Free Republic

All same-sex couples who are legally married will be recognized as such for federal tax purposes, even if the state where they live does not recognize their union, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday. It is the broadest federal rule change to come out of the landmark Supreme Court decision in June that struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, and a sign of how quickly the government is moving to treat gay couples in the same way that it does straight couples. The June decision found that same-sex couples were entitled to federal benefits,...

House Republicans plan to ratchet up scrutiny of the IRS during a hearing Thursday morning where agency workers are expected to discuss the involvement of high-level officials in slowing down applications from Tea Party groups. For the first time, the House oversight committee has invited two key agency officials to testify. Republican leaders of the committee claimed Wednesday that one of them recently revealed that the IRS chief counsel's office -- led by a political appointee -- played a role, along with embattled IRS official Lois Lerner, in scrutinizing conservative groups. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the committee, told...

More than two years after her upstart Senate campaign rocked the Delaware political world, Christine O'Donnell got an unexpected contact from a U.S. Treasury Department agent warning that her private tax records may have been breached. The phone message earlier this year shocked the battled-scarred candidate, a tea party favorite who knocked off Republican mainstay Michael Castle in the primary before losing in a bid to win Vice President Joseph R. Biden's former seat. "Ms. O'Donnell, this is Dennis Martel, special agent with the U.S. Department of Treasury in Baltimore, Md. ... We received information that your personal federal tax...

More than two years after her upstart Senate campaign rocked the Delaware political world, Christine O’Donnell got an unexpected contact from a U.S. Treasury Department agent warning that her private tax records may have been breached. The phone message earlier this year shocked the battled-scarred candidate, a tea party favorite who knocked off Republican mainstay Michael Castle in the primary before losing in a bid to win Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s former seat. “Ms. O’Donnell, this is Dennis Martel, special agent with the U.S. Department of Treasury in Baltimore, Md. … We received information that your personal federal tax...

Patterico unearthed something that, to my knowledge, had not been reported previously: a November 2011 Business Week article about the business operations of non-profit universities that concludes with this: Lois Lerner, the IRS’s director of tax-exempt organizations who is overseeing the investigation, says many schools are rethinking how and what they report to the government. Receiving a thick questionnaire from the IRS, she says, is a “behavior changer.”

With the new acting commissioner of the IRS Daniel Werfel releasing the first report on the agency’s targeting of conservative groups comes a big revelation: liberal groups received very similar treatment. CNN’s Dana Bash reported Monday afternoon that the term “progressive” was used by the IRS, in addition to conservative buzz words like “tea party” and “patriot” to identify applications by groups for tax-exempt status. As Bash pointed out, “this is a very big development with regard to the IRS controversy because of course we have seen hearings and investigations for months now looking into why conservative groups

Mitch McConnell delivered a speech today at the American Enterprise Institute to officially signal that the IRS scandal has entered its post-fact phase. When the IRS first revealed that its Cincinnati office had attempted to enforce its nonprofit laws using a search function that disproportionately impacted conservatives, Republicans were certain it must have come from the White House. They were going to follow the facts. But all of the facts point in the same direction, which is that the Obama administration had nothing to do with it at all. That was the conclusion of the agency’s inspector-general report, as well...

Despite being under heavy scrutiny from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill and all over the country for inappropriately targeting conservative groups, IRS employees are about to receive $70 million in bonuses. The Internal Revenue Service is about to pay $70 million in employee bonuses despite an Obama administration directive to cancel discretionary bonuses because of automatic spending cuts enacted this year, according to a GOP senator. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa says his office has learned that the IRS is executing an agreement with the employees' union on Wednesday to pay the bonuses. Grassley says the bonuses should...

...Paz described an agency in which IRS supervisors in Washington worked closely with agents in the field but didn't fully understand what those agents were doing. Paz said agents in Cincinnati openly talked about handling "tea party" cases, but she thought the term was merely shorthand for all applications from groups that were politically active -- conservative and liberal. Paz said dozens of tea party applications sat untouched for more than a year while field agents waited for guidance from Washington on how to handle them. At the time, she said, Washington officials thought the agents in Cincinnati were processing...

