Weekly Update: New Obama IRS Scandal Documents

Hi hsilgne,

That's really very old news. The IRS, at one time, was digging into fraud among 501(c) organizations. It was a number of years ago. There are a number of qualifications, rules, guidelines and laws that apply to non-profits and the IRS, as a part of its duties to investigate possible misuse of such status, was cracking down on them. It wasn't something that President Obama ordered or had anything to do with. He just happened to be the President at the time and so, just like everyone likes to call the healthcare law Obamacare even though the actual law that was passed has absolutely nothing to do with him, some attached 'Obama' to what the IRS was doing.

On the bright side, now it's Trump's IRS and so anything that they do to crack down on scofflaws now will be referred to as Trump's IRS.

However, the reason that you don't see much about this issue in the news today is because it's very, very old news that has already been covered. What this report is saying is that now there have been more documents regarding the old issue, released.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

SQUIRREL!

Armoured said:

SQUIRREL!

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DUCK!!!

Armoured said:

SQUIRREL!

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Antigone said:

DUCK!!!

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MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN !!!

hsilgne said:

Not so fast scooter.

These documents have only been recently released under the Trump IRS because of a freedom of information law suit filed by JW in 2015.

Many more revelations of wrong doing are being exposed as they pour through all these documents(nearly 7000) that the OBAMA IRS tried to hide from the public.

Yeah... we knew they targeted conservative groups years ago(old news) but there was limited ‘smoking gun’ evidence to prove it.

Until now.

You can dismiss it if you like. I’m sure you’re not the only one who will.

However, I think it’s best to know and tell the truth about these rascals.

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Here's the problem Hs:

The reason why the IRS was auditing they organization was because (DUM, DUM, DUUUUUUMM) They were actually do illegal stuff.

The reason why this was not generally known was because the GOP Congress had (DUM, DUM, DUUUUMM) made it illegal for the justice department to put out reports on right wing terrorist organizations based in America.

These groups increased under the black man the White House by over 1000% (yes you read that number correctly). Most were funneling money around using (yes, you guessed it) "non-profit" organizations.

There is a word for this. It's called money laundering.

So before you get high on your horse, go check out who and what these org's were before you start spouting out 6 year old news and trying to pass it off as "Both parties do it" manure.

Both parties aren't treasonous. Neither was. Just one is now.

Cosmic Charlie said:

These groups increased under the black man the White House by over 1000% (yes you read that number correctly). Most were funneling money around using (yes, you guessed it) "non-profit" organizations.

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This is actually a brilliant thing to cite when people tell me hating Obama has nothing to do with his race.

And by 'brilliant' I mean 'acutely depressing'.

Wow. Just...wow.

hsilgne said:

What a bunch of bunk.
While I'm sure some organizations were investigated legitimately(as they should be) it does not answer the question why they targeted so many conservative groups illegitimately.
These documents show they did just that.
That's why they had to put in place these new guidelines and rules. To keep the radical liberals who run and work at the IRS from targeting conservative groups illegitimately.

You can deny it all you want but the facts don't lie.

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Hi hsilgne,

Ok, let's face the facts. What are these changes that you claim the IRS had to make as regards this subject? Do you have access to any memorandum, legislation, email or other printed matter that sets out these changes that you are referring to?

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

hsilgne said:

What a bunch of bunk.
While I'm sure some organizations were investigated legitimately(as they should be) it does not answer the question why they targeted so many conservative groups illegitimately.

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What was the Conservative/Cenrtist/Liberal ratio of total applications at the time?

Since we know that Liberal Groups were also illegitimately targeted, we can make no determination as to the bias of the IRS without knowing the makeup of the entire application pool.
Ultimately, to address the question whether the IRS's review of applicants for tax exempt status had a disparate impact on one side of the political spectrum or the other, we will need to know more about the overall pool of advocacy groups applying for tax exemption. For example, if there were a surge in the creation of potentially political conservative organizations in the last few years (that was disproportionate to the creation of nonconservative organizations), more conservative groups would be targeted than nonconservative groups even if there were no political bias among IRS officials. Looking at the makeup of exemption-approved groups tells us nothing about bias unless we know the makeup of the group from which they were selected.

