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IRS Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 25, 2015 50 Comments
Late last night the IRS filed a Status Report (full embed at bottom of post) disclosing that Lois Lerner used a secret email account for some official business, under the name "Toby Miles." The Washington Times reports:
Lois Lerner had yet another personal email account used to conduct some IRS business, the tax agency confirmed in a new court filing late Monday that further complicates the administration’s efforts to be transparent about Ms. Lerner’s actions during the tea party targeting scandal. The admission came in an open-records lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest law firm that has sued to get a look at emails Ms. Lerner sent during the targeting.
The Status Report (embed below) discloses, in relevant part:
On August 24, 2015, the Internal Revenue Service (“Service”) released to Judicial Watch, Inc., a CD containing documents responsive to Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request for Lois Lerner communications regarding the review and approval process for 501(c)(4) applications.... In the process of preparing this status report and for the August 24, 2015, release of Lerner communications, the undersigned attorneys learned that, in addition to emails to or from an email account denominated “Lois G. Lerner” or “Lois Home,” some emails responsive to Judicial Watch’s request may have been sent to or received from a personal email account denominated “Toby Miles.” The undersigned attorneys contacted the Office of IRS Chief Counsel, and IRS Chief Counsel attorneys informed the undersigned attorneys that these denominations refer to a personal email account used by Lerner. (See Pl.’s Mot. for Status Conf., 15 n.8 (Docket No. 20-2) (noting that the Congressional database includes documents that Lerner’s attorneys provided from Lerner’s “personal home computer and email on her personal email” account(s)).)

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 14, 2015 25 Comments
Lois Lerner is back in the news. According to a new report, emails Lerner sent to a friend reveal that the called Republicans evil and dishonest. She also criticized the Citizens United ruling as one of the worst things to happen in the United States. Andrew Kugle of the Washington Free Beacon:
Lois Lerner: GOP is ‘Evil and Dishonest’ Former IRS official Lois Lerner said that Republicans are “evil and dishonest,” in a email dated March 26, according to Fox News reporter James Rosen. In the email, Lois Lerner described the time when she was called back to testify about the IRS targeting of conservatives before Congress. “They called me back to testify, on IRS ‘scandal,” Lerner wrote. “I took the fifth again and they had been so evil and dishonest in my lawyer’s dealings with them.”
Here's the video report with James Rosen of FOX News:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on August 08, 2015 13 Comments
When Lois Lerner preemptively "broke" the story in 2013 about the IRS targeting conservative groups from (at least) 2010 to the time leading up to the 2012 presidential election, there was outrage and a bit of curiosity because it was she, then director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the IRS, who admitted to these illegal actions.  Four days later, the Inspector General's office issued a report confirming the targeting, and three years later, we are learning of additional targets such as Bristol Palin. After his initial feigned outrage, Obama, of course, is adamant that there is not a "smidgen of corruption" at the IRS, but that remains to be seen as reports of ongoing IRS targeting of conservatives emerge. Conservatives were—and are—justifiably outraged at such a blatant and illegal weaponization of the IRS against those whom Lerner and others in the IRS, perhaps on up to the White House, deemed threatening or otherwise "enemies."

Posted by Amy Miller on July 28, 2015 29 Comments
Yesterday, House Oversight committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) wrote a detailed letter to President Obama asking him to remove IRS chief John Koskinen from office. "Detailed" is an understatement. Chaffetz's 29-page request reasserts Congress' efforts to investigate the IRS's targeting of taxpayers on the basis of their political beliefs, and describes in detail how Koskinen's actions have obstructed that investigation. The letter accuses Koskinen of refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena, failing to testify truthfully, and failing to preserve and produce up to 24,000 e-mails the Oversight committee deemed relevant to its investigation. Via Fox News:

