IRS renews harassment of tea party groups
Still working for the Democratic Party: Despite repeatedly saying it has stopped its harassment of conservatives, the IRS this week issued a new set of invasive questions to one tea party group that has been waiting since 2012 for its non-profit application to be processed.
Worse, the IRS did it publicly, and in the process released confidential information.
More jarringly, the IRS then publicly released one of the sets of questions it sent to the Texas Patriots Tea Party — a move the group’s lawyer says puts secret taxpayer return information, supposed to be protected, out in the public. Tax experts say the IRS may be on safe legal ground, since the filing was made as part of a court case, and that’s one of the few narrow exceptions to strict IRSprivacy laws.
Still, the move to release the information has inflamed an already tense class action legal battle between the IRS and tea party groups who feel the agency is still targeting them more than three years after it promised to cease. “The IRS has taken the unprecedented step of publicly filing actual return information,” said Edward Greim, who is handling the case on behalf of more than 400 groups targeted by the IRS. He said the questions asked by the IRS show the agency has not ceased the intrusive questioning that landed it in trouble in the first place back in 2013.
This behavior tells us more about Barack Obama and the Democratic Party than the IRS itself. When the scandal initially broke, Obama expressed outrage and anger that such harassment was happening, but from the beginning has literally done nothing to end it. Instead, the IRS has stonewalled every investigation and court suit, including continuning its harassment of the President’s opponents. That could only be happening if the man running the executive branch, Obama himself, approved that behavior. In addition, the investigations have found that numerous Democratic members of Congress not only demanded this harassment, they continue to help the IRS in its stonewalling.
Expect worse should Hillary Clinton win the election. Her track record when she was first lady was actually worse than Obama’s.
Still working for the Democratic Party: Despite repeatedly saying it has stopped its harassment of conservatives, the IRS this week issued a new set of invasive questions to one tea party group that has been waiting since 2012 for its non-profit application to be processed.
Worse, the IRS did it publicly, and in the process released confidential information.
More jarringly, the IRS then publicly released one of the sets of questions it sent to the Texas Patriots Tea Party — a move the group’s lawyer says puts secret taxpayer return information, supposed to be protected, out in the public. Tax experts say the IRS may be on safe legal ground, since the filing was made as part of a court case, and that’s one of the few narrow exceptions to strict IRSprivacy laws.
Still, the move to release the information has inflamed an already tense class action legal battle between the IRS and tea party groups who feel the agency is still targeting them more than three years after it promised to cease. “The IRS has taken the unprecedented step of publicly filing actual return information,” said Edward Greim, who is handling the case on behalf of more than 400 groups targeted by the IRS. He said the questions asked by the IRS show the agency has not ceased the intrusive questioning that landed it in trouble in the first place back in 2013.
This behavior tells us more about Barack Obama and the Democratic Party than the IRS itself. When the scandal initially broke, Obama expressed outrage and anger that such harassment was happening, but from the beginning has literally done nothing to end it. Instead, the IRS has stonewalled every investigation and court suit, including continuning its harassment of the President’s opponents. That could only be happening if the man running the executive branch, Obama himself, approved that behavior. In addition, the investigations have found that numerous Democratic members of Congress not only demanded this harassment, they continue to help the IRS in its stonewalling.
Expect worse should Hillary Clinton win the election. Her track record when she was first lady was actually worse than Obama’s.