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IRS Tag

Posted by Bruce Carroll on June 25, 2014 22 Comments
FOX News' Chad Pergram tweeted some breaking developments late this afternoon regarding a new email dump from the ever-interesting Lois Lerner file.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 23, 2014 33 Comments
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is set to hear testimony tonight from IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, in an evening hearing on the subject of Lois Lerner’s missing emails. [This hearing has concluded. Full video will be posted when available]. Some clips from the hearing can also be viewed below. Remainder of the original post follows clips.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 22, 2014 9 Comments
Friday night, Ben Shapiro of Truth Revolt appeared on Megyn Kelly's FOX News program to discuss Lois Lerner's missing emails. Trey Sanchez writes at Truth Revolt:
Host Megyn Kelly began by discussing the IRS investigation into the lost emails of ex-IRS official Lois Lerner. Initially, Kelly stated, Democrats and Republicans were both equally outraged. But as time has gone by, Democrats have lost their outrage, reinforced by President Obama, who insists not one smidgen of corruption is involved. Kelly said it was like IRS employees were saying, "Whoops! We're sorry, we lost basically all of the evidence you need to prove your case against me."
Shapiro explained the role the media plays in the parade of Obama scandals:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 20, 2014 47 Comments
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen is expected to testify in a hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday morning at 9:00am EST. According to a statement from the committee, the hearing will focus on the IRS’s recent statement about the production of emails of former IRS official Lois Lerner. You should be able to view the livestream of the hearing at the committee’s UStream channel. [Hearing in Recess -- here are some videos]

Posted by Bruce Carroll on June 19, 2014 29 Comments
The plot seems to thicken every day now on the infamous "missing emails" from IRS manager Lois Lerner. So only did Lerner's emails disappear in an alleged "computer crash," but so did six other IRS officials at the center of the IRS targeting scandal. Now comes news that the IRS actually disposed of Lerner's hard drive making any data retrieval that more difficult.
Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s crashed hard drive has been recycled, making it likely the lost emails of the lightning rod in the tea party targeting controversy will never be found, according to multiple sources. “We’ve been informed that the hard drive has been thrown away,” Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a brief hallway interview.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa issued a terse statement following the POLITICO report Wednesday night:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on June 13, 2014 78 Comments
The IRS is unable to produce some of the emails of former agency official Lois Lerner due to a computer crash, according to a statement from the House Ways and Means Committee.
Today, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) issued the following statement regarding the Internal Revenue Service informing the Committee that they have lost Lois Lerner emails from a period of January 2009 – April 2011.  Due to a supposed computer crash, the agency only has Lerner emails to and from other IRS employees during this time frame.  The IRS claims it cannot produce emails written only to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups, such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices. “The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to Congressional inquiries.  There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the Inspector General. “Just a short time ago, Commissioner Koskinen promised to produce all Lerner documents.  It appears now that was an empty promise.  Frankly, these are the critical years of the targeting of conservative groups that could explain who knew what when, and what, if any, coordination there was between agencies.  Instead, because of this loss of documents, we are conveniently left to believe that Lois Lerner acted alone.  This failure of the IRS requires the White House, which promised to get to the bottom of this, to do an Administration-wide search and production of any emails to or from Lois Lerner.  The Administration has repeatedly referred us back to the IRS for production of materials.  It is clear that is wholly insufficient when it comes to determining the full scope of the violation of taxpayer rights.”
Last month, the Ways and Means Committee indicated that the IRS had finally agreed to turn over all Lois Lerner emails to the Committee.  But according to Friday's statement, it appears there had not been any mention until now that some of the emails would not be able to be produced because of the supposed computer crash. Apparently, Lerner tried to have technicians reconstruct her hard drive at the time of the crash, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 29, 2014 9 Comments
While the IRS assault on Tea Party groups is well known, another equally disturbing development is taking shape at the beleaguered agency. Alana Goodman of The Washington Free Beacon reported...
Lawsuit Alleging IRS Discrimination Against Pro-Israel Groups Moves Forward A lawsuit alleging that the IRS discriminates against pro-Israel groups will be allowed to move forward, a federal judge ruled this week in Washington, D.C. The IRS has been fighting to quash the lawsuit filed in 2009 by pro-Israel group Z Street, claiming the court does not have jurisdiction to hear the matter. However, Judge Ketanje Brown Jackson rejected the agency’s request to dismiss the case on Wednesday and ordered the IRS to respond to Z Street’s complaint within the next 30 days. Z Street says its constitutional rights were violated by an IRS policy that allegedly singles pro-Israel groups out for stricter scrutiny when they apply for tax-exempt status. According to the lawsuit, an IRS official told Z Street’s lawyer in 2009 that the group’s application for tax-exempt status would be “sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the administration’s public policies.”
Eugene Volokh provides more insight at The Washington Post...

