?

[DrDeth]

Remember the IRS Scandal? It was Fake News All Along

REMEMBER THE IRS SCANDAL? IT WAS FAKE NEWS ALL ALONG…,Now we have proof that the first prong of the non-scandal was never true. The IRS did use politically-oriented search terms to try to sort through applicants for inappropriate levels of political activity, but it did not do so on a partisan or ideological basis. And even so, they stopped using those search terms, in an effort to avoid even the appearance of political intent in their reviews.