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"Imagine my surprise when I found a pile of IRS 1040 tax returns among the tons of trash at a “lay-up site” used by illegal border jumpers near the Mexican border west of Douglas, Arizona. There are dozens of such places where the thousands of border invaders change clothes, discard trash and wait to be taken by their “coyote” to their pick-up location for moving on to Phoenix or El Paso or Houston. The IRS 1040 forms were filled out and had been used. Hey, who says illegal aliens don’t pay taxes? I collected the 1040 forms and we noticed...

While acknowledging that the IRS bungled tea party applications, and that he himself gave wrong information to Congress, agency Commissioner John Koskinen told lawmakers Wednesday he needs to remain at the IRS in order to clean it up. At a hearing designed to lay the ground for his possible impeachment, Mr. Koskinen implied he was let down by his subordinates, who allowed hundreds of backup tapes to be destroyed, losing tens of thousands of emails from former senior executive Lois G. Lerner. It is the loss of those emails, even as they were under a subpoena issued by Congress, that...

The commissioner of the IRS is apologizing to Congress for information his agency lost and inaccurate statements he made during congressional investigations of its treatment of tea party and other conservative groups. John Koskinen is facing an impeachment effort by House conservatives, and he’s set to testify Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee. That panel released his opening statement late Tuesday. …

The IRS has discovered more than 1 million Americans whose Social Security numbers were stolen by illegal immigrants, but officials never bothered to tell the taxpayers themselves, the agency’s inspector general said in a withering new report released Tuesday. Investigators first alerted the IRS to the problem five years ago, but it’s still not fixed, the inspector general said, and a pilot program meant to test a solution was canceled, and fell woefully short anyway. As a result most taxpayers don’t learn that their identities have been stolen and their Social Security files may be screwed up. “Taxpayers identified as...

Inspector General: IRS identified 1.1 million cases of The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) issued a report Tuesday which found the IRS had identified 1.1 million cases of employment-related identity theft since 2011 but failed to notify the victims. As the IG’s press release makes clear, TIGTA pointed out this same problem to the IRS in a previous audit: Why is the IRS so hesitant to deal with this problem? Because most of the people committing the identity theft are illegal immigrants.

New FBI IRS Scandal Documents: Obama IRS Waited Years to Tell the Truth Obama Donor/DOJ Prosecutor Compromised Integrity of IRS Scandal InquiryBreaking the Law is an Obama Administration Policy New FBI IRS Scandal Documents: Obama IRS Waited Years to Tell the Truth Following up on some mega disclosures last week, this week we released 105 pages of newly obtained FBI “302” documents revealing that, beginning in 2010 and lasting through the Obama reelection campaign in 2012, the IRS orchestrated a deliberate policy of burying conservative groups’ tax exemption applications in bureaucratic delays. Interviews with numerous Cincinnati IRS employees in...

A federal court ruled Friday that the Internal Revenue Service has not yet demonstrated that officials stopped targeting Tea Party groups in a decision that excoriated the tax agency for its "discriminatory" treatment of conservative organizations. "This is a blistering rebuke to the IRS and its defenders," Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Cato Institute Center for Constitutional Studies, said of the court's ruling. "It takes on squarely the defense the IRS had raised in this case which is, 'Whatever happened, we promise not to do it again.'" "The court goes through and systematically takes that apart in a way...

Recently obtained documents raise new questions about Lois Lerner’s role in sending confidential tax returns to the Justice Department. It is likely the largest unauthorized disclosure of tax-return information in history: the transfer of some 1.25 million pages of confidential tax returns from the IRS to the Department of Justice in October of 2010. And it was almost certainly illegal. The documents, which consisted chiefly of non-profit tax returns, were transferred to the DOJ’s criminal division from the IRS at the request of Lois Lerner, who wanted to get the information to the DOJ in advance of a meeting where...

The Obama administration said Tuesday it will herd uninsured Americans into Obamacare plans this fall by targeting young adults and working with the IRS to root out people who paid a penalty for lacking coverage last year. Officials said people who were fined under the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate can expect to receive a paper notice that explains their coverage options on the law’s web-based exchanges. The state of Massachusetts is already working with its revenue agency to locate the uninsured, and the Obama administration said those efforts appeared to be working. The Health and Human Services Department said...