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 23, 2015 17 Comments
President Obama appeared on the Daily Show this week and claimed that the IRS never targeted the Tea Party. Yet according to an explosive new report from Judicial Watch, the IRS used donor lists from certain organizations to target specific people for audits:
Judicial Watch: New Documents Show IRS Used Donor Lists to Target Audits (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained documents from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that confirm that the IRS used donor lists to tax-exempt organizations to target those donors for audits.  The documents also show IRS officials specifically highlighted how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce may come under “high scrutiny” from the IRS.  The IRS produced the records in a Freedom of Information lawsuit seeking documents about selection of individuals for audit-based application information on donor lists submitted by Tea Party and other 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organizations (Judicial Watch v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:15-cv-00220)). A letter dated September 28, 2010, then-Democrat Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) informs then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman: “   I request that you and your agency survey major 501(c)(4), (c)(5) and (c)(6) organizations …”  In reply, in a letter dated February 17, 2011, Shulman writes: “In the work plan of the Exempt Organizations Division, we announced that beginning in FY2011, we are increasing our focus on section 501(c)(4), (5) and (6) organizations.”

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 28, 2015 83 Comments
Forty-eight hours after the Supreme Court's monumental gay marriage decision, and progressives are already calling for an end to tax exemptions for churches. Anticipating the Supreme Court's eventual ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges, Senator Mike Lee and Rep. Raul Labrador introduced the First Amendment Defense Act. The bill would protect religious institutions who, for religious beliefs, do not actively participate in gay wedding ceremonies. In an op-ed published two weeks ago in the Deseret News, Sen. Lee explained:
This is a bill that would prohibit the federal government from penalizing individuals or institutions on the basis that they act in accordance with a religious belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. The First Amendment Defense Act, which Rep. Raúl Labrador, R-Idaho, will introduce in the House of Representatives, would prevent any agency from denying a federal tax exemption, grant, contract, accreditation, license or certification to an individual or institution for acting on their religious beliefs about marriage.
Supreme Court Gay Marriage Oral Argument Fox News Tax Exemption After hearing the oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, Sen. Lee was most disturbed by a question asked by Justice Alito.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 20, 2015 19 Comments
Earlier this year, Rasmussen released a poll showing that only 31% of Americans trust the IRS to enforce tax laws fairly.  Given the targeting of conservatives, reports of refunds going to illegals who didn't pay taxes, and the sharing of confidential tax payer information with the White House, it's surprising the percentage is that high. It seems clear that there is growing dissatisfaction with the IRS and with the nation's ridiculously complex tax laws.  At 74,608 pages, the U. S. tax code is both ponderous and confusing. With all of the new taxes buried in ObamaCare alone, the tax code has grown by nearly 3,000 pages since 2010. In response to all of this, Americans are more ready than ever for substantial tax reform, and hearing the call, Rand Paul released a new video outlining his new tax plan that appears to be a hybrid of the fair tax and the flat tax. Here's the statement from his website:
I stand with Rand in his fight to defeat the Washington Machine and drive a stake through the heart of the IRS by: Ending the workers tax: This plan will end the FICA payroll tax, the largest tax for many working Americans. It goes to zero. Eliminating the headaches and complications in filing federal taxes by allowing every taxpayer to file a simple, one-page return with a low and fair tax rate of 14.5%, saving American families over $2 TRILLION in the first 10 years;

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 16, 2015 12 Comments
The race for 2016 has shifted the focus of the media and many Americans away from the IRS scandal, but a new development in the story has come to light. Over 6,000 Lois Lerner emails have been found but the IRS is stalling on sharing them. You'll never guess why. Gerri Willis of the FOX Business Network reports:
IRS Finds 6,400 Lois Lerner Emails But Won't Hand Em Over The Internal Revenue Service may have found 6,400 emails from Lois Lerner, who oversaw the tax agency’s Exempt Organizations Unit, but the government agency has no plans to share. Attorneys from the Department of Justice representing the IRS say the emails won’t be shared because the service is making sure that none of them are duplicates. Lerner is at the center of a scandal in which the tax agency denied special tax status to conservative groups. Her emails have been sought by members of Congress and conservative groups alike. One of those groups, Judicial Watch, has been seeking emails as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed two years ago. Originally, the IRS said the email trail was permanently lost because the computer drive that contained it crashed. However, the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration or TIGTA, was able to retrieve 6,400 emails which it has subsequently sent to the agency. It is these emails that the IRS wants to check for duplicates.
Watch the video report below.

