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DesideriScuri -> RE: Issa Lied about IRS targets???? (8/22/2013 7:53:15 AM)
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ORIGINAL: DomKen
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
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ORIGINAL: DomKen
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
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ORIGINAL: DomKen
We already know Issa lied about this scandal from the beginning. He was the one who requested the IRS IG to report on the treatment of tea party groups despite knowing there were other BOLO lists.
So, Issa was the only person to get data from the IRS?!? The House Committee didn't investigate as a committee or sub-committee? How was it no Democrats were able to get their hands or eyes on anything at all? How is it that no Democrats were able to request anything from the IRS?
Issa specifically requested the IRS IG report on the treatment of conservative groups seeking 501(c)4 status. Not for how the IRS handled such applications from political groups or how 501(c)4 applications were handled in general.
Now look at the IRS IG, J. Russell George. His resume includes a 7 year tenure, 1995 to 2002, as a senior Republican staffer on the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight and was appointed to the IG post by W. Darrell Issa was elected in 2000 and joined the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight in 2001 when he took office.
Now since it is well known that Issa is a hyper partisan liar who wants nothing more than to bring down a Democratic President it is obvious that he concocted this whole thing with his former associate J Russell George.
Right. [8|]
Any proof that Issa was behind Lois Lerner's admissions that started the whole ball of shit rolling?
The IRS IG is what started the whole thing. He issued the report that was finally publicly released without redactions the op referenced. The hearings involving Lerner was the result of the IG report.
Here's an interesting take :quote:
On January 21, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which overturned many previous restrictions on political campaign spending and allowed nearly unlimited and often anonymous spending by corporations and other groups to influence elections.[21][22][23] Some Tea Party leaders began forming political action committees as offshoots of their 501(c)-tax-exempt organizations.[24][25][26] By late September 2010, tax-exempt non-profit groups had spent in excess of $100 million on the mid-term elections, more than double the expenditure from a similar point in the election cycle four years earlier.[23]
Public-interest advocacy groups such as Public Citizen and Democracy 21 complained that the IRS and Federal Election Commission were failing to provide adequate oversight for 501(c) nonprofit organizations that were pouring money into political campaigns.[23][27][28] As the New York Times reported at the time:
Almost all of the biggest players among third-party groups, in terms of buying television time in House and Senate races since August, have been 501(c) organizations, and their purchases have heavily favored Republicans.... They include 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organizations, like Crossroads, which has been the top spender on Senate races, and Americans for Prosperity, another pro-Republican group that has been the leader on the House side; 501(c)(5) labor unions, which have been supporting Democrats; and 501(c)(6) trade associations, like the United States Chamber of Commerce, which has been spending heavily in support of Republicans.[27]
Shortly thereafter, Senator Max Baucus, Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee, referring to the New York Times' and other media reports, asked the IRS to investigate to ensure that nonprofit organizations engaged in political activity were complying with IRS rules and not abusing their tax-exempt status.[29][30] Republican senators on the finance committee Orrin Hatch and John Kyl responded to Baucus' request by writing to the IRS that they were worried this kind of investigation would violate First Amendment rights, and they asked that a Treasury Department inspector general conduct a review of any such investigation to ensure its impartiality.[31][32]
Senate[33] and House[34] Democrats in early 2012 continued to press the IRS to investigate abuses of 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status by organizations engaged in political activity. In a February 2012 letter to then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, several Democratic senators led by Senator Chuck Schumer wrote, "We urge you to protect legitimate section 501(c)(4) entities by preventing non-conforming organizations that are focused on federal election activities from abusing the tax code."[35] The senators also urged the IRS to issue new rules to prevent this type of abuse.[36] In a follow-up letter sent in March 2012, the senators asked the IRS to clearly define the amount of political activity that is permissible for "social welfare" groups under 501(c)(4) rules, to require the groups to document in their IRS filings the exact percentage of their activity that is dedicated to "social welfare," and to require the groups to notify their donors of what percentage of donations could be claimed for tax deductions. The senators promised to introduce legislation to accomplish these aims if the IRS did not do so itself by promptly issuing new administrative rules.[33][37] None of these letters called for the targeting of groups on the basis of political ideology.[35]
Between 2010 and 2012, the number of applications the IRS received each year seeking 501(c)(4) certification doubled.[38] During this period, budget cuts and personnel cuts reduced the IRS's ability to adequately perform its core duties.[39] When the Obama administration requested in 2011 that Congress increase the IRS's $12.1 billion budget by $1 billion to allow the agency to hire 5,100 additional agents, Congress instead reduced the IRS budget to $11.8 billion, and the IRS offered buyouts to 5,400 of its 95,000 employees.[39] The U.S. National Taxpayer Advocate, Nina E. Olson, told the New York Times in January 2012, "The overriding challenge facing the I.R.S. is that its workload has grown significantly in recent years, while its funding is being cut.... This is causing the I.R.S. to resort to shortcuts that undermine fundamental taxpayer rights and harm taxpayers — and at the same time reduces the I.R.S.’s ability to deliver on its core mission of raising revenue."[39]
...
On May 12, Republican and Democratic lawmakers called for a full investigation of the Internal Revenue Service,[82][83] while White House Press Secretary Jay Carney called the IRS's alleged actions "inappropriate."[84] On May 13, the Washington Post reported that Marcus Owens, head of the IRS department examining tax-exempt groups in 1990-1999, said that the IRS routinely categorized similar groups which sought the status of social welfare organizations.[85] At a May 13 press conference, President Obama called the charges "outrageous" if true, and said that anyone found to be responsible for such actions should be held accountable.[86][87]
On May 14, the Inspector General's [Michael E. McKenney, Acting Deputy Inspector General for Audit, not Russell George, btw] audit report was made public.[14] President Obama released a statement saying that "The IRS must apply the law in a fair and impartial way, and its employees must act with utmost integrity. This report shows that some of its employees failed that test. I’ve directed Secretary Lew to hold those responsible for these failures accountable, and to make sure that each of the Inspector General’s recommendations are implemented quickly, so that such conduct never happens again. But regardless of how this conduct was allowed to take place, the bottom line is, it was wrong."[88] Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he had ordered the Justice Department to begin an investigation into whether the activities amounted to criminal behavior.[89]
Republican lawmakers were critical of IG George for not alerting them in 2012. Democrats called for increased scrutiny in 2010.
Representative Levin (Democrat Ranking Member, Ways and Means)quote:
The BOLOs are linked to below, as provided (in redacted form) today [article posted June 24, 2013] by the IRS:
Horrendously redacted BOLO lists offered by the IRS in June. Why is this a story in August, almost a full month later?
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