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen was a no show Tuesday for a House Judiciary hearing accusing him of misconduct. That didn't stop lawmakers from blasting Koskinen and calling for his impeachment. The hearing stems from a 2013 investigation into IRS official Lois Lerner. Lerner was accused of unfairly targeting conservative and tea party groups by delaying their requests for tax-exempt status. Koskinen, who was brought in by President Barack Obama after the scandal unfolded, promised to provide key evidence, including thousands of Lerner's emails to assist Congress in their investigation. Tapes obtaining those emails were destroyed. Although many of the emails...

The Inspector General for the IRS said Thursday that the tax collection agency continues to be at risk of paying out billions of dollars in fraudulent Earned Income Tax Credit payments each year, and that there's nothing the IRS can do about it. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration released a report that said almost 25 percent of EITC payments issued last year should not have been issued. That amounts to $15.6 billion in payments under a program that's meant to boost low and moderate-income people and families.

RS Commissioner John Koskinen has declined to testify in his own defense at a congressional hearing Tuesday, but insisted in a statement that his bungling of a subpoena doesn’t rise to the level of “treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors” needed for him to be impeached. The Judiciary Committee hearing is being viewed by some House Republicans as the precursor to impeachment, with the House’s top investigator saying Mr. Koskinen defied a congressional subpoena that demanded all of former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner’s emails be preserved as part of the investigation into tea party targeting. But Mr. Koskinen,...

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen will not appear at a “misconduct” hearing Tuesday where Republicans will lay out a case to impeach him for allegedly failing to comply with a congressional subpoena, the IRS told POLITICO. Lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee summoned the tax chief to answer accusations from the House Oversight panel that he failed to preserve documents Congress requested for its probe of the IRS tea party scandal. They also say he never told the full truth about erased back-up tapes containing copies of emails belonging to former IRS official Lois Lerner. Some Republicans even suspect the IRS...

Cameron Lancaster The House Judiciary Committee will consider impeaching IRS Commissioner John Koskinen in upcoming hearings. The committee will look at Koskinen's alleged misconduct relating to Congress's investigation into the IRS's targeting of political groups. “Despite repeated congressional efforts to get to the bottom of this matter, Obama Administration officials, including the IRS Commissioner, have consistently undermined the investigation," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said. "Over the coming weeks, the House Judiciary Committee will closely examine Commissioner Koskinen’s misconduct and the implications of his actions.” At a Judiciary Committee hearing on May 24, witnesses will present the...

Despite a court preservation order, the IRS has wiped the hard drive of their former director of transfer pricing operations, Samuel Maruca. Maruca is connected to the agency’s controversial retainer of law firm Quinn Emanuel. The IRS privately contracted the litigation firm to assist in an audit of a corporate taxpayer, overlooking the firm’s lack of any experience managing sensitive tax data. The IRS has faced criticism for its decision, specifically from Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) 43% . In a letter to the IRS, Senator Hatch voiced his concern that the agency’s $2.2 million tax-payer funded contract...

The Internal Revenue Service may still be unfairly targeting conservative organizations for audit due to flaws within their interior controls, Americans for Tax Reform reported Wednesday.

The IRS recently proposed a rule to weaken the effectiveness of non-profits. Under this proposal, the IRS would give 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations, which includes charities, religious groups, and educational foundations, the option to collect the social security numbers of donors giving more than $250 so that they can be sent to the IRS. While optional at the moment, it is obvious that the rule is simply a way for the IRS to transition to mandatory collection of social security numbers. This rule should frighten all Americans because it opens up a whole pandora’s box of security concerns. Additionally, the IRS...

House Republicans have moved to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, arguing he violated the public trust. Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) introduced an impeachment resolution Tuesday, days after the Justice Department concluded its investigation into IRS targeting of Tea Party groups with no charges filed.“Commissioner Koskinen violated the public trust. He failed to comply with a congressionally issued subpoena, documents were destroyed on his watch, and the public was consistently misled,” Chaffetz said in a statement. “Impeachment is the appropriate tool to restore public confidence in the IRS and to protect the institutional interests of Congress.” Much of the...

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and 18 other Republicans on the committee introduced a resolution on Tuesday to start impeachment proceedings against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

The IRS targeting and muzzling of conservative groups during the 2012 presidential campaign is an outrage for which almost no one has been held accountable. Which brings us to the news that House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz is introducing articles of impeachment on Tuesday against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. Mr. Koskinen was not at the IRS during the targeting, but the former Freddie Mac executive has become the single greatest hurdle to public accountability. He was touted as a reformer in his 2013 confirmation hearings. Instead he has helped the Administration stonewall Congress’s investigation. Mr. Chaffetz’s four articles of...