Free Republic

Top IRS officials specifically targeted tea party groups and misled the public about its secret political targeting program led by ex-official Lois Lerner, according to a bombshell new congressional report. The Daily Caller has obtained an advance copy of a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report set to be released Tuesday morning that definitively proves malicious intent by the IRS to improperly block conservative groups that an IRS adviser deemed “icky.” (That’s right. “Icky.”) “The Committee has identified eight senior leaders who were in a position to prevent or to stop the IRS’s targeting of conservative applicants,” the Oversight...

A top IRS official considered going public with the agency’s targeting of conservative groups at a hearing just months before the 2012 presidential election but ultimately decided against revealing the bombshell news, according to a new report from a GOP-led House committee. Then-Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller wrote in an email in June 2012, about a month before a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing, that he was weighing whether to testify to “put a stake” in the “c4” issue -- apparently a reference to allegations about politics playing a role in the agency’s denial of tax-exempt, 501(c)(4) status to conservative-leaning...

I was intrigued by an article posted by Dan Mitchell from Cato here over the weekend that in part said that how Republicans treat reform at the Joint Committee on Taxation (and the CBO) as a kind of an IQ test. As Mitchell notes “when JCT does revenue estimates, the bureaucrats grease the skids for anti-growth tax policy by overstating revenue losses from lower tax rates and overstating revenue gains from higher tax rates.”And indeed they do. In fact, both the CBO and the JTC act as giant Ways and Means committees for higher taxes and bigger government. But that’s...

Barack and Michelle Obama, speaking to People Magazine, of all disappointments, shared the disheartening news that they have experienced what they called racism. Barack, for example, apparently has had trouble, before he was president, hailing a cab in Chicago, to which an immediate thought might occur to anyone who has been to Chicago: Who hasn't? Also, Barack, at a black-tie event, when he, too, was in festive livery, apparently was asked by another guest if he would get them a cup of coffee. For her recollection, Michelle came up with a visit to a Target store as first lady. She...

ContributionThe IRS Must Be Put Down Like a Rabid Dog Dec. 17, 2014 3:25pm John Linder John Linder served in Congress for 18 years from Georgia. He and his wife, Lynne, have retired to a farm in Northeast Mississippi. Since it was first disclosed that the IRS abused the taxpayers and the law, the Democrat refrain has been, “…it is clear that there was no White House involvement…” Well, now it is clear that there was White House involvement, but it is against the law to disclose it.A watchdog group, Cause of Action, filed a Freedom of Information Act...

In the end, making a political issue personal might have done in Assemblywoman Michele Fiore. The Las Vegas Republican was coming off a tumultuous week — she’d been deposed and then quickly restored as majority leader-designate and chairwoman of the Assembly Taxation Committee by Speaker-designate John Hambrick, R-Las Vegas — when she doubled down on allegations that certain Republican forces were targeting her and other conservatives. Speaking on the Alan Stock radio show on KDWN-AM 720 on Tuesday, Fiore not only repeated her rhetoric about a “war on women,” but blamed some of the alleged infantrymen in that conflict: Republican...

What do porn, pistols and Ponzi schemes have in common? They are all targets of Operation Choke Point, an Obama administration initiative that is the very picture of a selectively oppressive and overreaching government.A program of the Justice Department, Operation Choke Point is the functional equivalent of a mafia extortion racket, using abusive federal regulatory authority to coerce banks and other financial institutions into withholding financial services from companies in industries that are out of favor with the administration, including the firearms and ammunition industries.Operation Choke Point is among the more frightening threats to liberty of late because it relies...

CARSON CITY — Las Vegas Assemblywoman Michele Fiore’s tax liens and problems with the IRS were cited in her second removal from Assembly leadership positions Thursday. Fiore’s removal could clear the way for moderate Republicans to control the Assembly in the 2015 session and eliminate any talk of a GOP-Democratic partnership challenge to the leadership. It could also smooth the way for Gov. Brian Sandoval to win more funding for public education. Assembly Speaker designate John Hambrick reversed course on Fiore for a second time in recent weeks and removed the controversial lawmaker as majority leader. She has also been...

The IRS has been bled white, complained Commissioner John Koskinen. Budget cuts to the agency, he adds, have forced the IRS to eliminate almost all overtime, implement hiring freezes, and furlough nonessential operatives. It will also likely mean a reduction in taxpayer services like audits and, yes, even the processing of refund checks. And Koskinen wants the public to know that it’s all the GOP’s fault. “Everybody’s return will get processed,” the IRS commissioner told reporters on Thursday. “But people have gotten very used to being able to file their return and quickly get a refund. This year we...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Budget cuts at the IRS could delay tax refunds, reduce taxpayer services and hurt enforcement efforts, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said Thursday. About half the people who call the IRS for assistance this filing season won't be able to get through to a person, Koskinen said. Once tax returns are filed, there will be fewer agents to audit them. "Everybody's return will get processed," Koskinen told reporters. "But people have gotten very used to being able to file their return and quickly getting a refund. This year we may not have the resources, the people to provide...

