Five IRS Controversy Falsehoods Manufactured By Right-Wing Media
http://mediamatters.org/research/201...ured-by/194324
The mystery is over. After a month of waiting, it turns out that an 84-year-old woman in Florida has won the $590 million Powerball lottery...
As for how much tax she’s going to have to pay, the IRS said it’s too early to tell because they don’t know whether she’s a Republican or Democrat...
Boutons would tell you she has to share her money to the have nots.
media matters
(witch hunting inquisitor Joe McCarthy-ist 0.1%er) Darrell Issa's IRS Investigation Is Falling Apart
When Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in 2010, Representative Darrell Issa of California was supposed to become a star. Issa, who made no secret of his ambition, took over the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, vowing to use the power of his chairmanship to stage hundreds of hearings and hold the Obama administration to account. Anticipating what he promised would be “constant battle,” the White House hired extra lawyers and braced for the onslaught.
But Issa wasn’t the force people expected him to be. His biggest investigation, into the botched anti-gun smuggling operation that left a Border Patrol agent dead, incited right-wing talk radio listeners. Beyond that, though, it barely registered. After two years in power, Issa seemed more bark than bite.
Then came last month’s revelation that IRS agents had singled out Tea Party groups for special scrutiny. Here was an issue that seized public attention and posed a legitimate threat to Obama. Since then, nobody in Congress has pushed harder than Issa to pin the scandal on the White House.
But after a burst of attention, Issa’s investigation appears to have stalled. Although he turned up embarrassing material—has any government official been humiliated quite like the IRS commissioner in the dorky video dressed up as Spock?—Issa hasn’t made the all-important connection to the White House. And he may not be able to. The news this week that he won’t release the full transcripts of his interviews with IRS officials—interviews he selectively quoted from to imply White House complicity—suggests that what they contain may in fact exonerate the administration of the very charge Issa is laboring so hard to prosecute.
“Your push to release entire transcripts from witness interviews while the investigation remains active was reckless and threatened to undermine the integrity of the committee’s investigation,” Issa wrote in response to a letter from his Democratic counterpart, Representative Elijah mings of Maryland, who himself had selectively quoted the transcripts and then called on Issa to publicize the whole thing.
In theory, Issa could be building a case against the White House to rival Watergate that he just isn’t quite ready to unveil. But that’s highly unlikely. mings has seen the transcripts and wouldn’t call for their release if they contained information that would fell his party’s president. Issa’s weak-tea defense of why he won’t comply—witnesses might be demoted or fired, he says—only buttresses this su ion. So does the effort by Issa’s colleague, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, to broaden the investigation’s scope to include donor audits. You don’t broaden an investigation if you’ve found the smoking gun and nailed the culprit.
“We’re not anywhere near being able to jump to conclusions,” Camp told reporters, including Bloomberg’s Richard Rubin, on Wednesday. So the IRS investigations will continue. But it’s getting harder to imagine that they’ll turn up evidence of a Nixonian plot, and if they don’t, Issa will have failed again.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles...-falling-apart
Last edited by boutons_deux; 06-14-2013 at 11:26 AM.
Congressman Clears White House of Any Involvement With IRS/Tea Party Scandal
Yesterday, Democratic Congressman Elijah mings released the full transcript of a five-hour hearing on the IRS's alleged targeting of Tea Party Groups. And – it proves everything Congressman mings has been saying all along – the White House was not involved in deciding which groups were required to provide additional information to the IRS before getting tax-exempt status. Congressman mings released the 200-page do ent after charging that House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa has misrepresented the Committee's findings by saying they found evidence of “Washington involvement.” According to the transcript, the only Washington-based IRS officials who reviewed the applications were part of a technical specialty group that was handling the case because it was “high-profile”, and working to ensure the all similar applications were processed in a uniform manner.
Chairman Issa released a statement saying he was “deeply disappointed that Ranking Member mings has decided to broadly disseminate” the transcript, and says it will “serve as a roadmap for IRS officials to navigate investigative interviews with Congress.”
However, his concern did not prevent his office from releasing portions of the transcript that deceptively imply White House involvement. Congressman Darrell Issa has purposely blurred the line between a tech-support group located in Washington, D.C. and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Congressman Elijah mings has made a bold attempt to shed light on the situation, but it's doubtful that anything – even the blatant truth – will stop Darrell Issa from pursuing this political witch hunt.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/17087...-party-scandal
Darrell Issa just had a bad day: IRS 'targeted' groups with 'Occupy' and 'Progressive' in names
The Internal Revenue Service’s screening of groups seeking tax-exempt status was broader and lasted longer than has been previously disclosed, the new head of the agency said Monday.An internal IRS do ent obtained by The Associated Press said that besides ‘‘tea party,’’ lists used by screeners to pick groups for close examination also included the terms ‘‘Israel,’’ ‘'Progressive’’ and ‘‘Occupy.’’ The do ent said an investigation into why specific terms were included was still underway.
