Exploding IRS scandal.

[Jhhnn]

It's my position that Lois Lerner implicated the CC. I find what he did, or did not do, with the specific file in question to be irrelevant.

Lerner has taken the 5th. But Hull, apparently the highest ranking attorney in the EO legal group, has testified that, according to Lerner (via her assistant), the CC was 'in the loop' on this matter.

I don't see how there's any reasonable doubt that the CC was involved, unless you claim that Hull is a liar.

Assuming not, the question is what was his involvement? I didn't notice any claims in the article about that matter.

But for the fact that the conversation took place in Winter 2010/11 I might have thought the CC's involvement was in response to all this fuss and the Congressional hearings etc. However, given that date, and the fact these improper reviews continued, that's not the case.


Fern

I thought you were waiting for all the facts to be in?

So, uhh, Hull did, in fact, testify that he took the matter up with the CC?

Quote that for me, will ya?

Or did Lerner say that she did?

Quote?

Or are you reading between the lines, inserting your own paragraphs?

The desperation to "link" this up the chain of command is pretty obvious, falling into the mold of all previous Issa contrivances. Yet the faithful devotees fall for it over and over again, confirming that they are easily exploitable.

What's the principle behind the thought processes involved? Even a blind squirrel finds a few nuts? A stopped clock is right twice a day? The boy who cries Wolf must be believed, no matter how many times he's lied?

 

[Jhhnn]

IRS is a directive driven agency. Someone at the top issued a directive. No one on the front lines of operations is going to do anything without a issued directive.

Heh. Directives to investigate blatantly political groups who seek the tax exempt status of non-political groups are longstanding, dating back for decades.

It's unsurprising that mid level management would use them to target groups with "Tea", "Patriot" or "Occupy" in their names.

Sheesh.

 

[IGBT]

Heh. Directives to investigate blatantly political groups who seek the tax exempt status of non-political groups are longstanding, dating back for decades.

It's unsurprising that mid level management would use them to target groups with "Tea", "Patriot" or "Occupy" in their names.

Sheesh.

directives come from departmental managers only after departmental meetings with executive managers. departmental policy is discussed then directives are issued after executive managers agree to the language and sign off on the policy. Then the directive is issued.

 

[Jhhnn]

directives come from departmental managers only after departmental meetings with executive managers. departmental policy is discussed then directives are issued after executive managers agree to the language and sign off on the policy. Then the directive is issued.

Muddling about, I see, projecting what you want to believe into your fact free reality. Just because that's the way you think it ought to work doesn't mean that's the way it works.

The great thing about Mayberry Machiavellis is the huge leaps of faith coupled with the denial that they've leaped at all. Gaps in any story about their perceived "enemies" are immediately filled with... Conspiracy! Must be a Conspiracy!

 

[monovillage]

Muddling about, I see, projecting what you want to believe into your fact free reality. Just because that's the way you think it ought to work doesn't mean that's the way it works.

The great thing about Mayberry Machiavellis is the huge leaps of faith coupled with the denial that they've leaped at all. Gaps in any story about their perceived "enemies" are immediately filled with... Conspiracy! Must be a Conspiracy!

To quickly review why the new information, which came most succinctly in a nine-page congressional letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, is big news: When the scandal broke two months ago, in May, IRS leadership in Washington claimed the harassment of tea-party and other conservative groups requesting tax-exempt status was confined to the Cincinnati office, where a few rogue workers bungled the application process. Lois Lerner, then the head of the exempt organizations unit in Washington, said "line people in Cincinnati" did work that was "not so fine." They asked questions that "weren't really necessary," she claimed, and operated without "the appropriate level of sensitivity." But the targeting was "not intentional." Ousted acting commissioner Steven Miller also put it off on "people in Cincinnati." They provided "horrible customer service."

House investigators soon talked to workers in the Cincinnati office, who said everything they did came from Washington. Elizabeth Hofacre, in charge of processing tea-party applications in Cincinnati, told investigators that her work was overseen and directed by a lawyer in the IRS Washington office named Carter Hull.

Now comes Mr. Hull's testimony. And like Ms. Hofacre, he pointed his finger upward. Mr. Hull—a 48-year IRS veteran and an expert on tax exemption law—told investigators that tea-party applications under his review were sent upstairs within the Washington office, at the direction of Lois Lerner.

In April 2010, Hull was assigned to scrutinize certain tea-party applications. He requested more information from the groups. After he received responses, he felt he knew enough to determine whether the applications should be approved or denied.

But his recommendations were not carried out. Michael Seto, head of Mr. Hull's unit, also spoke to investigators. He told them Lois Lerner made an unusual decision: Tea-party applications would undergo additional scrutiny—a multilayered review.

