Posted on 03/23/2017 11:23:09 AM PDT by george76
An obscure bureaucratic policy that allowed IRS officials to target conservative and Tea Party tax exemption applicants during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns is still in place, meaning the same abuses may be continuing, according to a nonprofit government watchdog.
The federal tax agency’s policy requires IRS officials to stop processing tax-exempt applications that are “likely to attract media or congressional attention,” the Cause of Action Institute said in a report made public Wednesday.
The policy also directs IRS officials to prepare “sensitive case reports” for their supervisors and to ignore “the merits of the application” if it involved a newsworthy topic.
“Targeting was — and is — IRS policy, not a violation of it,” the report said, noting that the policy is still in place. “As a result, American taxpayers are at risk for similar treatment in the future.”
“In halting the applications, preparing such reports and referring the matter to supervisors, including political appointees, IRS employees behaved exactly as agency rules dictated,” the report continued.
The IRS delayed hundreds of applications from conservative and Tea Party groups beginning in 2010. A federal court recently ruled the IRS is still targeting groups using the policy.
...
“Seven years after the targeting scandal began, the rule that enabled this inexcusable behavior still exists,” the report said. “Until that rule is removed from the internal manual used by all IRS employees, targeting of political opponents will remain a very real threat.”
Cause of Action Institute noted that the IRS has the authority to change its policy without legislation.
“Given the amount of criticism the IRS has received regarding its targeting practices, it is hard to believe the agency has not yet taken the steps needed to remedy the problem,”
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Why on earth is Koskinen still the Commissioner at IRS? Trump should have fired him forthwith.
Trump is being audited so he can’t fire Koskinen and I think Koskinen will audit Trump for the next 4 years
Trumps pick has not been passed by Congress yet.
This is simply a tradeoff. Is the grief they get from having this policy in place worth the bad financial effect this has on conservative groups? The answer is yes.
Just put someone in as acting Commissioner then. Almost anyone would be an improvement over Koskinen.
I am of the opinion that the Federal taxes should be divided such that each Senator and each Representative would be assigned an equally distributed tax burden. Total budgeted costs into two equal buckets.... The senator tax and the representative tax. The senator tax would then be divided by the number of senators (currently 100) and the representative tax would be divided by the number of representatives. Each state would then be sent a bill that is the combined total for their senators and representatives in congress. That annual bill would then be divided into monthly payments.
Each state would then be able to collect the taxes necessary to pay their bill. States with lots of millionaires and socialist leanings could raise the taxes on the rich. Other states may wish to tax tourists, fuels, home owners, etc. What ever works for that state. Federal law should require that the monthly federal tax be paid BEFORE the state is allowed so spend any tax revenue to cover state expenses.
The IRS would then be downsized to about 60 personnel (one for each state, couple of supervisors, one head). Only need to track the payments from each state.
No federal income tax
No federal FICA tax
etc
That is quite a brilliant scheme. I like it.
Why would they change their policy?
They were never held accountable, so..........
Why would they change a thing?
Still waiting for the swamp to get drained. So far all we get is democrat grandstanding, show trials, political witch hunts of republicans, and a bunch of executive orders that are getting shot down by liberal judges with no legit justification. Trump is losing momentum while the drip-drip-drip tactic of the left is starting to work. He is losing his window of opportunity to do big things before the GOPe officially joins the dems in trying to destroy him.
Great graphic. If the flag were shown upside down, it would signify the distress of productive working Americans, who need the IRS abolished.
Truly, there is no benign reason for the PROGRESSIVE income tax. For the strongest decades of our history, there was NO IRS/income tax. It’s just a political tool designed to keep the populace poor and in fear of their gov’t.
Abolish it!
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