In a conference call with reporters, Danny Werfel said that after becoming acting IRS chief last month, he discovered wide-ranging and improper terms on the lists and said screeners were still using them. He did not specify what terms were on the lists, but said he suspended the use of all such lists immediately.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/0...28Daily+Kos%29
"The Treasury inspector general (IG) whose report helped drive the IRS targeting controversy says it limited its examination to conservative groups because of a request from House Republicans."
House Repugs were FISHING for any evidence that their fraudulent conservative/tea bagger groups were "targeted"
The operative paragraph from the IG letter:
"Based on the information you flagged regarding the existence of a 'Progressives' entry on BOLO lists, TIGTA performed additional research which determined that six tax-exempt applications filed between May 2010 and May 2012 having the words 'progress' or 'progressive' in their names were included in the 298 cases the IRS identified as potential political cases. We also determined that 14 tax-exempt applications filed between May 2010 and May 2012 using the words 'progress' or 'progressive' in their names were not referred for added scrutiny as potential political cases. In total, 30 percent of the organizations we identified with the words 'progress' or "progressive" in their names were processed as potential political cases. In comparison, our audit found that 100 percent of the tax-exempt applications with Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names were processed as potential political cases during the timeframe of our audit."
B O G U S !
a Repug-manufactured scandal, bad faith politics, while totally ignoring their responsibilities to govern, because Repugs don't gave a about governing.
IRS results: zilch
Benghazi results: zilch (Barry crushes Bishop Gecko)
The only people who believe IRS or Benghazi Repug bull are ignorant, suckered, Fox-watching assholes.
Even Republicans Admit It: Politics Did Not Drive the IRS Tea Party "Scandal"
"We haven't proved political motivation," said Representative Charles Boustany Jr., a Louisiana Republican who, as the chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, is leading one inquiry.
Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, said that in retrospect, suggestions that Mr. Obama had orchestrated an IRS attack on his political enemies were unwarranted.
"Presidents have always been very careful about maintaining the appearance of keeping hands off the IRS," he said. "I don't have any reason to believe there wasn't targeting of conservatives, but it might well have been a lot more than that as well."
So there you have it. Republicans have gone from blaming the Obama administration and IRS staffers for targeting tea partiers to double-negative-laced non-concession concessions like Roy Blunt's. (That said, Republicans aren't calling off the hounds quite yet: A spokeswoman for Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), who chairs the House ways and means committee, says committee members will continue to "gather the facts" and "follow them wherever they lead us.")
Conservative Groups Lied To The IRS By Failing To Report Their Political Spending
There are myriad ways to lie, but one particularly devious act of mendacity is willfully swearing a false oath, or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth whether spoken or in writing concerning matters material to an official proceeding and technically it is perjury. Perjury is considered a serious offense because it usurps the power of the courts resulting in miscarriages of justice and, in America, Federal law classifies perjury as a felony providing a prison sentence of up to five years. The recent furor over the Internal Revenue Service scrutinizing applications for social welfare, tax-exempt organizations, has revealed that the IRS was doing its due diligence in screening political activists’ applications, and one aspect going unnoticed is the level of perjury most of the conservative groups are guilty of just filing false declarations. However, many of the groups are also guilty of perjury for failing to report, or underreporting, their political spending on tax forms filed with the IRS.
The rash of conservative political activist groups posing as social welfare nonprofits are forbidden from having political campaign activity as their primary purpose, and it is the IRS methodology of how they measured such activity while screening the groups’ social welfare applications that has Republicans in an uproar over the IRS’s treatment of patriot and teabagger groups. There are very specific questions asking for details on any campaign spending on forms social welfare non-profits are required to file with the IRS, and many conservative groups illegally use the social welfare designation to conceal dark money being injected into political campaigns. Some groups are reporting political donations to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), but to maintain their “social welfare” designation they are deliberately lying to the IRS and committing perjury by signing tax forms claiming they did not spend any money on political campaigns.
In just one example likely out of thousands, a dark money group, A Better America Now, based a couple of miles off the beach near Jacksonville, Florida promised on its 2011 application for “social welfare” tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service it did not plan to spend any money on elections. In the last election cycle, A Better America Now reported to the FEC it spent about $65,000 for mailers and TV advertising in a highly contested race for Texas’ 23rd congressional district seat.
However, in its tax return recently filed with the IRS, the group claimed it did not spend any money on “direct or indirect political campaign activities” even though return was signed “under the penalty of perjury” by the group’s president and accounting firm preparing the tax return. Apparently, it is a common occurrence with conservative groups with tax-exempt “social welfare” designation to inject dark money into political campaigns to influence elections without revealing their donors. It is the only reason the groups seek “social welfare” designation in the first place and why Republicans are attempting to quash IRS scrutiny into conservative dark money groups.
