The news reporting is so shoddy and careless that it’s impossible to figure out what really happened. TV newscasts, newspaper and online headlines are all talking about the IRS “targeting” the Tea Party groups. The word “targeting” is supposed to be self-explanatory in this context but it really isn’t.
Were the tax returns of these groups analyzed more closely because of their ideology? Were they audited? If so, then what’s the big deal? Can’t anybody be audited at any time? Do we refer to all cash-business owners and all small-business owners who contract overseas and who get audited a lot more often than anybody else as being “targeted”?
As for these groups’ tax returns being scrutinized, well, if their raison d’etre is to oppose taxes, wouldn’t it be incredibly stupid on the part of the IRS not to see if they put their ideology into practice? If a student rants and raves about plagiarism being a fully respectable practice, who wouldn’t be extra-careful while grading his papers? If a neighbor declares that she doesn’t believe in private property, who wouldn’t hide the wallet whenever she comes by?
As for the government discriminating against people on ideological grounds, that has been happening forever, and nobody seems to care. Just look at a green card or work visa application and its questions about one’s political affiliations. This is a blatant violation of the right of some political parties in the US to have new members come from other countries. And being denied a visa just because you held a party membership card 50 years ago is a little more serious than undergoing a tax audit, which is something we should all be prepared to do anyway.
I also find it curious that people calling themselves “Patriots” have such an issue with proving their patriotism in the most definitive way ever. Waving flags and making speeches is easy. Declaring every cash payment you received and that nobody could have found about had you not declared it – like I did this year – is much harder.
The Tea Party groups could have used this situation to show the kind of maturity they’ve been lacking and that has cost them most of their support. Instead, they have chosen to antagonize every individual who has been audited by the IRS and who has faced the ordeal bravely.
Oh well. They had no future as a political project anyway.
Clarissa's Blog 
Thank you!
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“As for the government discriminating against people on ideological grounds, that has been happening forever, and nobody seems to care.”
You’re right. They even do this in Québec with the Red Square student movement and the separatist movement. Recall that the Tea Party supports the Patriot Act and acts of terrorism against abortion clinics…
“If a neighbor declares that she doesn’t believe in private property, who wouldn’t hide the wallet whenever she comes by?”
Anti-private property people like me believe generally in possession rights and they are against thief (except if it’s for last resort survival), so I have no intention to steal wallets.
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OK, I take the anti-private property comment back. Let’s substitute it with “a neighbor who always inisists pocket-picking is a worthy pastime.”
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No problem!
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David, do not be ridiculous, please. Separatist movement is currently the ruling party in Quebec. And you still believe they are discriminated against? This is a kind of thing that makes me believe that the PQ will never be satisfied, even if Quebec gains independence…
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I was not enough accurate. I should have said: “They even do this in Québec with the Red Square student movement and in Canada with the Québec separatist movement.”
(clearly, the ruling government in Québec has no problem with separatists, so I’m an idiot!)
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Usually, it’s right after the independence is won that a nationalistic movement becomes especially ferocious, so you are right. If one official enemy falls away, another one is urgently needed.
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And when the independence will be achieved, I will be one of the first to fight against them.
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Thank you!
I have also noticed that no one is talking about the fact that this same IRS targeted Liberal groups and actually REJECTED many of them. So far, no one has proof that the IRS rejected any Conservative group’s application or tax exemption. .
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It’s nice to have you here, my friend! 🙂
As I suspected, this is a non-issue blown out of all proportions. I just saw a newscast on the House hearings about this and the issue is being discussed with so much drama as if something really really serious happened. Like many other people, I keep wondering whether I’m missing something here.
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This is the most sensible analysis of this situation that I have seen. The only thing I disagree with is the discussion of the word “targeting”. For example, people who use a home office deduction on their returns are targeted for extra scrutiny by the IRS, and are more likely to be audited. This word is in common usage in such a context.
IIRC, all the Tea Party groups that applied for tax exempt status eventually received it, but one of the left-leaning groups did not. I do not know the group in question.