Mr. Hull told House investigators that at some point in the winter of 2010-11, Ms. Lerner's senior adviser, whose name is withheld in the publicly released partial interview transcript, told him the applications would require further review:

Q: "Did [the senior adviser to Ms. Lerner] indicate to you whether she agreed with your recommendations?"

A: "She did not say whether she agreed or not. She said it should go to chief counsel."

Q: "The IRS chief counsel?"

A: "The IRS chief counsel."

The IRS chief counsel is named William Wilkins. And again, he is one of only two Obama political appointees in the IRS.

What was the chief counsel's office looking for? The letter to Mr. Werfel says Mr. Hull's supervisor, Ronald Shoemaker, provided insight: The counsel's office wanted, in the words of the congressional committees, "information about the applicants' political activities leading up to the 2010 election." Mr. Shoemaker told investigators he didn't find that kind of question unreasonable, but he found the counsel's office to be "not very forthcoming": "We discussed it to some extent and they indicated that they wanted more development of possible political activity or political intervention right before the election period."

How many times are you proven to be a liar by the actual sworn testimony in this case before you stop lying? Have you no shame? Have you no shame?

btw Jhhnn, your honesty and integrity called and they'd like you to come back home, they miss you.

 

[zanejohnson]

welp, the wilkins stuff came out

it's about to get interesting...

NOW ya'll can call it obamagate...

 

[Incorruptible]

How many times are you proven to be a liar by the actual sworn testimony in this case before you stop lying? Have you no shame? Have you no shame?

btw Jhhnn, your honesty and integrity called and they'd like you to come back home, they miss you.

He has no shame at all. This guy still believes obama has done a good job. The amount of lies that come from him are just ridiculous. It's best not to take him seriously and either ignore or just mock him for his idiotic beliefs.

 

[Jhhnn]

How many times are you proven to be a liar by the actual sworn testimony in this case before you stop lying? Have you no shame? Have you no shame?

btw Jhhnn, your honesty and integrity called and they'd like you to come back home, they miss you.

Lashing out in the bluster of Denial. Explain how "should" actually means "did".

Enjoy yourself with that.

 

[Jhhnn]

The best part of all of this, of course, is blatantly political groups whining because they received the tax related scrutiny they deserve as political groups, rather than as legit non-political non-profits.

The IRS issuing an apology in the first place is absurd. As a citizen & a taxpayer, I applaud their efforts to prevent tax cheating before it happens, regardless of the political bent of the groups they investigate. If it was applied unevenly, the fault isn't that Teaparty groups were investigated, but that others possibly didn't receive the scrutiny they deserve.

 

[IGBT]

Muddling about, I see, projecting what you want to believe into your fact free reality. Just because that's the way you think it ought to work doesn't mean that's the way it works.

The great thing about Mayberry Machiavellis is the huge leaps of faith coupled with the denial that they've leaped at all. Gaps in any story about their perceived "enemies" are immediately filled with... Conspiracy! Must be a Conspiracy!

..and before the directive is issued it has to be proof read by legal then final approved language is made official departmental policy. At that point departmental procedures are updated and sent out to middle managers and front line auditors and supervisors. Then and only then the directive is implemented and acted upon.

 

[Jhhnn]

..and before the directive is issued it has to be proof read by legal then final approved language is made official departmental policy. At that point departmental procedures are updated and sent out to middle managers and front line auditors and supervisors. Then and only then the directive is implemented and acted upon.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. And if a directive was issued decades ago leaving subordinates wide latitude in establishing criteria for scrutiny, what then?

 

[bshole]

How in the holy hell could a Tea Party group be considered in any way shape or form as a tax exempt non-profit? I hope the result of all of this is the elimination of the 501C(4) exemption for anyone who is involved in partisan politics regardless of their ideology.

Another failed witch hunt.... better try again

Two months later, the story line of a political witch hunt targeting Tea Party groups is losing a good bit of its luster. No political operatives from the Obama campaign or the White House have been linked to any of the IRS' activities. What's more, it has become increasingly clear that confusion on the part of IRS employees, rather than a starkly political motive, was the primary cause of the delays.

In a memo released last week, Treasury Department investigators said they examined 5,500 e-mails in an effort to understand why some applications were held up. They concluded that the employees were doing so because they "were not sure how to process them, not because they wanted to stall or hinder the application."

Also emerging since the initial report: Some liberal groups, and a host of centrist or non-political ones, also had their applications held up as the IRS struggled ineptly to comply with complex laws that define whether political advocacy groups can qualify for tax-exempt status.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/07/17/irs-hearings-tea-party-editorials-debates/2530777/

 

[IGBT]

Yadda, yadda, yadda. And if a directive was issued decades ago leaving subordinates wide latitude in establishing criteria for scrutiny, what then?

it would be part of the discussion and "discovery".

