IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups

IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.

Organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

“That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,” Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.

“The IRS would like to apologize for that,” she added. SOURCE

One of the biggest LIES in the history of the world: ‘I’m from the IRS and I’m here to help you.’

Many Conservative bloggers have been cautioned by their friends and readers because our readers believe that we, as Conservative bloggers, have opened ourselves up to IRS scrutiny and audits of OUR taxes because we have taken such a HARD stand regarding the REGIME of Barack Hussein Obama and his evil minions.

That has never been a concern for me.

The TRUTH is NOT something that Obama and Company wants to attack, the TRUTH will stand the light of day and it will set you free, and they, Obama and Company, know that.

The TRUTH is all I have, well, the TRUTH as I see it, based on what I put together from the coverage provided by the media, such as it is, and on what I garner from various sites that focus on the Conservative and Republican side of the political spectrum.

I also base MY political opinions on information gathered from Liberal sites too. It’s very easy to cut through their BS, read between the lines and then compare stories from other areas before I form an opinion that I am willing to publish.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice. She did not say when they found out.

What do they call that? Plausible deniability isn’t it?

Many conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They accused the agency of frustrating their attempts to become tax exempt by sending them lengthy, intrusive questionnaires.

The forms, which the groups made available at the time, sought information about group members’ political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.

Some folks that are members of groups such as the TEA Party are very vocal on social media sites, but I thought that was the purpose of social media.

If a group is taking in a lot of money and is seeking a tax exempt status I guess there are certain criteria that must be met, especially if said group has a web site of their own. I know that the type of tax status and incorporation matter greatly because of *the fine print*, but for the love of God, WHAT does posting on Facebook and details of your family members have to do with it?

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views.

“There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people” who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.

Maybe so, maybe not. Have you ever heard of COINTELPRO?

COINTELPRO (an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert, and at times illegal,[1] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveying, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.

It HAS happened before, and history does have a way of repeating itself…