4 ms·

Sorry, but an organization that targeted people because of their political beliefs, postponed or withheld nonprofit status because of such beliefs, and is now s

by jeremyt 11y ago

Sorry, but an organization that targeted people because of their political beliefs, postponed or withheld nonprofit status because of such beliefs, and is now stonewalling the congressional investigation doesn't count as "one of the better orgs in the government". They apparently can't implement their own backup policy, can't comply with congressional subpoenas, and has generally slow walked and foot dragged through the entire investigation. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/irs-tea-party-scandal-congress-nonprofit-obama http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/irs-tea-party-sc...

jedberg 11y ago
I didn't say they were perfect. I said "one of the better orgs". I'm sure they have their bad apples just like any organization. But mostly my point was that they do not deserve the hate they get in most cases.
jacobolus 11y ago
“staffers in the agency's Cincinnati office were trying to manage the deluge of applications for tax-exempt status under the 501(c)(4) section of the tax law. Between 2010 and 2012, Lerner said, the number of 501(c)(4) applications leapt from 1,500 to more than 3,400.” Frankly, there are a lot of fraudsters out there, and when there started to be a large number of new conservative nonprofits started by people without prior experience running such organizations, the field was ripe for folks to step in with fake charities, so they could collect money from outraged “tea partiers”. As an example, Ben Carson’s whole political campaign is basically a direct mailer donation scam (the people running it were previously running supplement scams, etc.) which somehow transcended its original scope and turned into a real campaign, much to the surprise of Carson and his buddies. It’s not surprising that the IRS staffers would notice a pattern of abuse with a pretty good hit rate on particular keywords, and then target groups with those keywords for increased scrutiny, making them fill out a few extra forms. It was stupid of them to do so, because the political fallout is predictable. But it’s hardly the roaring scandal it’s made out to be.
- jeremyt 11y ago
  I'll give you that for the sake of argument. That still doesn't explain the stonewalling, the Fifth Amendment invoking, and the "mistaken" wiped and lost hard drives.
- unclenoriega 11y ago
  Do you have sources I can read on the Ben Carson stuff? That sounds interesting.
omginternets 11y ago
The Tea Party's "political beliefs" literally include "not paying taxes". I really have trouble finding this scandalous, prima facie. The conservative nature of these groups was purely incidental, it seems to me -- have I missed something?
- LordKano 11y ago
  The Tea Party's "political beliefs" literally include "not paying taxes". [citation needed] The TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already(backronym). They're not opposed to paying any taxes, they're opposed to paying more. More than this, the IRS has been used as a weapon for much longer. Under the Clinton Administration, the IRS was used to harass WND and Joseph Farah.
- function_seven 11y ago
  > The Tea Party's "political beliefs" literally include "not paying taxes". No. Their stance is to reduce and or eliminate taxes; it is not to avoid paying taxes owed. Whether you (or the IRS) agree with that political stance is entirely irrelevant to these groups' taxable status.
tryitnow 11y ago
Here's more Mother Jones reporting: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/irs-tea-party-tax-problems http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/irs-tea-party-ta... I can provide a little context here. When I was in college I was a conservative Republican. Some right-wing groups in Washington deliberately and consciously helped me and many other students set up tax-exempt organizations. Everything was technically OK. But in retrospect? It's pretty clear their strategy was to create a bunch of exempt organizations through which to funnel money for political purposes. The big loophole at that time was that you could be a 501c3 and provide "education" and remain exempt. Now if ALL of that education just happened to benefit the right-wing of the GOP, well I guess that's just a coincidence. Frankly, the IRS was totally right in going after these groups. The problem is they overreached in some cases. Many of the groups are not following the spirit of the law and I would wager that many of them are not even following the letter of the law. For example, you're not supposed to coordinate with election campaigns if you're a 501c3, but what if everyone on your board is actively involved in local Republican politics? Even if your board meeting is technically non-partisan, when everyone goes out for drinks afterwards (on the non-profit's tab) you can be sure that election strategy is going to be a topic of conversation. For the record, I do not see liberal groups flagrantly disregarding the law in such a manner, which makes sense because they're ideologically less committed to dodging taxes. TLDR: If a bunch of people are organizing around the concept "taxes suck, let's not pay them!" it's a pretty safe bet that many of them are actually breaking the law.
- dnautics 11y ago
  Well, I run a 501(c)3, scientific research, ("making an open source anticancer drug") and the IRS held up my application for a year and a half on what should have been a very straightforward application. While I was waiting I had to quit my job at a big research institute to avoid use of time conflicts and literally drove for Lyft and Uber to make ends meet. It turned out that the IRS had bolo'd ("be on the lookout") all applications that used "open source" and although I don't know for sure it seems like that was what caused the problem.
  - DanBC 11y ago

by jeremyt 11y ago

jedberg 11y ago

I didn't say they were perfect. I said "one of the better orgs". I'm sure they have their bad apples just like any organization. But mostly my point was that they do not deserve the hate they get in most cases.