Do you have that information?

If I need a dozen eggs for a recipe, and the store shelf only has 1 dozen white eggs, and half a dozen brown eggs left, my grabbing the dozen white ones does not necessarily mean I have a bias toward white eggs over brown ones....

hsilgne said:

The changes are outlined in the documents being uncovered.

Why didn't you read the link I provided? It quotes the memo's saying just that.

Here it is again.

Weekly Update: New Obama IRS Scandal Documents - Judicial Watch

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Hi hsilgne,

Well, I'm likely not a very good reader. I looked at your link previously and I looked at again from this link that you posted. Here's what I got out of it.

It was decided that an audit or review should not be based on the name of an organization. If there's more that I've missed please respond.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

I'm not a big believer in either the accuracy or the impartiality of Wikipedia it's a much better source of information on this subject then a right wing conspiracy fever driven bunch than Judaical Watch:

IRS targeting controversy - Wikipedia

And now were in the arena of dueling sources.
But really this is a a straw man anyway.

The fact is that right wing hate groups increased over 1000% and that the Republican Congress passed a law specifically forbidding the justice department from publishing this information and order the destruction of the data on the subject.

Did the IRS overstep it's authority in this thing ?
Yes it did.

Did it do it for political reasons ?

Even the Republican controlled investigation into the scandal says no, it did not.

The IRS appears to have been attempting to do something to interdict and track right wing wacko groups since the Republican controlled Congress had tied the Justice Departments hands on the subject.

It seem to me to be the height of intentional ignorance to forbid one part of the administration from doing it's job and then faulting another part for attempting to pick up the slack.

Cosmic Charlie said:

I'm not a big believer in either the accuracy or the impartiality of Wikipedia it's a much better source of information on this subject then a right wing conspiracy fever driven bunch than Judaical Watch:

IRS targeting controversy - Wikipedia

And now were in the arena of dueling sources.
But really this is a a straw man anyway.

The fact is that right wing hate groups increased over 1000% and that the Republican Congress passed a law specifically forbidding the justice department from publishing this information and order the destruction of the data on the subject.

Did the IRS overstep it's authority in this thing ?
Yes it did.

Did it do it for political reasons ?

Even the Republican controlled investigation into the scandal says no, it did not.

The IRS appears to have been attempting to do something to interdict and track right wing wacko groups since the Republican controlled Congress had tied the Justice Departments hands on the subject.

It seem to me to be the height of intentional ignorance to forbid one part of the administration from doing it's job and then faulting another part for attempting to pick up the slack.

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Hi CC,

I disagree on your understanding of the IRS's intentions. As far as I can tell, the IRS was doing exactly what it supposed to be doing. The enforcement division of the IRS, which includes the audit and review groups, has the right and the responsibility to check thoroughly any application for 501 (c)4 status. The thinking at the time was that a lot of these political groups that were now filing for such status really didn't qualify based on the rules and guidelines that state that such a status must be for an organization whose primary work is for social programs and not just political agendas or the support of particular political parties or people. So, a decision was made to begin checking these applications more carefully as to their intent for doing business.

Yes, there were a lot of these applications that had apparently been filed by certain tea party and other specific political parties, but it was most certainly not all of them. I think I read where somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% of the applications were in some way related to the tea party groups. There could well be a very good reason for that. The tea party is the late comer to the political arena and they may well have been playing catch up and putting in a lot of these applications because of that.

There was a decision made, after these groups began to make noise about why they seemed to be singled out, to make sure that applications were no longer pulled for review merely because there was something in the name of the organization that might tie it to a particular group. If an application was to be pulled for further review there needed to be some real question as to what the intent of such a group was. Unfortunately, with political organizations filing for 501 (c)4 status, there is always the question of whether their true reason for being was to advance social agendas or to advance particular party agendas.