A Washington-based IRS supervisor acknowledged she was personally involved in reviewing Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status as far back as 2010, Fox News confirms -- a detail that further challenges the agency's initial claim that the practice of singling out those groups was limited to a handful of employees in Ohio. Congressional sources confirmed to Fox News that Holly Paz, who until recently was a top deputy in the division that handles applications for tax-exempt status, told congressional investigators she reviewed 20 to 30 applications. Some requests languished for more than a year without action. The account undercuts the...

This is comforting… The far left government agency that targets conservatives is now training with AR15s. WYFF4 reported: Republican Jeff Duncan said he made the discovery at a Maryland Federal Law Enforcement Training Center on May 23. The congressman was touring the facility with Homeland Security officials as part of his investigation into the amount of ammunition purchases the agency conducts. Duncan told News 4’s Sean Muserallo he saw about eight or nine shooters identified to him as IRS agents practicing at an indoor 100-yard range. “While we were sitting there,” said Duncan, “the gentleman told them to sling their...

On CNN’s State of the Union this morning, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) told Candy Crowley that the IRS scandal involving targeting of conservatives had been “solved.” Crowley asked, “As far as you are concerned, based on the information that you now have, which in its totality is greater than ours, is this case over, have you solved the case of the IRS and how this came to be?” Cummings answered, “Based upon everything I’ve seen, the case is solved. If it were me, I’d wrap this case up and move on.” Cummings added that he would release transcripts of IRS...

Published on Jun 6, 2013 Americans targeted by the IRS testify about the effects of an over-reaching government on their lives.

The New York Times has been noticeably unenthusiastic in covering the IRS/Tea Party scandal. A news story about it on their web page now is headlined: “IRS focus on conservatives give G.O.P. an issue to seize on.” As far as it is concerned, the big issue here is that the IRS’s abuses may have helped the GOP, not the core fact that the IRS abused its power. There may be a reason why the Times thinks this way: Just 14 months ago it was actually cheerleading the targeting of Tea Party groups by the Internal Revenue Service. In an unsigned...

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli joked at the Virginia Republican Convention, where he was nominated by the state GOP for governor, that the Obama administration must not think he's a conservative: He hasn't been audited by the IRS. The IRS nevertheless found a way to exact vengeance on the slayer of government-lawbreaking, who has sued several federal government agencies -- and even wrote a book about why the Obama administration is America's biggest lawbreaker. Yesterday Cuccinelli blasted the IRS for withholding payment of $125 million in money owed to Virginia. Cuccinelli won the second largest Medicaid fraud settlement is U.S....

The IRS has notified congressional staff that top officials in the agency’s Affordable Care Act implementation team were recently placed on administrative leave for potential improprieties, according to a congressional source. The agency told lawmakers that Fred Schindler, who is Sarah Hall Ingram’s deputy, and another staffer in the division were put on leave. The move is the result of gifts the staffers allegedly received — including $1,100 in free food and other items — while attending a 2010 health care conference. The IRS didn’t immediately comment. The agency is surrounded in scandal after acknowledging last month that it wrongly...

Some Democrats participating in the House IRS hearings have used the opportunity to ask tough questions and promise to punish any government employees who unfairly singled out conservative non-profit applicants for unfair treatment. Not Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore...He even took the opportunity to trash 501 c(4) advocacy groups that advocate things he doesn’t like, such as the traditional legal definition of marriage:

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) not only blamed the victims of the IRS's targeting on Tuesday--he also implied the IRS would have been justified targeting conservative and Tea Party groups if the agency did so based on what the groups stood for instead of on the words in their names. At a House Ways and Means hearing in which six leaders of organizations the IRS had targeted were testifying, McDermott said the "mistake here was the staff used the names of the organizatiions instead of the work they do." [video] McDermott lashed out at the witnesses, saying "each of your groups...

Testifying on Capitol Hill Tuesday, witnesses from Tea Party, pro-life and patriotic educational groups from around the country testified about their experience of intimidation and targeting from the Internal Revenue Service. Witnesses described being sent hundreds of pages from the IRS asking invasive questions about members, books, contents of prayers and the names of anyone attending meetings, including children. "The IRS sought documentation of our meetings, rallies, events, or candidate forums. That included video and audio transcriptions, notes, copies of all handouts; the political party of speakers, and an “issues” list. The IRS sought identifying information on employees; data on...

Another great speech from Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PN):