 

[Jhhnn]

How in the holy hell could a Tea Party group be considered in any way shape or form as a tax exempt non-profit? I hope the result of all of this is the elimination of the 501C(4) exemption for anyone who is involved in partisan politics regardless of their ideology.

Another failed witch hunt.... better try again



http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/07/17/irs-hearings-tea-party-editorials-debates/2530777/

Yep. Issa & friends reel 'em in every time. Put a little red meat on the hook & they'll practically jump into the boat, all by themselves.

 

[Jhhnn]

it would be part of the discussion and "discovery".

In other words, your initial assertion was pure bullshit, lacking a factual basis, but you'll try to pretend that it wasn't, see if you can back away from it slowly & gracefully. Understood.

 

[IGBT]

In other words, your initial assertion was pure bullshit, lacking a factual basis, but you'll try to pretend that it wasn't, see if you can back away from it slowly & gracefully. Understood.

the investigation is on going and in progress. There's no doubt that it will lead to the political obama appointee in the IRS. Climbing the ladder one rung at a time.

 

[Jhhnn]

the investigation is on going and in progress. There's no doubt that it will lead to the political obama appointee in the IRS. Climbing the ladder one rung at a time.

Right in the Boat!

It'll likely lead nowhere, as Issa grandstanding inevitable does, time after time.

 

[monovillage]

"Name That Bureaucrat
The IRS scandal shows that those who make decisions must be held responsible."

Finally, we may be getting somewhere in the IRS scandal involving the targeting and harassment of tea-party groups applying for tax exemptions. At Thursday’s House Government Reform and Oversight hearing, some names were at last attached to some of the IRS’s most questionable actions in the scandal.

Back in May, top IRS officials Steven Miller and Lois Lerner insisted that “rogue” agents in the Cincinnati office acted without direction from IRS headquarters in Washington. But Elizabeth Hofacre, who was the Cincinnati agent in charge of reviewing flagged tea-party applications, says she “had no autonomy or authority” to act on applications and so she simply sat on them. She blamed Carter Hull, an IRS lawyer in Washington, for the delays, saying that he directed her in how to treat problem cases but never gave her any feedback.

For his part, Hull said he had tried to tackle the growing pile of applications, but he was told they must first go through a multi-tier review that involved Lerner’s office and that of William Wilkins, the IRS’s chief counsel. Wilkins, a political appointee of President Obama’s, has been involved in Democratic politics as a staffer and campaign donor for over 30 years. Wilkins’s office did not have its first meeting with IRS officials on the tea-party applications until August 2011; at that point the applications had been pending for so long that it was decided that the IRS needed to demand updated information from the tea-party groups, further slowing down the process. Hull says that the behavior of IRS management during this whole process was “unusual.”

It’s taken nearly three months to begin to peel back the onion and discover the chain of command in the IRS scandal. One of the bureaucracy’s biggest weapons against scrutiny and accountability is its ability to hide who actually makes decisions and who should be held responsible for them. Back in May, former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman didn’t even pretend to know how the scandal had happened. Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat, asked him, “What caused that culture to develop, and what did you do about correcting that culture?” Shulman responded: “Mr. Chairman, I can’t say I know that answer.”Similarly, acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller was asked by Representative Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican: “Who is responsible for targeting these individuals?” Miller responded: “I don’t have names for you.”

Later, he acknowledged that senior technical adviser Nancy Marks had identified someone as responsible for the targeting policy. When asked who it was, he repeated his mantra of the day: “I don’t remember.”

It’s an old tactic in Washington to attempt to “move on” from instances of bureaucratic abuse without assigning blame. J. Russell George, the IRS’s inspector general, revealed to Congress that a government official had recent “willful unauthorized access” to private tax documents. His office presented the evidence to the Department of Justice, but “the case was declined for prosecution.” George thought three other cases involving the access of tax documents involved “inadvertent” behavior, but it appears Justice didn’t do much checking on its own and declined to prosecute any of them. Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, wrote Attorney General Eric Holder this month demanding answers. “The public needs to know whether the decision not to prosecute these individuals was politically motivated and whether the individuals were held accountable in any other way,” he wrote. Grassley said the IRS scandal may be expanding: Inspector General George recently told him his office is now investigating two cases in which the IRS may have targeted political candidates for an audit............................................................................................
The lesson of the IRS scandal so far is that the despotism de Tocqueville feared is a real threat to our liberties, and one of the weapons we must use against it is to call out the bureaucrats who so frequently control our lives and insist they explain their actions.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353869/name-bureaucrat-john-fund

 

[Jhhnn]

"Name That Bureaucrat
The IRS scandal shows that those who make decisions must be held responsible."




http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353869/name-bureaucrat-john-fund

Shill quotes shill. How quaint.