It is not the first time A Better America Now, a Florida-based outfit, has injected anonymous money into Republican campaigns in different parts of the country, and according to Craig Holman of Public Citizen, “This type of inaccurate reporting by electioneering nonprofit groups has a long history, and it is rooted in the fact that the IRS almost never holds these groups accountable for such false declarations.” However, it is not just “inaccurate reporting” or “false declarations,” it is blatant perjury and it presents two prescient questions that demand an answer; why are these groups allowed to apply for or keep their social welfare designation, and why are they not prosecuted for perjury and imprisoned for “up to five years” as required by Federal law? In the A Better America Now case, it is not that there is a question of whether the dark money social welfare group lied to the IRS on its 501(c) application, because the contradiction between the FEC filing and 501(c) application is blatant. It is also obvious the group deliberately omitted the money it spent on a direct political campaign in Texas and signed, “under penalty of perjury,” a Federal do ent swearing “the statements are true, correct, and complete” and filed with the Internal Revenue Service.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/07/...iticus+USA+%29
GOP-led House seeks to punish IRS with budget cuts
The GOP-controlled House unveiled slashing cuts to the budget of the Internal Revenue Service on Tuesday, punishing the beleaguered agency after it targeted tea party groups and other nonprofits seeking tax-exempt status.
The agency's 2014 budget would be cut by $3 billion, or 24 percent below levels approved in March. Also, 10 percent of its budget for tax enforcement would be fenced off until the IRS implements recommendations by an agency watchdog designed to prevent further abuses.
The IRS cuts come after a wave of bad publicity for the agency including questionable spending on conferences like a lavish $4.1 million event in 2010 that included a "Star Trek" video parody and a $17,000 payment to a motivational speaker who was a painter.President Barack Obama had requested a $1 billion increase for the IRS.
"Right now I can't think of a federal agency in a worse position to ask for more money," said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas.
The Appropriations Committee also revealed cuts to NASA, White House salaries, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The full House took up a $30.4 billion measure funding the Energy Department and water projects that is about $3 billion below levels enacted earlier this year. Democrats protested cuts to clean and renewable energy programs.
Democrats controlling a Senate panel, meanwhile, went in a wholly opposite direction in giving a $1.3 billion increase to the IRS, the agency chiefly responsible to implement Obama's signature health care law.
At issue are the annual spending bills funding the day-to-day operations of federal agencies. The GOP-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate are acting as if on different planets, with the Senate ignoring deep automatic spending cuts and the House promising even more punishing cuts to domestic programs while restoring cuts to the Pentagon.
The House is drafting spending bills in line with a $967 billion "cap" required by automatic cuts that took effect in March after Washington failed to agree on an alternative mix of tax increases and cuts elsewhere in the $3.5 trillion federal budget. The Senate is writing bills to a $1.058 trillion cap, almost a full 10 percent higher. But the House GOP cuts to domestic programs are greatly magnified by a $41 billion shift from nondefense programs like NASA, education and research on renewable energy to the Pentagon.
The result are night-and-day differences between the House and Senate spending bills illustrated most dramatically by a $164 billion Senate measure unveiled Tuesday by liberal Democrat Tom Harkin of Iowa. The measure, which funds education, health and labor programs, is a full 26 percent more generous to such programs than an as-yet-unreleased House version.
So even as advocates for the poor worry about budget cuts forcing poor preschoolers from Head Start, the Senate measure promises to increase the program by $1.6 billion or about 20 percent. Health research would win a small increase, as would le I grants to help educate disadvantaged school children.
Republicans say the Senate bills are filled with empty promises. Even if they were enacted over GOP opposition, they would be subject to across-the-board cuts known as sequestration that would bring them down to the $967 billion level embraced by Republicans. Sequestration is required because Congress and Obama have failed to follow up a 2011 budget pact with deficit cuts other than a bitterly fought tax increase on upper-bracket earners.
Democrats say that Republicans are offering empty promises as well — to defense hawks upset by sequestration. The House GOP increases to the Pentagon would be automatically rolled back through sequestration, as would Senate Democrats' efforts to increase domestic programs.
By contrast, the House measures revealed Tuesday are laced with painful cuts. While the FBI is exempted, NASA would absorb an almost $1 billion cut below 2013 levels. Spending on federal buildings would be cut $2.4 billion below Obama's request and the U.S. Marshals Service, the federal prison system and the Drug Enforcement Administration would also have to absorb cuts.
"At some point, there is no 'doing more with less,'" said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. "There is only less."