The IRS is considering its own temporary shutdown due to recent budget cuts enacted by Congress, its chief said Thursday. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said furloughs — forced unpaid days off for employees as part of an IRS closure — is one idea reluctantly being tossed about to save money, though they are hoping they will not have to go there. Story Continued Below . . “There is no way we can say right now that that won’t happen,” Koskinen told reporters at a press conference on the upcoming tax season. “Again, I would stress that would be the last...

Aaron Sorkin is disillusioned; he’s left to wonder if there is any "such thing as privacy anymore."Sorkin, famous Hollywood screenwriter who wrote The Social Network, Moneyball, and The West Wing, also wrote a New York Times editorial, sharing his views on the Sony hack of Hollywood emails: If you close your eyes you can imagine the hackers sitting in a room, combing through the documents to find the ones that will draw the most blood. And in a room next door are American journalists doing the same thing. As demented and criminal as it is, at least the hackers are...

CARSON CITY — Las Vegas Republican lawmaker Michele Fiore, a lightning rod in an ongoing Assembly GOP power struggle, said Tuesday she is fully in compliance with the Internal Revenue Service over more than $1 million in tax liens against her home health care businesses. In her first comments on the controversy, Fiore appeared on the Alan Stock radio show on KDWN in Las Vegas, saying her actual active liens total less than $200,000. Liens dating back to 2003 had previously been resolved, she said. Fiore said her lien problems stemmed from a dishonest bookkeeper, who she said is facing...

2014 is the Year of the Liberal Lie By Kyle Smith Bowe Bergdahl. The IRS’s missing e-mails. Lena Dunham. “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Jonathan Gruber. GM and that faulty ignition switch. Andrew Cuomo and that anti-corruption commission. The Secret Service and that White House intruder. Rachel Noerdlinger and her “disabled” son. Rolling Stone and gang rape. 2014 was the year when truth was optional. 2014 was the year when convenient fabrication was the weapon of choice for celebrities, activists, big business and politicians. 2014 was the Year of the Lie. In each case, the liars used their powerful positions to...

Conservative think tank Americans for Prosperity (AFP), co-founded by principals of Koch Industries, sued in federal court to prevent ultra-liberal California Attorney General Kamala Harris from using her office to disclose the names and addresses of their 90,000 donors. Harris may have a problem with AFP being a major force behind the Tea Party movement and its support of free markets, entrepreneurship, lower taxes, and limited government spending and regulation. As a federally registered 501(c)(4), not-for-profit educational organization, Americans for Prosperity is allowed under federal law to raise and spend money educating the public regarding issues associated with political campaigns...

The federal watchdog tasked with keeping tabs on the Internal Revenue Service says the agency needs to do a better job of administering tax credits for low-income people. The reason? Billions of dollars each year are ending up in the wrong hands. A new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, reveals that nearly a quarter of the $63 billion worth of Earned Income Tax Credits distributed in 2012 were improper payments. That’s about $14.5 billion in erroneous payments that were either given to the wrong people or distributed to the right people in the wrong amount. TIGTA...

Dr. Savage poured over the new $1.2 trillion spending bill, noting the colossal waste and bipartisan "pork barrel" provisions it contains. "Who is going to pay for this?" he asks. "We've just experienced a Republican betrayal of the highest magnitude," Savage announced. In the latest $1.2 trillion dollar spending bill, Obamacare is fully funded. So is amnesty. Boehner is out there, pretending he's concerned. Meanwhile, they gave a billion dollars for the amnesty bill to help illegal aliens. The budget is packed with what we used to call "pork barrel" spending. Now they're called "riders," but it's the same thing:...

Things are pretty volatile in the Chaos Caucus. Every since Republicans took over the Assembly, things have been anything but smooth. That shouldn’t be much of a surprise. After all, even the GOP itself didn’t expect to be in charge of the lower house, and the last time the party was in charge, Ronald Reagan was in the White House and the pinnacle of technology was the Apple IIe desktop computer. You already know about the disastrous election of Ira Hansen, R-Sparks, as speaker. He was undone by ugly sentiments penned in a Sparks newspaper over a long career as...

In the month prior to the 2010 midterm elections, Internal Revenue Service investigator Lois Lerner met with Justice Department officials to discuss the criminal prosecution of tax-exempt political groups. It had previously been revealed that Lerner investigated avenues for prosecuting certain tax-exempt status applicants upon the suggestion of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) when the watchdog group Judicial Watch obtained Lerner’s emails on that subject via a FOIA request. The email, dated May 8, 2013, revealed some coordination between Lerner and the Department of Justice: I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ, I...

New emails show IRS' Lerner met with DOJ prosecutors before 2010 elections BY: Mark Tapscott December 9, 2014 Former IRS executive Lois Lerner met with officials from the Department of Justice election crimes staff as early as September 2010 to discuss prosecution of conservative and Tea Party nonprofit applicants, according to new emails obtained by a watchdog group. In a Sept. 29, 2010, email from an unnamed DOJ official, arrangements were made for a meeting the following month between attorneys from the election crimes unit of the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section and the IRS to "discuss 501(c)(4) issues." The...