I am thinking I may share this on Facebook, if you do not mind.
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Of course! Feel free.
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It appears that my comment was partially duplicated by Kola. According to Lawrence O’Donnell, I think, none of the conservative groups were denied tax exempt status.
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Thank you for offering a finally sane commentary re: “targeting” by our government. Yes, let’s reserve the incendiary term for incidents such as Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney being bombed by the FBI in 1990. Initially, the narrative was that Judi was transporting a pipe bomb, however, the facts finally came out in court that it looked like the work of FBI agents. All of which reminiscent of J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO activities, IMHO.
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“As for these groups’ tax returns being scrutinized, well, if their raison d’etre is to oppose taxes, wouldn’t it be incredibly stupid on the part of the IRS not to see if they put their ideology into practice?”
My thoughts exactly. I keep thinking that I must be missing something because I don’t see a controversy here!
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This is one of several fake controversies the Republicans are trying to promote in the absence of any legitimate political program that people can massively support. This is a tried and true political strategy: when you have no positive program of action, generate outrage.
Still, the causes for outrage they are choosing – Benghazi, IRS – are not likely to inspire much popular support. I see a floundering, desperate party in urgent need of a strong unifying agenda.
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I’m trying my hardest not to get myself absorbed in political matters. It was really fun watching everything from The Young Turks to even FOX News’s Red Eye once in a while, but the news really loves to make a big deal out of nothing most of the time. I guess this whole IRS business is just another overexaggerated story from them. I probably lean more right than left at this point but think the Tea Party people are mostly idiots who will never be taken seriously. All this IRS stuff did was give that batshit crazy moron Michele Bachmann more fuel to spread her bullshit around.
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Yes, Bachmann is a very very scary person. And the scariest thing is that nobody seems to notice or care that a visibly disturbed person is roaming around and running for office.
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Bachmann is a stupid bitch cunt!
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You know, it’s possible to oppose someone politically without misogynist personal insults. This is why I will never take men like you seriously.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324715704578482823301630836.html
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Your remarks and much of the discussion that follows are beside the point. When a government agency as powerful as IRS seeks to harass and audit on the basis of words that have a clear political connotation, that is immoral. It throws sand in the face of the rule of law. That is why Obama had to act. Not to do so, would have exposed him to serious charges of misconduct. Left or right makes no difference. The First Amendment protects free speech. And the IRS targeted free speech in its recent misbehavior.
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I agree but you must do the same thing to all other groups that are targeted since a long time ago.
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Audit and harass are different things. If anybody can be audited at any time, then why is this specific audit a problem?
And I still don’t know, where they actally audited? Because audits usually take a long time. What specifically happened?
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But you should admit that targeting a group to have more audits than normal for political matters is wrong. But again, these same groups support the same kind of targeting for other groups.
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I’m not sure anybody has calculated how much more often groups were audited as opposed to other groups.
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I have no answer to this…
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“This is a blatant violation of the right of some political parties in the US to have new members come from other countries”
I’m not sure if I would call that a “right”….
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Other news:
1) From North Carolina:
The House Health and Human Services Committee approved a bill earlier this month that would require teenagers to present a notarized parental consent form in order to access sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment, mental health counseling, pregnancy care or substance abuse treatment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/north-carolina-birth-control_n_3280295.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
2) Russia has sent a dozen or more warships to patrol waters near its naval base in Syria, a buildup that US and European officials see as a newly aggressive stance meant partly to warn the West and Israel not to intervene in Syria’s bloody civil war, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
…
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that Russia has sent advanced anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria. The missiles are apparently an improved version of the Yakhonts, which Russia has previously provided to Syria, and have been outfitted with an advanced radar that makes them more effective.
…
This marks a failure by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who traveled to Russia earlier this week with the aim of dissuading Moscow from going ahead with the sale of S-300 missiles.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4380847,00.html
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Oh, shit. For both of these disheartening pieces of news. Stupidity rules in the first case. And Russia is amping up its Cold War agenda in the second.
