The IRS audited 10 percent of all Tea Party donors, a rate much higher than for average Americans.
Working for the Democratic Party: The IRS audited 10 percent of all Tea Party donors, a rate much higher than for average Americans.
Republicans said 24 conservative groups were asked for their donor lists. The IRS initially told Congress that those lists were destroyed, but when they went through their files they discovered three lists that weren’t destroyed.
Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, asked the IRS to review the names on those lists to see whether any had been audited. The IRS reported back that 10 percent were audited — substantially higher than the average rate of 1 percent of average Americans who are audited each year.
In other words, the IRS acted as an agent of the Democratic Party to harass and strike fear into their opponents.
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Working for the Democratic Party: The IRS audited 10 percent of all Tea Party donors, a rate much higher than for average Americans.
Republicans said 24 conservative groups were asked for their donor lists. The IRS initially told Congress that those lists were destroyed, but when they went through their files they discovered three lists that weren’t destroyed.
Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, asked the IRS to review the names on those lists to see whether any had been audited. The IRS reported back that 10 percent were audited — substantially higher than the average rate of 1 percent of average Americans who are audited each year.
In other words, the IRS acted as an agent of the Democratic Party to harass and strike fear into their opponents.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“In other words, the IRS acted as an agent of the Democratic Party to harass and strike fear into their opponents.” What exactly did they have to fear? These career IRS officers were Republican. You probably thought they mistakenly thought they’d believe that a Democratic administration would want them to do what they do for Republican administrations. I know I did. It’s almost laughable. The law being disregarded here certainly is.
Another thought: Why would a flood of organizations asking for non-profit status, during an election season, whose goals or actions clearly disqualified them for the asked for status, bitch about scrutiny? I watched the aggrieved parties testimony, and, after all the cacophony, I thought surely one of them were turned down by those wimps at the IRS. Not one.
“Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, asked the IRS to review the names on those lists to see whether any had been audited. The IRS reported back that 10 percent were audited — substantially higher than the average rate of 1 percent of average Americans who are audited each year.” So, 90% of Tea Party organizations are given non-profit educational status with no scrutiny at all. Ain’t that a
bitchkick in the head.I think you have read a different article.
It was not the organizations that were audited but the donors to those organizations. The average citizen. Joe Shmoe.
And almost none of the organizations were approved. All were delayed for years being asked for more and more detailed donor lists, verbatim transcripts of all meetings and copies of all ads, hand outs and paper work they planned on distributing in the future.
Something NO democratic/progressive/liberal organization was ever asked to do.
Liberal organizations were approved at a 10 times faster rate and ten times more liberal organizations were approved in the end.
In fact most of the paperwork given to the IRS ended up being copied and passed on to those very same liberal organizations for some reason. And a few liberal congress men even received copies.
The paperwork is confidential and should have NEVER left the IRS. At all for any reason.
If you think all this is perfectly fine and should be done, then do not get all upset when the same happens to the liberal groups when the republicans regain power.
” You probably thought they mistakenly thought they’d believe that a Democratic administration would want them to do what they do for Republican administrations. I know I did. It’s almost laughable.”
And please explain yourself here. The statement is a bit confusing for one.
And for two, please give examples of what the republicans did that was even close to this.(if you have to reach all the way back to Nixon you have failed already, that was 50 years ago)
Mr. Potter, you are entitled to your opinion, of course, but as the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, you are not entitled to your own facts. I wonder if you have considered how many progressive groups have been granted the same status but were not audited. The 501 (c) (4) provision of the U.S. Tax Code has been in place for decades, so the rules are well established. The provision permits political activity — repeat, the provision permits political activity — so long as political activity does not constitute over 50 percent of the organization’s expenditures. So, in the first place, I would like you to explain how the conservative organizations’ “goals or actions clearly disqualified them.” Then, please provide comparisons between the numbers of conservative and progressive organizations classified as 501 (c) (4), the percentage of each type of group whose applications were approved, and the percentage of progressive groups whose tax returns were audited (courtesy of Mr. Zimmerman, we already know the percentage of conservative groups). Then we will see whose head truly deserves a kick.
Excellent points. I have been warning my liberal friends for some time now that if they do not oppose the illegal behavior of this administration — it is against the law to use any federal agency for political purposes and it is what Richard Nixon tried to do but was rebuffed by the heads of the CIA and the IRS — then they had better be prepared to see all of the same practices used against them by a conservative president and attorney general. But at that point they will have forfeited their right to oppose them.
I think this siutuation has established that the IRS must be eliminated.
All the IRS is is a tool of fear and abuse of power that is used by the government (both party’s) to instill a constant feeling of fear in the populous. I know that the entity “government” has created this tool to accomplish exactly what it accomplishes but a concerted effort must be undertaken to create a taxation scheme that is neutral. People should be able to live their lives, do business and flow a percentage of those endeavors to the operation of the Federal, State and local governments in a non threatening or confiscatory way.
Now that is something worthwhile to begin working on! How does Obama, Marx and now Pikitty dream of accomplishing such a dream. (I guess if they don’t get to tell everyone what they must do or not do they would not be interested in such a dream)
“What exactly did they have to fear?”
Audits and investigations by the IRS and as Lerner’s emails show, jail time.
“Another thought: Why would a flood of organizations asking for non-profit status, during an election season, whose goals or actions clearly disqualified them for the asked for status, bitch about scrutiny?”
It is within the rules for tax exempt organizations to engage in politics as long as they meet the requirements that limit what amount of time that can be spent on political activities. There are tens of thousands of Democrat front groups that are tax exempt and engage in politics. Even Obama’s own campaign organization turned into a tax exempt social welfare organization and received approval in record time.