The IRS was operating completely within their rights and jurisdiction in what they were doing and, as I said up top, the enforcement division of the IRS has every responsibility to make sure that any organization filing for any special tax exemption status meets the qualifications of that status. Just as any single filer who makes up a bogus spousal social security number to enable them to take advantage of the married filer rate for their single income should also be caught by the IRS. How is the IRS going to catch either of these scofflaws is through careful screening of returns and applications. Which is exactly what they were doing.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

miamited said:

Hi CC,

I disagree on your understanding of the IRS's intentions. As far as I can tell, the IRS was doing exactly what it supposed to be doing. The enforcement division of the IRS, which includes the audit and review groups, has the right and the responsibility to check thoroughly any application for 501 (c)4 status. The thinking at the time was that a lot of these political groups that were now filing for such status really didn't qualify based on the rules and guidelines that state that such a status must be for an organization whose primary work is for social programs and not just political agendas or the support of particular political parties or people. So, a decision was made to begin checking these applications more carefully as to their intent for doing business.

Yes, there were a lot of these applications that had apparently been filed by certain tea party and other specific political parties, but it was most certainly not all of them. I think I read where somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% of the applications were in some way related to the tea party groups. There could well be a very good reason for that. The tea party is the late comer to the political arena and they may well have been playing catch up and putting in a lot of these applications because of that.

There was a decision made, after these groups began to make noise about why they seemed to be singled out, to make sure that applications were no longer pulled for review merely because there was something in the name of the organization that might tie it to a particular group. If an application was to be pulled for further review there needed to be some real question as to what the intent of such a group was. Unfortunately, with political organizations filing for 501 (c)4 status, there is always the question of whether their true reason for being was to advance social agendas or to advance particular party agendas.

The IRS was operating completely within their rights and jurisdiction in what they were doing and, as I said up top, the enforcement division of the IRS has every responsibility to make sure that any organization filing for any special tax exemption status meets the qualifications of that status. Just as any single filer who makes up a bogus spousal social security number to enable them to take advantage of the married filer rate for their single income should also be caught by the IRS. How is the IRS going to catch either of these scofflaws is through careful screening of returns and applications. Which is exactly what they were doing.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

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I completely agree with you up to the point where the Congressional investigative committee found them guilty of misconduct.

They crossed a line somewhere I'm not clear on where.

But as a general observation, I'm in complete agreement with you.

Cosmic Charlie said:

I completely agree with you up to the point where the Congressional investigative committee found them guilty of misconduct.

They crossed a line somewhere I'm not clear on where.

But as a general observation, I'm in complete agreement with you.

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Hi CC,

Could you supply a link to that finding of the CIC? I didn't see any mention of that in this timeline of the issue: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyp...tax-exempt-organization-scandal/#71c810726a6b

As to not being clear where they crossed a line, it would appear that most people aren't really clear on that issue either. The only line that appears to have been crossed, that really wasn't a line when it was crossed, was the use of what are termed BOLO lists which were given to IRS examiners putting them on notice to be on the lookout for certain words and terms in 501 (c)4 applications. When this came to light the IRS agreed that they shouldn't have set these words and terms as the criteria, but been more specific as to the kinds of activities that they were on the lookout for.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

miamited said:

Hi CC,

Could you supply a link to that finding of the CIC? I didn't see any mention of that in this timeline of the issue: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyp...tax-exempt-organization-scandal/#71c810726a6b

As to not being clear where they crossed a line, it would appear that most people aren't really clear on that issue either. The only line that appears to have been crossed, that really wasn't a line when it was crossed, was the use of what are termed BOLO lists which were given to IRS examiners putting them on notice to be on the lookout for certain words and terms in 501 (c)4 applications. When this came to light the IRS agreed that they shouldn't have set these words and terms as the criteria, but been more specific as to the kinds of activities that they were on the lookout for.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

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The wikipeidia article I supplied above explains the situation fairly clearly.

hsilgne said:

Just a coincidence that most of the groups were conservative.

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Well, no... If 1000 conservative groups applied and 100 liberal groups applied, an even hand, unbiased audit approach would result in a 10 to 1 conservative tilt in organizations being audited.