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One often meets the claim that because of Obama’s weakness North Corea, Iran and now Syria-Russia feel free. And that Rusia is more proactive to protect its’ interests than US. Is it true?
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Putin would do exactly what he is doing irrespective of the US actions. The country has gone into a bubble where it cares very little about what happens outside.
Of course, Putin would have been much happer had Romney been elected because Romney’s anti-Russia rhetoric would be more useful for internal purposes of building a patriotic discourse. But Putin is managing the task quite well as it is.
I don’t like these US-centered interpretations of world events at all. These regimes care precious little about what happens externally. They manufacture an image of the US (or whomever else) that serves their purposes and engage with it irrespective of what actual events prove.
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Robert Reich has a pretty good piece on this:
http://robertreich.org/post/50660147280
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Great post! I reall wish I could turn on the news and hear this instead of the fake scandals we keep hearing about now.
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I started checking Robert Reich’s blog and it seems interesting, worthy to be added to one’s reading list.
Look at this one:
http://robertreich.org/post/49982849855
the Air Force has just removed from duty seventeen launch officers at the Minot nuclear missile base in North Dakota — one of three bases responsible for controlling, and, if necessary, launching, strategic nuclear missiles — for violating weapons safety rules. The base commander characterized their negligence as “rot.”
One officer was found to have intentionally broken a safety rule that could have compromised the secret codes enabling missiles to be launched.
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More news:
Russia’s Federal Security Service has publicly disclosed the identity of a man who it says is the CIA station chief in Moscow, in what experts say is a serious breach of intelligence protocol.
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Mr Fogle [THE CIA SPY, NOT THE CHIEF] was released to US representatives after his detention. The Russian foreign ministry said he would be expelled.
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A senior adviser to President Vladimir Putin earlier this week said the Kremlin was “surprised” by the “extremely crude and clumsy” attempt of Mr Fogle to recruit a Russian officer.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10064414/Russias-FSB-reveals-identity-of-CIA-Moscow-station-chief.html
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Last comment: a huge, 700+ novel, which seems to be worth reading:
http://l-eriksson.livejournal.com/624716.html#comments
I have been planning to read it myself, but haven’t got enough free time yet. If you read – would love to hear your opinion, if it’s really good.
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Sounds very interesting. And I never even heard of this author.
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From wikipedia (all the usual caveats) it seems the bigger scandal is not audits but a policy of politically motivated selective enforcement of regulations (including a paper/computer trail).
That is a very big deal.
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After the Patriot Act that outrages nobody, it is hard to see this as interesting, let alone scandalous.
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“Some other guy did it and got away with it!” has historically not been a very effective defense in America, if it is now then the country is far worse off than I realized.
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A defense from what? Other than the CNN and Fox News, nobody cares about this issue.
What I’m saying is that if nobody could be bothered to give a damn about the Patriot Act, the chances that any voters will be even marginally touched by this issue are non-existent.
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From wikipedia (all the usual caveats) it seems the bigger scandal is not audits but a policy of politically motivated selective enforcement of regulations (including a paper/computer trail).
That is a very big deal.
Meaning that all of the right leaning political groups eventually got their tax exempt status, but at least one of the left wing ones did not??
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From wikipedia (all the usual caveats) it seems the bigger scandal is not audits but a policy of politically motivated selective enforcement of regulations (including a paper/computer trail).
That is a very big deal.
[I tried to post this earlier, but it did not work, so this is a second attempt.]
Meaning that the right wing groups all got their tax exempt status, eventually; but at least one of the left wing ones did not??
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Professor Clarissa, I must respectfully disagree with just much of your original post.
The news reporting is so shoddy and careless that it’s impossible to figure out what really happened. TV newscasts, newspaper and online headlines…
(I will not deny that the main media outlets have been pretty wretched on this. But don’t they mangle just about any story?)
Were the tax returns of these groups analyzed more closely because of their ideology? Were they audited? If so, then what’s the big deal? Can’t anybody be audited at any time?