Posted by Amy Miller on April 30, 2015 14 Comments
Last time we saw Lois Lerner, she was breathing a sigh of relief upon hearing the news that the DOJ had declined to pursue contempt charges after her refusal to testify before a House committee. At the time, this may have seemed like a huge win, but in context, a contempt charge was and probably remains the least of Lerner's problems. Just months before learning she was in the clear, Lerner got buried beneath a damning pile of recovered e-mails showing a very, very paranoid Lois Lerner. The evidence gained from those e-mails suggests a group of officials bent on suppressing the free speech of their political enemies, and screams "cover up." Just think---what if there were even more e-mails out there containing even more damning evidence?! Ask, and you shall receive. An inspector general investigating IRS misconduct has unearthed additional e-mails, and turned them over to Congress. Via Fox News [emphasis mine]:
“This underscores that our investigation into IRS abuse is far from over,” a House Ways and Means Committee spokesman said Wednesday. “The committee will thoroughly review these new emails as part of our ongoing efforts to find out exactly what happened and provide accountability."

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 05, 2015 16 Comments
The Department of Justice may have let Lois Lerner off the hook, but a judge has ordered the IRS to release the names of the Tea Party groups that were singled out for scrutiny. Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times:
Judge orders IRS to release list of tea party groups targeted for scrutiny A federal judge ordered the IRS this week to turn over the list of 298 groups it targeted for intrusive scrutiny as the agency defends against a potential class-action lawsuit by tea party groups who claim their constitutional rights were violated. The IRS had argued it shouldn’t have to release the names because doing do would violate privacy laws, but Judge Susan J. Dlott, who sits in the Southern District of Ohio, rejected that claim and ordered the tax agency to turn over any lists or spreadsheets detailing the groups that were targeted and when they filed their applications. Judge Dlott also ordered the IRS to say whether a partial list of targeted groups reported by USA Today is authentic as a number of tea party groups try to win certification for a class action lawsuit against the IRS.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 01, 2015 35 Comments
You all remember Lois Lerner's contemptuous refusal to testify before a House Committee after she gave an opening statement in which she effectively testified to her defense. The House sought a DOJ prosecution for contempt. News that will shock no one, DOJ will not prosecute. Politico reports:
The Justice Department will not seek criminal contempt charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner, the central figure in a scandal that erupted over whether the tax agency improperly targeted conservative political groups.

Posted by Casey Breznick on March 27, 2015 14 Comments
President Barack Obama’s administration has been one rife with scandals. Some pertain directly to the President himself and his own actions–like the recent immigration executive order that some say unconstitutionally side-stepped Congress–and some to members of his administration, like the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS and the Secret Service’s series of embarrassments. So in the spirit of March Madness and NCAA bracketology, I crafted an Obama Administration Scandal Bracket, originally published at The Cornell Review. Obama Scandal Brackets