 

[bshole]

Grassley said the IRS scandal may be expanding

Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee.....

What he meant to say is that being a partisan hack; he wants, needs and prays that it expands and he will do everything in his power to ensure that happens (up to and including deception and outright lies).

 

[Fern]

I thought you were waiting for all the facts to be in

Based on sworn testimony I consider it a fact that the Chief Counsel was involved (in some manner).

So, uhh, Hull did, in fact, testify that he took the matter up with the CC?

Quote that for me, will ya?

Hull doesn't need to work with the CC to establish anything. The fact that Lerner etc said he was involved and needed the file etc is sufficient to establish his involvement and knowledge of the inappropriate program

Or did Lerner say that she did?

Quote?

:awe: She took the fifth. haha.

Or are you reading between the lines, inserting your own paragraphs?

I would be "reading between the lines" if I opined on his role in the matter. I haven't done that. Present fact are sufficient to establish that the CC was involved, and that's all I've been pointing out.

The desperation to "link" this up the chain of command is pretty obvious, falling into the mold of all previous Issa contrivances. Yet the faithful devotees fall for it over and over again, confirming that they are easily exploitable.

What's the principle behind the thought processes involved? Even a blind squirrel finds a few nuts? A stopped clock is right twice a day? The boy who cries Wolf must be believed, no matter how many times he's lied?

Linking this one way to look at it, and that may be Issa's objective. As to the latter I don't care, no do many others and some from the Dem side. Using the IRS as a (dirty) political tool is serious business and for that reason alone we must get to the bottom of it. Maybe it's a SNAFU, maybe it isn't but we won't know unless it's thoroughly investigated.

A better question might be why you want to kill this investigation at every turn? At every turn we've found good cause to continue, cause for concern. E.g.:

It was only 2 rogue agents in one office (Cincinnati)

Well no. Because of their testimony we know they weren't rogue. They were tightly controlled from above.

Those 2 agents testified that Washington DC was involved (the tax lawyers)

We know from other testimony that more than one office was involved. In addition to the Washington DC we have other EO groups from around the country involved.

From the TIGA report we now that this was formal plan whose creation involved many IRS parties including superiors in the EO group in Washington DC as well as the lawyer group also in DC. So much for "rogue".

We now know from testimony by senior personnel in the DC legal group that the Lois Lerner (head of EO) was involved and so was the IRS Chief Counsel.

So, the facts have gone from "only 2 rogue agents" to involvement by the top of Cincinnati, the inclusion of, and supervision by, the Washington legal group, the inclusion of the head of EO in DC and, most recently, the involvement of the HEAD of the ENTIRE IRS legal group.

To stop now is akin to the police concluding an investigation upon finding a suspect's alibi is false. That is not a cause for ceasing, but rather a cause for continuing an investigation.

Fern

 

[Fern]

The best part of all of this, of course, is blatantly political groups whining because they received the tax related scrutiny they deserve as political groups, rather than as legit non-political non-profits.

The IRS issuing an apology in the first place is absurd. As a citizen & a taxpayer, I applaud their efforts to prevent tax cheating before it happens, regardless of the political bent of the groups they investigate. If it was applied unevenly, the fault isn't that Teaparty groups were investigated, but that others possibly didn't receive the scrutiny they deserve.

We all know that's not what they were stopping.

Fern

 

[Fern]

How in the holy hell could a Tea Party group be considered in any way shape or form as a tax exempt non-profit? I hope the result of all of this is the elimination of the 501C(4) exemption for anyone who is involved in partisan politics regardless of their ideology.

Another failed witch hunt.... better try again
-snip-

Before opining you should become aware of some very basic facts. They've been noted here many times.

I'll try to help you:

ALL POLITICAL GROUPS ARE TAX EXEMPT NON-PROFITS.

Read above, then repeat as necessary.

Fern

 

[bshole]

ALL POLITICAL GROUPS ARE TAX EXEMPT NON-PROFITS.

That is one of the most disgusting things I have ever heard. If it is true, we as a country are already fucking dead.

 

[outriding]

That is one of the most disgusting things I have ever heard. If it is true, we as a country are already fucking dead.

No I believe there are limits to tax exempt....

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The Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations
Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.
Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances. For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.
On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.
Page Last Reviewed or Updated: 18-Mar-2013

http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-...by-Section-501(c)(3)-Tax-Exempt-Organizations