Posted by Mandy Nagy on May 08, 2014 19 Comments

The IRS has agreed to turn over all Lois Lerner emails to the House Committee on Ways and Means, according to a statement posted on the committee's website Thursday. From the Ways and Means committee website: Today, Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) announced that one...

Posted by Jack Park on April 24, 2014 6 Comments
In the world of federal Inspectors General, there are some evergreens in agency oversight. There are federal employees in every agency who periodically misuse their official credit cards, use their workplace computers to look at pornography, or fail to pay their taxes in timely fashion. Indeed, every year, there are news stories about the number of federal employees at each agency with tax delinquency issues. An IG can expect to find evidence of such misconduct by conducting an audit or investigation every couple of years or so. Monday, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), issued a report demonstrating that truism and disclosing that:
[B]etween October 1, 2010 and December 31, 2012, more than 2,800 [IRS] employees with recent substantiated conduct issues resulting in disciplinary action received more than $2.8 million in monetary awards, more than 27,000 hours in time-off awards, and 175 quality step increases. Among these, more than 1,100 IRS employees with substantiated Federal tax compliance problems received more than $1 million in cash awards, more than 10,000 hours in time-off awards, and 69 quality step increases within a year after the IRS substantiated their tax compliance problems.
The report explains that “the most serious conduct issues included late payment and/or nonpayment of Federal taxes, Government travel card misuse or delinquency, Section 1203(b) violations, misconduct, and fraud issues.” Section 1203 of the 1998 IRS Restructuring and Reform Act provides that certain acts or omissions can be the basis of a removal for cause for misconduct. “Drug use and violent threats” are examples of misconduct, and “fraudulently claiming unemployment benefits and fraudulently entering attendance and leave on timesheets” are examples of fraud. The report includes the following table showing the extent of the problem:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on March 05, 2014 50 Comments
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has scheduled a hearing on IRS targeting for 9:30am ET today. Former IRS official Lois Lerner has been recalled to testify before the committee; she is expected to appear, but after much confusion over the last few days, it's unclear whether or not Lerner will answer any questions. Update:  Hearing over, Lerner pleaded the 5th to all questions: [caption id="attachment_80340" align="alignnone" width="510"](Lois Lerner Pleads 5th House Hearing 3-5-2014) (Lois Lerner Pleads 5th House Hearing 3-5-2014)[/caption] Issa showed an email from Lerner in 2011 demonstrating hostility to the Tea Party and asked her about it, but she refused to answer questions about it: [caption id="attachment_80338" align="alignnone" width="575"](Lois Lerner Exhibit House Hearing 3-5-2014) (Lois Lerner Exhibit House Hearing 3-5-2014)[/caption] Lerner left the hearing without answering a single quesion:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on March 02, 2014 16 Comments

An attorney for Lois Lerner says the former Internal Revenue Service official still intends to continue to assert her Fifth Amendment rights before the House Oversight committee, despite earlier claims from a top GOP lawmaker Sunday that she would testify this week. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.),...

Posted by New Neo on February 16, 2014 9 Comments
At this point it's tempting to regard the IRS as not-so-secret agents of the Obama administration and the Democrats. This is not paranoia. As Ed Rogers wrote in the WaPo, it is fact:
Encouraged by the lack of a public backlash, an uninquisitive press, cover from the White House and an eager-to-please bureaucracy, the Democrats are boldly counting on the IRS to be their political and policy enforcer.This statement isn’t an overreach by the “vast right-wing conspiracy” or a phony crisis created by hecklers (like me) on the right — it goes back to the early stages of President Obama’s reelection campaign.
Rogers goes on to list some of the more egregious examples of what has occurred and how the administration has been emboldened by the fact that so far there have been few negative consequences to them for their actions. The hue and cry that might have been expected - and to a certain extent came at first, when some of the revelations about Tea Party harassment were revealed - has been muted and blunted. So now the excesses are being further and more openly institutionalized:
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