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 12, 2015 22 Comments
Al Sharpton's tax problems are well known. It's a good thing he isn't a member of the Tea Party, otherwise he might be in real trouble with the IRS. Luckily for the good reverend, he's a liberal progressive and therefore subject to a different set of rules. What you may not have heard, is that some of Al Sharpton's financial records have unfortunately been destroyed by not one but two completely unsuspicious fires. Jillian Kay Melchior of National Review has written a very interesting report on the subject. Hat tip to the great Jazz Shaw of Hot Air:
Suspicious Fires Twice Destroyed Key Sharpton Records As Al Sharpton ran for mayor of New York City in 1997 and for president in 2003, fires at his offices reportedly destroyed critical financial records, and he subsequently failed to comply with tax and campaign filing requirements. The first fire began in the early hours of April 10, 1997, in a hair-and-nail salon one floor below Sharpton’s campaign headquarters at 70 West 125th Street. From the start, investigators deemed the fire “suspicious” because of “a heavy volume of fire on arrival” and because many of the doors remained unlocked after hours, according to the New York Fire Department’s fire-and-incident report... Top city officials, including then-mayor Rudy Giuliani, said initial suspicions centered on the hair-and-nail salon, not on Sharpton’s campaign, Newsday reported. The fire department sent the case as an arson/explosion investigation to the New York Police Department. By the time of publication of this report, the NYPD had not provided the records requested by National Review Online on December 16, 2014, but it confirmed that the investigation had been closed without an arrest. FDNY’s report references a “flammable liquid,” and firefighters’ photos of the scene show traces of an incendiary puddle. Another photo captures what appears to be a singed rag that someone is holding next to a fuse box, perhaps because that is where it was found.
Read it all. I look forward to Reverend Sharpton's well articulated response to this controversy.

Posted by Amy Miller on February 12, 2015 18 Comments
Last week, we covered IRS Commissioner John Koskinen's testimony about the shocking tax consequences of Obama's executive amnesty plan. In previous testimony before Congress, Koskinen explained that illegal immigrants who were granted amnesty would be eligible to receive back-refunds in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)---but only if they had registered with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN.) This means that, although the person was here illegally, they were still working and paying taxes and thus eligible for a refund. It's a bogus loophole, but it stems from an existing IRS interpretation of their own rules, so at the end of the day it was a "fix this now" situation rather than an "end of the world" scenario." That was scandal enough, though, considering the divisive nature of illegal immigration itself; but this week's testimony from Koskinen just made things a whole lot worse. That's right---we've had a "clarification." From the Washington Times:
On Wednesday, he said even illegal immigrants who didn’t pay taxes will be able to apply for back-credits once they get Social Security numbers. The EITC is a refundable tax credit, which means those who don’t have any tax liability can still get money back from the government. “Under the new program, if you get a Social Security number and you work, you’ll be eligible to apply for the Earned Income Tax Credit,” Mr. Koskinen said. He said that would apply even “if you did not file” taxes, as long as the illegal immigrant could demonstrate having worked off-the-books during those years. That expands the universe of people eligible for the tax credit by millions. He said only about 700,000 illegal immigrants currently work and pay taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, but as many as 4 million illegal immigrants could get a stay of deportation and work permits under the temporary amnesty, which would mean they would be eligible to claim back-refunds if they worked those years.

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 11, 2015 20 Comments
One year ago, Barack Obama told Bill O'Reilly that there wasn't even a smidgeon of corruption at the IRS. If that statement was true, why is the Obama administration refusing to share documents related to the IRS targeting scandal? Bob Cusack of The Hill reported yesterday:
Obama administration won’t release IRS targeting documents The Obama administration is refusing to publicly release more than 500 documents on the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups. Twenty months after the IRS scandal broke, there are still many unanswered questions about who was spearheading the agency’s scrutiny of conservative-leaning organizations. The Hill sought access to government documents that might provide a glimpse of the decision-making through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The Hill asked for 2013 emails and other correspondence between the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The request specifically sought emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner and Treasury officials, including Secretary Jack Lew, while the inspector general was working on its explosive May 2013 report that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” to review the political activities of tax-exempt groups. TIGTA opted not to release any of the 512 documents covered by the request, citing various exemptions in the law. The Hill recently appealed the FOIA decision, but TIGTA denied the appeal. TIGTA also declined to comment for this article.
The Department of Justice, which hasn't been politicized in any way, may be partially to blame for the slowness of the investigation.

