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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-p

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
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy > Controversial intensive scrutiny of political groups > Beginning in March 2010, the IRS more closely scrutinized certain organizations applying for tax-exempt status under sections 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code by focusing on groups with certain words in their names.[46][47][48] In May 2010, some employees of the "Determinations Unit" of the Cincinnati office of the IRS, which is tasked with reviewing applications pertaining to tax-exempt status, began developing a spreadsheet that became known as the "Be On the Look Out" list. > The list, first distributed in August 2010, suggested intensive scrutiny of applicants with names related to a number of political causes, including names related to the Tea Party movement and other conservative causes.[48] Eventually, IRS employees in at least Cincinnati, Ohio; El Monte, California; Laguna Niguel, California; and Washington, D.C.[49] applied closer scrutiny to applications from organizations that:[50][51][52] > referenced words such as "Tea Party", "Patriots", or "9/12 Project", "progressive," "occupy," "Israel," "open source software," "medical marijuana" and "occupied territory advocacy" in the case file;[47][48]
SiVal 11y ago
For the record, I DO see plenty of liberal groups flagrantly violating the law, and your claim about attitude toward paying taxes is a clever red herring, because EVERY organization that claims tax-exempt status is claiming the same thing with respect to what the IRS has jurisdiction to investigate: "WE, our organization, should not have to pay taxes." There are countless liberal activist organizations making that claim. To be excused from taxes, as every such organization regardless of their politics is claiming they should be, an organization is required to obey certain rules that aren't supposed to depend on the specifics of their politics. Things such as actively trying to get a particular candidate elected explicitly violate the rules and, by law, should cost an organization its tax-exempt status. Yet Obama's IRS enforcers have had no objection to tax-exempt "community organizers" going door to door on election day to "get out the vote" but, for some reason, only knocking on doors of registered Democrats. Regardless of any political theories about taxes in general, which the IRS is not empowered to take a position on, these organizations are all the same in claiming that THEY themselves don't have to pay them. The IRS is supposed to investigate such claims, and yet while liberal organizations were able to go as far as actively encouraging individual registered Democrats to vote in the specific election being held that very day (in which only one candidate was from the party of everyone being encouraged to go vote) without fear of scrutiny by Obama's IRS, any organization that so much as used the term "liberty" in its name was, it turned out, risking audits, time-consuming scrutiny of their activities, potential denial of tax-exempt status because they might get involved in politics, etc. We can't have political activists claiming tax-exempt status getting involved in politics, right? Well, it turned out to depend entirely on their politics, not on the nature of their activities. ALL organizations claiming tax exempt status are making the same claim with respect to paying their own taxes, and your claims regarding your own tax liability is the ONLY thing the IRS is empowered to scrutinize. To claim that, among those groups, the ones who believe that "WE don't have to pay at all, and OTHERS should be taxed less" are more likely breaking the law than those whose position is "WE don't have to pay at all, and OTHERS should be forced to pay more for our agenda" is ridiculous.

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
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy > Controversial intensive scrutiny of political groups > Beginning in March 2010, the IRS more closely scrutinized certain organizations applying for tax-exempt status under sections 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code by focusing on groups with certain words in their names.[46][47][48] In May 2010, some employees of the "Determinations Unit" of the Cincinnati office of the IRS, which is tasked with reviewing applications pertaining to tax-exempt status, began developing a spreadsheet that became known as the "Be On the Look Out" list. > The list, first distributed in August 2010, suggested intensive scrutiny of applicants with names related to a number of political causes, including names related to the Tea Party movement and other conservative causes.[48] Eventually, IRS employees in at least Cincinnati, Ohio; El Monte, California; Laguna Niguel, California; and Washington, D.C.[49] applied closer scrutiny to applications from organizations that:[50][51][52] > referenced words such as "Tea Party", "Patriots", or "9/12 Project", "progressive," "occupy," "Israel," "open source software," "medical marijuana" and "occupied territory advocacy" in the case file;[47][48]

SiVal 11y ago

For the record, I DO see plenty of liberal groups flagrantly violating the law, and your claim about attitude toward paying taxes is a clever red herring, because EVERY organization that claims tax-exempt status is claiming the same thing with respect to what the IRS has jurisdiction to investigate: "WE, our organization, should not have to pay taxes." There are countless liberal activist organizations making that claim. To be excused from taxes, as every such organization regardless of their politics is claiming they should be, an organization is required to obey certain rules that aren't supposed to depend on the specifics of their politics. Things such as actively trying to get a particular candidate elected explicitly violate the rules and, by law, should cost an organization its tax-exempt status. Yet Obama's IRS enforcers have had no objection to tax-exempt "community organizers" going door to door on election day to "get out the vote" but, for some reason, only knocking on doors of registered Democrats. Regardless of any political theories about taxes in general, which the IRS is not empowered to take a position on, these organizations are all the same in claiming that THEY themselves don't have to pay them. The IRS is supposed to investigate such claims, and yet while liberal organizations were able to go as far as actively encouraging individual registered Democrats to vote in the specific election being held that very day (in which only one candidate was from the party of everyone being encouraged to go vote) without fear of scrutiny by Obama's IRS, any organization that so much as used the term "liberty" in its name was, it turned out, risking audits, time-consuming scrutiny of their activities, potential denial of tax-exempt status because they might get involved in politics, etc. We can't have political activists claiming tax-exempt status getting involved in politics, right? Well, it turned out to depend entirely on their politics, not on the nature of their activities. ALL organizations claiming tax exempt status are making the same claim with respect to paying their own taxes, and your claims regarding your own tax liability is the ONLY thing the IRS is empowered to scrutinize. To claim that, among those groups, the ones who believe that "WE don't have to pay at all, and OTHERS should be taxed less" are more likely breaking the law than those whose position is "WE don't have to pay at all, and OTHERS should be forced to pay more for our agenda" is ridiculous.