jacobolus 11y ago

“staffers in the agency's Cincinnati office were trying to manage the deluge of applications for tax-exempt status under the 501(c)(4) section of the tax law. Between 2010 and 2012, Lerner said, the number of 501(c)(4) applications leapt from 1,500 to more than 3,400.” Frankly, there are a lot of fraudsters out there, and when there started to be a large number of new conservative nonprofits started by people without prior experience running such organizations, the field was ripe for folks to step in with fake charities, so they could collect money from outraged “tea partiers”. As an example, Ben Carson’s whole political campaign is basically a direct mailer donation scam (the people running it were previously running supplement scams, etc.) which somehow transcended its original scope and turned into a real campaign, much to the surprise of Carson and his buddies. It’s not surprising that the IRS staffers would notice a pattern of abuse with a pretty good hit rate on particular keywords, and then target groups with those keywords for increased scrutiny, making them fill out a few extra forms. It was stupid of them to do so, because the political fallout is predictable. But it’s hardly the roaring scandal it’s made out to be.

jeremyt 11y ago
I'll give you that for the sake of argument. That still doesn't explain the stonewalling, the Fifth Amendment invoking, and the "mistaken" wiped and lost hard drives.
unclenoriega 11y ago
Do you have sources I can read on the Ben Carson stuff? That sounds interesting.

omginternets 11y ago

The Tea Party's "political beliefs" literally include "not paying taxes". I really have trouble finding this scandalous, prima facie. The conservative nature of these groups was purely incidental, it seems to me -- have I missed something?

LordKano 11y ago
The Tea Party's "political beliefs" literally include "not paying taxes". [citation needed] The TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already(backronym). They're not opposed to paying any taxes, they're opposed to paying more. More than this, the IRS has been used as a weapon for much longer. Under the Clinton Administration, the IRS was used to harass WND and Joseph Farah.
function_seven 11y ago
> The Tea Party's "political beliefs" literally include "not paying taxes". No. Their stance is to reduce and or eliminate taxes; it is not to avoid paying taxes owed. Whether you (or the IRS) agree with that political stance is entirely irrelevant to these groups' taxable status.

tryitnow 11y ago

Here's more Mother Jones reporting: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/irs-tea-party-tax-problems http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/irs-tea-party-ta... I can provide a little context here. When I was in college I was a conservative Republican. Some right-wing groups in Washington deliberately and consciously helped me and many other students set up tax-exempt organizations. Everything was technically OK. But in retrospect? It's pretty clear their strategy was to create a bunch of exempt organizations through which to funnel money for political purposes. The big loophole at that time was that you could be a 501c3 and provide "education" and remain exempt. Now if ALL of that education just happened to benefit the right-wing of the GOP, well I guess that's just a coincidence. Frankly, the IRS was totally right in going after these groups. The problem is they overreached in some cases. Many of the groups are not following the spirit of the law and I would wager that many of them are not even following the letter of the law. For example, you're not supposed to coordinate with election campaigns if you're a 501c3, but what if everyone on your board is actively involved in local Republican politics? Even if your board meeting is technically non-partisan, when everyone goes out for drinks afterwards (on the non-profit's tab) you can be sure that election strategy is going to be a topic of conversation. For the record, I do not see liberal groups flagrantly disregarding the law in such a manner, which makes sense because they're ideologically less committed to dodging taxes. TLDR: If a bunch of people are organizing around the concept "taxes suck, let's not pay them!" it's a pretty safe bet that many of them are actually breaking the law.

dnautics 11y ago
Well, I run a 501(c)3, scientific research, ("making an open source anticancer drug") and the IRS held up my application for a year and a half on what should have been a very straightforward application. While I was waiting I had to quit my job at a big research institute to avoid use of time conflicts and literally drove for Lyft and Uber to make ends meet. It turned out that the IRS had bolo'd ("be on the lookout") all applications that used "open source" and although I don't know for sure it seems like that was what caused the problem.
- DanBC 11y ago