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IRS: An aide to the attorney general accidentally calls the office of the House Oversight Committee chairman, asking for help in spinning the defense of the agency whose head just said they obey the law when they can. We have commented many times of the all-too-cozy relationship between the IRS and Democratic members of the House and Senate, with members writing to the agency demanding that specific conservative groups and political action committees they find particularly irritating be subject to the "special scrutiny" that the Tea Party and other conservative and religious groups were subjected to in the ongoing scandal....

A remarkable conversation about the IRSÂ’s illegal targeting of conservative groups took place on Friday in Washington. According to Rep. Darrell IssaÂ’s office, at 5:01 Friday Brian Fallon, a former aide to Chuck Schumer and currently a communications aide to Attorney General Eric Holder, called IssaÂ’s office. By mistake. And itÂ’s quite a mistake.The purpose of the call, according to a letter Issa wrote to Holder, was to work with the intended recipient of the call to strategically leak damaging information to selected, friendly reporters and to coordinate a damage-control plan. The intended recipient of the call was apparently Rep....

IRS: As the 2014 midterms approach, what has become a political arm of the Obama administration has targeted — as it targeted the Tea Party — a leading conservative truth-teller that has exposed so many of its lies. Even as the IRS races to cover up a prior abuse of power, it ruthlessly engages in another, using its power to tax in an attempt to destroy the vast truth-gathering enterprise launched by the late Andrew Breitbart, which the administration apparently ranks right alongside the Tea Party atop its enemies list. Last Friday, the IRS stretched credulity beyond the breaking point...

In responding to a question from the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said he and his department follow the law “wherever we can.” (Video) House Ways and Means Committee Chair Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) asked Koskinen “Will you be following the law,” in collecting money for a certain type of healthcare subsidy. After Koskinen ducked the question, Brady asked again. Koskinen then admitted: “Yes, wherever we can, we follow the law.” A discouraged Brady chuckled while admonishing the commissioner saying, “I encourage you to follow the law in all instances.” I’m sure

During another grueling hearing on the ObamaCare rollout, the head of the Internal Revenue Service tried to offer lawmakers an assurance about the soon-to-open enrollment period. “Whenever we can, we follow the law,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told the House Ways and Means subcommittee on health on Wednesday. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), who leads the subcommittee, immediately expressed his concern with the remarks. “I encourage you to follow the law in all instances,” Brady said. Koskinen, who was confirmed as head of IRS last December, has repeatedly faced lawmakers' ire over the agency's targeting of conservative groups. Lawmakers spent a...

Editor's Note: This press release originally appeared on Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) Congressional website. WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today sent the following letter to the Internal Revenue Service regarding its decision to audit Breitbart News Network, LLC.

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today sent the following letter to the Internal Revenue Service regarding its decision to audit Breitbart News Network, LLC. The full text of the letter is available here. Dear Commissioner Koskinen: I write to express deep concern over the recent announcement by Breitbart News that the Internal Revenue Service recently notified the Breitbart News Network, LLC that it would be subject to a far-reaching, burdensome, and open-ended audit. As you know, the Breitbart News Network LLC is a conservative-leaning press outlet. It has editors and reporters who cover daily political news and...

A senior communications aide to Attorney General Eric Holder seemingly called House oversight committee chairman Darrell Issa's staff by accident and asked for their help spinning new revelations about the IRS scandal, Issa said in a September 8 letter to Holder.

A senior communications aide to Attorney General Eric Holder seemingly called House oversight committee chairman Darrell Issa's staff by accident and asked for their help spinning new revelations about the IRS scandal, Issa said in a September 8 letter to Holder. The aide, Brian Fallon, is a former senior aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and a well-known personality on Capitol Hill. The letter describes Fallon as “audibly shaken” when he realizes his request to leak documents to help get ahead of news stories about them was mistakenly made to the very office he was seeking to undermine. Issa believes...

The company that runs the conservative Breitbart.com news site says the IRS has selected the network for an audit, in a move company executives suggest is politically motivated. Breitbart News Network, a California-based company which runs several conservative websites, says the IRS recently audited its 2012 financial information.

In what many could only expect to read in a fiction novel, it has been discovered that the emails of more IRS agents have gone missing. The IRS blamed “routinely experienced” computer crashes for all the lost emails, and said that all the crashes happened well before Congress launched its investigations. On Friday, Mark Levin suggested that “[t]hey must be working overtime over at the Internal Revenue Service, or as I call it, the IRSS. And over there at the IRSS, they’re busy issuing press releases and other information, I thought, when the government’s closed.” According to the Associated Press,...

