The IRS and the Drive to Stop Free Speech

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 5/20/2013 | David Rivkin and Lee Casey

[T.Bourne]

The unfolding IRS scandal is a symptom, not the disease.For decades, campaign-finance reform zealots have sought to limit core political speech through spending limits and disclosure requirements. More recently, they have claimed that it is wrong and dangerous for tax-exempt entities to engage in political speech. The Obama administration shares these views, especially when conservative, small-government organizations are involved, and the IRS clearly got the message. While the agency must be investigated and reformed, the ultimate cure for these abuses is to unshackle political speech by all groups, including tax-exempt ones, from arbitrary and unconstitutional government regulation. Beginning in March 2010, the IRS engaged in an unprecedented campaign of harassment against conservative groups, either through denials or delays in approving their tax-exempt-status applications, or through endless and burdensome audits. In notable contrast, liberal and "progressive" organizations got approvals with remarkable speed. The most conspicuous example involves the Barack H. Obama Foundation, which was approved as tax exempt within a month by the then-head of the IRS tax-exempt branch, Lois Lerner. From media reports and firsthand accounts, we also know that the IRS disproportionately audited donors to conservative causes and leaked confidential tax information concerning conservative groups in violation of federal law. This IRS politicization is not an isolated problem. It is an inevitable result of the broader efforts to regulate and, in fact, suppress political speech. The IRS crackdown on tax-exemption approvals for conservative groups was directed at nonprofit social-welfare groups, often called 501(c)(4)s after the Internal Revenue Code section granting them tax-exempt status. Such groups do not have to disclose their donors and are exempt from most taxation, although donations to them generally aren't tax deductible.

[pepsionice]

No, the IG investigation has been going on for a minimum of twelve months. It had to come to a conclusion and be published.

I do agree....the timing is odd....fitting into the AP and Benghazi mess, but don’t sit there and think this is the last scandal. There’s an effort to identify all of the Chrysler and GM dealers who were kicked out of their franchise. It’s believed that the vast majority...were Republican donors in their states. If this is proven (likely to happen by the end of this year)...it’ll open up another scandal episode.

I suspect there’s at least a dozen more scandals lined up, and will each fall out of the sky at some moment when the administration thinks they are about to walk free of scandals.

[IndePundit]

Right! The treatment is so different when it is a progressive organization, but conservative groups get shunned. I cant believe what a hit our free speech has been taking.