Two things. First, yes, anyone can be audited, in theory. However, the law requires the IRS to use politically neutral and non-discriminatory criteria to identify those entities selected for auditing, and also to determine when audits should continue past certain points. (Cash-only operations and a large volume of overseas business might be acceptable neutral criteria.)
The law is designed this way in order to prevent the IRS for repeating some of the abuses of former years, when presidents and the FBI used IRS audits to harass political enemies and politically disforved groups. Richard Nixon was a big one for that technique. Time has this summary:
John F. Kennedy sanctioned an “Ideological Organizations Project” at the IRS that investigated right-wing groups. President Richard Nixon encouraged a secret IRS program called the “Special Services Staff” to investigate his political opponents and harass them with audits. And presidents weren’t the only offenders; the FBI has long used the IRS to harass political opponents. A 1964 FBI plan to “discredit” the United Klans of America called for illegally disclosing tax information about key members. Around the same time, the FBI initiated an IRS audit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his non-profit organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. One memo even suggested the bureau forge letters from King to donors of the group that warned of the ongoing IRS investigations, in the hopes of cutting off the group’s cash flow.
If the police in city are stopping only Hispanic drivers for traffic violations, that is illegal, a violation of federal anti-discrimination laws and the Fourteenth Amendment. If there are 400 restaurants in a county, the county health inspector decides to inspect (and perhaps returns to inspect several times a month) only the coffee shop owned by a lesbian couple, because the health inspector disapproves of their lifestyle–that is illegal (even though every restaurant in the county can theoretically be inspected “at any time”).
Having “tea party” or “patriot” in the group’s name is not a neutral (or relevant) criterion.
Second, in some cases that are part of this story, the abuse consisted not of audits of existing groups, but of actions taken with regards to the applications of groups for tax exempt status. For example:
In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked.
That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn’t be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months.
In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows.
As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with liberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like “Progress” or “Progressive,” the liberal groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups.
Also, Pro Publica reports, “IRS Office That Targeted Tea Party Also Disclosed Confidential Docs From Conservative Groups”:
The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year.
The IRS did not respond to requests Monday following up about that release, and whether it had determined how the applications were sent to ProPublica.
In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public.
So, does that at least not rise to the level of illegal conduct?
As for the government discriminating against people on ideological grounds, that has been happening forever, and nobody seems to care. Just look at a green card or work visa application and its questions about one’s political affiliations.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Obviously. And past abuses do not justify current abuses. Re: “nobody seems to care”–past apathy does not require that the public now turn a blind eye in this particular case.
As for these groups’ tax returns being scrutinized, well, if their raison d’etre is to oppose taxes, wouldn’t it be incredibly stupid on the part of the IRS not to see if they put their ideology into practice?
By law, the Revenue Service must look at acts, not speech. The IRS would have to base their decision to focus on these groups based on actions, not speech. To target these groups because of stated legal goals (advocating legislation to reduce taxes) runs afoul of the First Amendment’s guarantees of free speech.
The IRS also imposed illegal requirements on the targeted groups:
Some groups, including several interviewed by The Washington Post, were asked to provide names of donors or membership lists, which experts say the IRS cannot legally do.
The Tea Party groups could have used this situation to show the kind of maturity they’ve been lacking and that has cost them most of their support. Instead, they have chosen to antagonize every individual who has been audited by the IRS and who has faced the ordeal bravely.
Oh well. They had no future as a political project anyway.
I will appeal to Nate Silver:
My rule of thumb is that a vast majority of alleged political scandals will have less electoral impact than the conventional wisdom initially holds.
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But the recent admission by the Internal Revenue Service that it targeted conservative organizations with terms like “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names when they applied for tax-exempt status could be an exception. It has the potential to harm Democrats’ performance in next year’s midterm elections, partly by motivating a strong turnout from the Republican base.
I’m sorry Clarissa, but I think you’re off base here.
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It’s OK, I welcome disagreement. 🙂 🙂
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