Posted by Amy Miller on February 06, 2015 5 Comments
Brace yourself for what could become #IRSscandal...3.0? 4.0? 10.0? I've lost track. A new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration shows that the IRS rehired hundreds of problem employees over the course of three years. According to the report, four of those employees left the IRS after having serious performance problems---and were hired back to their exact same jobs. Hundreds others were rehired even though their records reflected less-serious problems. Via WaPo:
Among the four workers who returned to their previous positions, two were “failing critical job elements at the time they had separated from their prior employment with the IRS,” according to a report on the audit, released Thursday. The review raises questions about whether federal hiring standards are strict enough. Twenty percent of the 50 randomly selected rehires with prior problems at the IRS were involved in new conduct and performance issues after they returned to the agency, according to the report. TIGTA determined that the IRS followed federal hiring guidelines, which require checking for prior criminal activity or use of illegal drugs. But IRS officials told auditors that they barely consider prior conduct and performance issues while determining which applicants are best qualified for a job. Roughly 10 percent of the 73,000 employees that the IRS hired between October 2009 and September 2013 previously worked at the agency. TIGTA said that “most rehired employees do not have performance or conduct issues associated with prior IRS employment.”
Well, at least they aren't doing drugs, right?

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 18, 2015 19 Comments
Why fix what you can abolish? The scandal-laden IRS has found itself a new adversary in Senator Cruz. Last week, Senator Cruz called for abolishing the IRS while joking that sending the agencies 110,000 employees to the Southern border was a better use of their time. Fox News reports:
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) emphatically denounced the IRS this week in a Heritage Foundation speech, saying that that the agency doesn't need to be reformed, it needs to be "abolished." Now that Republicans control Congress, Cruz said the party must seize on the opportunity to simplify the tax code and make it fairer. “The last two years have fundamentally changed the dynamics of this debate [on the tax code],” he said. “As we have seen the weaponization of the IRS, as we have seen the Obama administration using the IRS in a partisan manner to punish its political enemies.”

Posted by Amy Miller on January 14, 2015 16 Comments
Since 2013, we have been investigating charges that the IRS deliberately targeted and discriminated against conservative organizations that applied for tax-exempt status. Now, watchdog group Judicial Watch has uncovered even more evidence that the Washington office had something to hide during the initial Congressional investigations. Today's document release by Judicial Watch includes evidence that then-IRS official Lois Lerner strongly objected to and attempted to prevent a visit by Tax Exempt and Government Entities (TE/GE) Division Deputy Director Joseph H. Grant to the embattled Cincinnati office, which spent time “smack dab in the middle” of Congressional investigations into the IRS targeting of conservatives. From Judicial Watch:
The newly released documents include an intense chain of emails in which Lerner pleads with Grant, who was a supervisor to her, to “put this [Grant’s planned visit to Cincinnati] off please” at the very time during which both the internal IRS watchdog and Congress were investigating whether the IRS had been inappropriately targeting conservative groups in the months leading up to the 2012 elections. The chain begins with an email from Lerner to Grant, apparently written in response to her learning of the Deputy Director’s planned visit to the Cincinnati office: • April 4, 2012 – 4:41 PM – Lois Lerner to Joseph Grant: We just gor an very extensive information request from Imraan [Imraan Khakoo, TE/GE official] –sure looks like op review material. I’m especially concerned that information about pipeline is being asked about … Add to that the fact tha cincinnati is smack dab in the middle of the c4 Congressional inqueries and is about to get a request from TIGTA on all of that, this is NOT a good time to be asking them for anything or to be talking to them about issue in their work. Everyone is stressed to the max and at their wits end, so can we put this off please? [Typos in originals] • April 4, 2012 – 5:17 PM – Joseph Grant to Lois Lerner: It is a visit, not an OP review … I am also interested in the questions Imraan sent to them. Some answers should be readily at hand. Others certainly won’t be … The questions just serve as a framework for a broader conversation about how things are going and what is on our respective minds. • April 4, 2012 – 5:26 PM – Lois Lerner to Joseph Grant: I get that–but timing would be bad if we have to go to Cincy now. So, I will assume we can go over this here as I get the information I’ve already asked for? Thanks.
Breathe, Lois, breathe!
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