OFA is explicitly political and its own mission statement declares its purpose to further the agenda of the President Barack Obama. They didn’t face any IRS hurdles. Democrats are not calling for their groups to be treated as the Tea Party groups are. They only want rules to apply to their political opponents.
“I watched the aggrieved parties testimony, and, after all the cacophony, I thought surely one of them were turned down by those wimps at the IRS. Not one.”
You start by saying Tea Party groups were clearly not qualified. Then they should have been open and shut cases but instead Tea Party applications were sent to Washington DC where they sat for over a year before they were even looked at. Tea Party groups have hung in limbo for over three years, never being rejected but always asked for more information, information that was only asked of Tea Party groups. That is according to the IRS IG report. Meanwhile progressive groups were flagged via the bolo list for preferential treatment.
Tea Party and other conservative groups faced years of audits and investigations while Democrat party front groups received speedier than normal approval with zero scrutiny.
“So, 90% of Tea Party organizations are given non-profit educational status with no scrutiny at all.”
No, 100% of tax exempt groups that faced audits were conservative. This refers to donors. 10% of all the donors to the groups persecuted by Obama’s IRS were audited. Every single Tea Party group was singled out for persecution by Obama’s IRS. This already came to light in the IRS IG report. Everything we have learned since then, has shown that the corruption of the Obama administration in the persecution of political dissidents was even worse than what was contained in the report.
Don’t forget that the persecution of political dissidents by Obama’s IRS is still on going, long after it was supposed to have stopped. The IRS political targeting was supposed to have stopped in early 2012 after it had already gone on for two years. The report was withheld from publication for an entire year until after the 2012 election. The political targeting continued throughout 2012, after the investigation was complete. Even as late as 2013, in the days before the IG report was going to be leaked to the media, Lois Lerner was colluding with the FEC and DOJ to put Tea Party groups in jail with the explicit purpose to intimidate conservatives from participating in our democracy.
“The law being disregarded here certainly is.”
You are not concerned with the law. Obama regularly rewrites law by dictate. The IRS was breaking laws by persecuting political dissidents. Tens of thousands of Democrat groups have the same tax exempt status sought by Tea Party groups yet only the Tea Party groups were being held to account for “the law” even though they were not breaking any laws.
Bringing up Nixon is a silly defense. Nixon was impeached and is regarded as one of the worst Presidents in history for his abuses of power. Democrats can’t now claim that Nixon’s actions justify Obama’s and that there is nothing wrong with Obama acting like Nixon.
That would be a good start. The current administration has turned several federal agencies into vehicles for intimidation and political maneuvering: the Department of Justice, particularly its civil rights division; the Bureau of Land Management, as we saw in Nevada; the Department of Education in terms of forcing localities to adopt Common Core and even specific lunch menus; the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board in forcing unions down the throats of businesses and their employees; etc., etc. It would indeed be an excellent precedent to dismantle the IRS outright, finally forcing reform and simplification of the tax code. Lots of work to do for the next administration — if it is an honest one.
I think you misunderstood me. My point was that the federal bureaucracy refused to comply with Nixon’s desires to politicize the CIA and IRS, but Nixon faced impeachment (he was not impeached) and was forced to resign because he merely raised the possibility. This administration, however, has now set the precedent, both with Benghazi and the targeting of conservative political groups, of illegally using federal agencies for political purposes. The actions have not been opposed by Democrats and liberals, so their reaction has cleared the way for turnabout.
Minor correction: Nixon was impeached by the House. He was never convicted by the Senate, which would have removed him from office, because he resigned.
I may be unclear on the impeachment of a president, but the full house did not get the chance to vote on the impeachment proceedings, and I thought that a vote was needed for a president to be considered impeached, not just the charges brought in an impeachment tribunal.
It is my understanding that President Nixon was certain to *be* impeached by a House vote and resigned to avoid the *fact* of impeachment.
Can someone clarify that for me?
Actually, I must correct my correction. I was confusing what happened to Nixon with what happened to Clinton. Nixon was not impeached, he resigned before the House could vote on the matter, knowing that the House was going to vote for impeachment and that the Senate was going to convict, removing him from office.
Clinton was impeached by the full House, and was then not convicted by the Senate.
My mistake. This proves again the wise adage that one shouldn’t rely on memory, but check one’s facts first.
I do believe that Nixon,though he did something questionable, believed in the honor of the presidency.
In the end he could have done a Clinton and forced a vote but knew in his heart that it would forever stain the presidency even worse than anything history reports he did.
The fact the Hillary was on the committee that forced the issue should have taught her that, but she must have forgotten it by the time she became co president with Bill.
I personally don’t think Nixon was not half as bad as revisionist history reports it.
They tend to gloss over a LOT of what the Democrats have done that was even worse through history.
Indeed you are correct. Apologies.
And I did the same thing — confused Clinton’s scandal with Nixon’s. I was correct originally that Nixon was not impeached, because members of his own party went to the White House and told him in the Oval Office for the good of the country he must resign, which he did. Would that Democrats had informed Clinton he must resign for the good of the country and the honor of the office. When they did not, they condemned the party to a cascade of lies that continues to this day.
I would add that when the Democrats did not do what the Republicans did — go to Clinton and tell him for the good of the country he must resign — they made it clear that they put their party ahead of the country. They have continued to make this clear now for fifteen years, and the result has been hurtful for everyone.
They need to be punished badly at the polls for this, but I still fear it will not happen. And the longer they are not punished at the polls, the more willing they become to do increasingly abusive things, for the sake of their party at the cost to the nation.
To your “they must be punished at the polls” comment.
I think the only person to emerge in some kind of third party or a conservative driven alternative to any of the few possibly viable republicans may be Ben Carson. The big money will choose Jeb Bush or maybe even Romney again. Both may seem better than Obama but are just different versions of the same thing.