Federal Court rules in favor of lawsuit against IRS for harassment
The federal court of appeals today ruled in favor of the pro-Israel organization Z Street in its lawsuit against the IRS for specifically harassing them because their positions disagreed with the Obama administration.
To review:
Z STREET filed its lawsuit against the IRS in August, 2010, on the basis of statements made to its counsel by the IRS agent reviewing Z STREET’s application for 501(c)(3) charitable tax exempt status, filed in 2009. That agent revealed that the IRS has an “Israel Special Policy” which gave differential treatment to tax exemption applications from organizations holding views about Israel inconsistent with those espoused by the Obama administration, scrutinizing such applications differently and at greater length, than those made by organizations which did not hold such views. [emphasis mine]
As I like to say, the IRS, rather than doing tax enforcement, has been instead very specifically working as a lobbying agent for the Democratic Party and Barack Obama. The Z Street case documents it, and is now going to document it far more thoroughly than any Democrat or Obama can imagine.
The organization says it looks forward to the discovery phase of litigation in which it will seek to learn the nature and origin of the “Israel Special Policy” which the IRS applied to Z Street’s tax exemption application. Z Street will seek to learn how such a policy was created, who created it, who approved it, to whom it was applied, as well as all other information regarding this policy.
What Z Street learns will be directly useful to the conservative organizations that the IRS also harassed illegally. It might also do great political harm to a number of prominent Democratic Party elected officials.
The federal court of appeals today ruled in favor of the pro-Israel organization Z Street in its lawsuit against the IRS for specifically harassing them because their positions disagreed with the Obama administration.
To review:
Z STREET filed its lawsuit against the IRS in August, 2010, on the basis of statements made to its counsel by the IRS agent reviewing Z STREET’s application for 501(c)(3) charitable tax exempt status, filed in 2009. That agent revealed that the IRS has an “Israel Special Policy” which gave differential treatment to tax exemption applications from organizations holding views about Israel inconsistent with those espoused by the Obama administration, scrutinizing such applications differently and at greater length, than those made by organizations which did not hold such views. [emphasis mine]
As I like to say, the IRS, rather than doing tax enforcement, has been instead very specifically working as a lobbying agent for the Democratic Party and Barack Obama. The Z Street case documents it, and is now going to document it far more thoroughly than any Democrat or Obama can imagine.
The organization says it looks forward to the discovery phase of litigation in which it will seek to learn the nature and origin of the “Israel Special Policy” which the IRS applied to Z Street’s tax exemption application. Z Street will seek to learn how such a policy was created, who created it, who approved it, to whom it was applied, as well as all other information regarding this policy.
What Z Street learns will be directly useful to the conservative organizations that the IRS also harassed illegally. It might also do great political harm to a number of prominent Democratic Party elected officials.