Surprise! The IRS claims it has lost emails belonging to even more employees embroiled in the scandal surrounding the targeting of conservatives. Guy covered the details of the newest revelations earlier today and the AP reported about the lost emails over the weekend. The IRS says it has lost emails from five more workers who are part of congressional investigations into the treatment of conservative groups that applied for tax exempt status. The tax agency said in June that it could not locate an untold number of emails to and from Lois Lerner, who headed the IRS division that processes...

More Swiss banks are dropping out of the U.S. banking program that the IRS supposedly uses to prevent American citizens from stashing cash overseas to avoid taxes. Known for 100 years as the original tax haven, free from the prying eyes of governments around the world, Swiss banks have provided banking services that guaranteed anonymity to arms dealers, Nazis, and law-abiding Americans alike.Offshore banks, especially Swiss banks, are not generally used to evade taxes however. The government already has enforcement mechanisms in place to prevent tax evasion by the use of offshore banks by American citizens. No smart rich person,...

ZURICH (Reuters) - At least 10 Swiss banks have withdrawn from a U.S. program aimed at settling a tax dispute between them and the United States, Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag said on Sunday, quoting unnamed sources. Around 100 Swiss banks came forward at the end of last year to work with U.S. authorities in a program brokered by the Swiss government to help the banks make amends for aiding tax evasion. "At least 10 banks that had decided at the end of 2013 to pay a fine have withdrawn their decision," NZZ am Sonntag said, quoting unnamed lawyers and...

Silicon Valley companies are known to cater to their hard working employees. Free yoga classes, nap rooms and meals are among the perks their workers enjoy. A recent Wall Street Journal report reveals that the Internal Revenue Service could be targeting these fringe benefits, more specifically "employer-provided meals" in the next fiscal year. In the agency’s recently released Priority Guidance Plan for 2014 to 2015, the IRS states that the free meals will now be considered a taxable fringe benefit, the same way a company car or phone is. Rather than taxing employees themselves -- an arduous if not impossible...

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich), chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is preparing a report that will absolve the IRS and Lois Lerner of any wrongdoing in the campaign to target and harass conservative political organizations. “Those who have alleged that Lerner and the IRS took it upon themselves to conduct a vendetta against conservative organizations have it all wrong,” Levin alleged. “Evidence has emerged that the IRS was acting upon urgent requests from highly placed members of the government. Bureaucrats being responsive to the needs of the government is behavior we should be encouraging not punishing.” The highly...

In June, IRS commissioner John Koskinen testified he had no idea who tipped off Obama officials, much sooner than Congress, about missing IRS emails. "Did you cause someone to find out at the White House, at Treasury, or your IG?" Representative Darrell Issa asked Koskinen on June 23rd. "I did not," answered Koskinen. "And if you have any evidence of that, I'd be happy to see it." "I asked a question," said Issa. "And I answered it," replied Koskinen. In a new development, we've learned it was IRS Commission John Koskinen's own chief legal advisor at the IRS, Catherine Duval,...

A Senate report released Friday criticized the IRS Inspector General's investigation into whether the tax agency targeted conservative tea party groups for excessive and burdensome scrutiny during the 2012 election cycle. The report, written by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, acknowledged that the IRS did mismanage applications from groups applying for tax exemption, but it argued that mismanagement affected both liberal and conservative groups. "The subcommittee found no evidence that political bias influences the decisions made by IRS personnel," the report stated. "A review of nearly 800,000 pages of documents and nearly two dozen interviews produced no evidence of political bias...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The IRS says it has lost emails from five more workers who are part of congressional investigations into the treatment of conservative groups that applied for tax exempt status.

A top House Republican on Thursday accused the Justice Department of helping a former department lawyer duck an interview about the IRS’s improper scrutiny of Tea Party groups. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) pressed Attorney General Eric Holder to provide contact information for Andrew Strelka to the House Oversight Committee by Friday. Republicans say that Strelka’s tenure with the government illustrates a conflict of interest in the Obama administration’s investigation into the IRS scandal. Strelka once worked for Lois Lerner, the former IRS official at the center of the controversy. After moving to the Justice Department, Strelka defended the IRS against...