Absent a broader agreement on the budget, the rival chambers of Congress are on a collision course facing a potential government shutdown when current-year funding runs out on Sept. 30. A shutdown is unlikely, but avoiding one would require a stopgap funding measure to keep the government running after that date.
http://mobile.sfgate.com/sfchron/db_...l=true#display
"bad publicity" ? "further abuses" ?
like Benghazi, IRS "scandal" was totally fabricated by Fox and Repugs.
Repugs KNOW their base is totally ed up stupid which allows them to get away with such bull . See it tonight on Fox Repug Propaganda network.
Conservative Think Tank Trolls State Agencies Looking For IRS-Like Scandal
A conservative public policy think tank in Washington state is on the hunt for partisan bias in state government, filing public records requests for government email and other do ents that contain terms like “libertarian,” “hicks,” “redneck,” “teabagger” “fundamentalist,” and “gun nut.”
The Freedom Foundation — an educational, non-partisan, not-for-profit that promotes free markets and limited government — filed public records requests on May 15 with the Department of Ecology, Department of Labor and Industries, Pugent Sound Partnership and State Department of Revenue, according to the group. The group requested all relevant do ents from January 1, 2010 through May 15, 2013.
TPM obtained a copy of a Department of Ecology email to its employees directing them how to comply with the public records request. The full list of search terms in the Department of Ecology request includes: Tea Party, Conservative, Freedom Foundation, Libertarian, Liberty, Redneck, Small Government, Hicks, Teabagger, Racist, Far Right, Right Wing, Christian, Fundamentalist, Catholic, NRA, Gun Nut and Mormon.
Glen Morgan, the property rights director for the Freedom Foundation, told TPM on Tuesday that the other three public records requests were similar to the Department of Ecology request, although each was tailored to make the search more efficient for the specific agency. The Department for Ecology, for instance, does not have to include electronic records that include the word “conservative,” if it pertains to anything about conservation, he said. Morgan said he expects the requests could yield about 50,000 pages.
The requests are a result, Morgan said, of revelations in May that the IRS had targeted political groups applying for tax-exempt status for closer evaluation by screening for key words typically associated with conservative organizations (although later revelations indicated the IRS was using search terms oriented toward progressive and non-partisan groups, too).
“We are not trying to abuse the agencies,”
Freedom Foundation has started to get some do ents back, although Morgan said they haven’t received anything “earth shattering yet,” but if they do they “would make it as public as we possibly can” and “encourage the government to behave responsibly.”
“This is not uncommon for us,” he added. “If we hear a story like that, we like to verify what is going on locally.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...l-in-state.php
"targeting"
Issa’s IRS Witch Hunt Continues To Unravel In Latest Hearing
On Thursday afternoon, House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) led a seventh hearing on the IRS’ so-called “systematic delay and scrutiny” of Tea Party 501(c)(4) applications between 2010 and 2012.
During his opening remarks, Issa emphasized the significance of not jumping to conclusions without valid evidence.
Issa, however, has spent the past two months doing just that.
when pressed to answer if had ever received direct orders from Washington IRS officials, or had knowledge of White House involvement or political motivation on behalf of any IRS or White House official, he acknowledged that this was not the case. Hull testified that he never received direct orders from Washington IRS officials, and never had any knowledge of White House involvement or political motivation on behalf of any officials.
not a single Tea Party organization was denied tax-exempt status; the only 501(c)(4) applicant whose request for tax-exempt status was recently denied was progressive group, the Maine chapter of Emerge America.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/issas-ir...est-hearing-2/
targeting!
Noonan: A Bombs in the IRS Scandal
Updated July 18, 2013, 7:02 p.m. ET
The IRS scandal was connected this week not just to the Washington office—that had been established—but to the office of the chief counsel.
That is a bombs —such a big one that it managed to emerge in spite of an unfocused, frequently off-point congressional hearing in which some members seemed to have accidentally woken up in the middle of a committee room, some seemed unaware of the implications of what their investigators had uncovered, one pretended that the investigation should end if IRS workers couldn't say the president had personally called and told them to harass his foes, and one seemed to be holding a filibuster on Pakistan.
Still, what landed was a bombs . And Democrats know it. Which is why they are so desperate to make the investigation go away. They know, as Republicans do, that the chief counsel of the IRS is one of only two Obama political appointees in the entire agency.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...pinion_LEADTop
A political movement based solely around the idea that they hate being taxed has their applications for tax-exempt status reviewed at a higher level of scrutiny?
BOMBS .
Murdoch's WSJ? same as Fox Repug propaganda network
Noonan? inflammable
The lawyer is a Dem political appointee, he can't do his job fairly?
NONE, NOT ONE, of the fraudulent right-wing political groups were denied tax-exempt status. THAT's the real scandal.
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