Posted on 05/17/2013 2:04:21 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Via the Examiner and NRO, a few more credible, confidence-inspiring breadcrumbs from this morning’s Ways and Means hearing. It’s starting to make sense now why protesting Planned Parenthood might present a risk to your tax-exempt status, isn’t it?
The second clip is of Miller saying that he did indeed ask his underlings who was targeting conservative groups, and they told him, but now he can’t remember the answer. Really. The disdain this guy harbors for the proceedings is palpable, but that’s probably in his best interest: The more antagonistic he is, the more liberal support he’ll have when the administration inevitably tries to find a new job for him at the IRS after this blows over. In the meantime, Miller’s loss is Fred Armisen’s gain, assuming SNL even attempts to tackle O’s scandals this weekend. Given what the show’s come to, maybe it’s best that they didn’t.
By the way, did anyone ask Miller the threshold question of why the IRS chose to spend so much time on penny-ante tea-party groups instead of the gigantic conservative and liberals 501(c)(4) orgs that have real influence on elections? Here’s what the Cincinnati office considered a priority:
The AP reviewed 990 tax returns for nonprofit groups that were made publicly available and posted on both the Guidestar and the Foundation Center websites, searching between 2009 and 2011 under the terms “tea party,” ”patriot” and other terms frequently used by tea party groups. Several tea party groups also made their tax returns available to the AP. The returns detailed revenues and expenses for the groups, as well as other details. Donors’ identifies, however, are shielded from disclosure under federal tax code provisions.
Only 21 of the 93 groups reported annual gross receipts higher than $25,000 between 2009 and 2011, according to the AP review. The $25,000 figure is a threshold for the IRS because an organization’s financial strength and revenue sources are important factors in determining its tax-exempt status. Nonprofit groups reporting less than $25,000 a year are allowed to file a short-form, postcard tax return instead of a detailed filing one indication of a low-budget operation.
The median income for all the groups was just $16,700 a year. That figure includes several tea party organizations that boasted million-dollar budgets and a cluster of others with more than $100,000 in annual revenues. The well-funded activist groups were led by the Georgia-based Tea Party Patriots Inc., the nation’s biggest tea party group, which started out with more than $700,000 in annual revenues in 2009 and grew to $20.2 million annually in 2012.
Radley Balko noted on Twitter this morning that the amounts being thrown around here tend to undercut the sacred liberal talking point that the tea-party movement is merely corporate astroturf bankrolled by the Koch brothers to advance plutocratic interests. Suggested new narrative: The “plutocratic astroturf” theory is true, it’s just that the Kochs are … really, really stingy towards their puppets.
Incredible how fast fascism can spring up.
As we have seen with illegals, if everyone does it it’s OK. Why the government will even sue a state for you!
If I were ever asked this question, it would be very difficult not to laugh at the person asking.
This whole thing is freakin bizarre beyond bizarre.
Seriously? IRS requiring these sort of questions?
This has to be a joke.
However, with this thing blowing wide open like this, I have to believe that it is going to be very hard for them to keep moving forward at such a rapid pace. This is going to require serious recalculation on the part of the communists/globalists.
The bad news, they are very used to taking one step backward to move two forward.
I wrote four years ago, that we are vastly reaching a time that, traditionally, in leftist takeovers, it will require terrorizing the citizens to get to the next level.
I think that is true now more than ever.
As bad as the IRS is, an expanded Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Everything Else Sold Under the Sun would be far worse. Give me a flat income tax any day over a national sales tax.
This is so over the line I struggle for composure.
Permanent furloughs for about 90% of this cancerous bureaucracy are in order.
IRS and EPA are the top of my personal list.
Which Article of the Constitution do you derive your assumed authority from?
Don’t hand me some USC bullshit- which Article, punk?
Some GOP congresscritter needs to ask the Obama administration, Would it be appropriate to ask a Muslim organization, What are the contents of your prayers?
So, comissioner, though we’ve already attained your wife’s disposition, we’re really going to have to know more about the kinky sex thing, and remember, you’re under oath.
If you don’t mind, let’s start with the goat.
Thanks SeekAndFind. Speaking of the man upstairs, this is Obama’s doing and Obama’s fault.
Well Steve did the IRS ask Moslem Malik Obama about his prayers when he wanted tax exemption for his Barak H Obama Foundation ???
and if not why not ???
Repeal the 16th(abolishes income tax and IRS )
Impeach Obama
Obama’s IRS targeted conservative groups to throw the election to Obama and democrats . It wasn't just prejudice but a plan a goal to rig the election for Obama . Obama knew as that is coming out.It lied about that and to my mind Obama planned the IRS rigging the election , who benefited from the IRS targeting tea party groups especially in battle ground states during the election? a big eared donkey that's who
“The commissioner is playing dumb. Didn’t Geithner pull the same BS?”
Yes, nothing like a tax-dodger heading Treasury...
As Greg Gutfeld famously said yesterday on The Fives: “Never trust a guy over 50 who sports a perm.”
This creepy, Lurch-like liar is probably representative of the gaggle of bureaucrats that care little about the nation but much about their persona and money.
We are the IRS-
We are rogue...
...and we also wear the Union label.
It’s still a start... better than we’ve seen from the Washington Post in years.
What country am I living in?
"You don't know very much, do you?"
Sounds like Miller better get his head and his ass wired together...
If they set these applications aside for the sake of efficiency, then where in the effiency flow chart does it say: “Ask applicant to detail the content of their prayers?”
This is what happens when you elect a Chicago gangster to the presidency.
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