Why Did the IRS Target Conservative Groups?
by Megan McArdle
May 13, 2013 8:24 AM EDT
Was it a legitimate reaction to an explosion of tax-exempt electioneering?
Kevin Drum outlines what I take to be the emerging case for the defense of the IRS agents who applied special scrutiny to tax-exemption applications from Tea Party groups:
Roughly speaking, what seems to have happened is that three years ago the IRS was facing an explosion of newly formed 501(c)4 groups claiming tax exempt status, something that’s legal only for groups that are primarily engaged in promoting education or social welfare, not electioneering. So some folks in the Cincinnati office tried to come up with a quick filter to flag groups that deserved extra scrutiny. But what should that flag be? Well, three years ago the explosion happened to be among tea party groups, so they began searching their database “for applications with ‘Tea Party,’ ‘Patriots,’ or ‘9/12’ in the organization’s name as well as other ‘political sounding’ names.” This was dumb, and when senior leaders found out about it, they put a quick stop to it . . .
The problem is that the explosion of 501(c)4 groups is a genuine problem: they really have grown like kudzu, lots of them really are used primarily as electioneering vehicles, and the IRS has been either unwilling or unable to regulate them properly. So the fact that some of the folks responsible for processing these applications were looking for a way to flag potentially dubious groups is sort of understandable.
However, if I were accused of this thing, and this was my defense, I’d be looking forward to a guilty verdict from any semi-competent jury.
For one thing, though the IRS is claiming that they told employees to knock it off in 2011, they went back and came up with an almost equally troubling set of standards in January 2012:
The IRS adopted a more generic set of standards the next month, but it changed the criteria again in January 2012, deciding to look at “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement,†according to the audit documents.
But even if that weren’t the case, this would be an incredibly stupid defense. It’s not like the IRS needs a way to flag the new groups that were created in the wake of the Citizens United decision. They have all the information they need to do that without any special filter. They can search for the date of the application. If what you’re concerned about is that most of the new groups being created are in fact thinly disguised electioneering vehicles, then what you want to do is take a random sample of the new groups, review them, and see what percentage turn out to be self-dealing or otherwised engaged in inappropriate behavior.
On Monday, President Obama said the IRS had to be held fully accountable.
Instead, the IRS method for dealing with the volume was to take an unrandom sample. And how did they decide that you deserved extra scrutiny? Because you had “tea party” or “patriot” in your name. Since the Tea Party was a brand new movement in 2010, they couldn’t possibly have had any data indicating that such groups were more likely to be doing something improper. So how exactly did they come up with this filter? There is no answer that does not ultimately resolve to “political bias”.
If Tea Party groups really were driving much of the post-Citizens-United explosion, there was no need to specifically search for the words “tea party” or “patriot”, because those words would naturally be overrepresented in a random sample of new applications. The reason you specifically search for those words is that you want to target those groups specifically, and not, say, applications with “Progress”, “Organizing”, or “Action” in them.
For that matter, even if they also targeted liberal keywords, it would still be just as big a problem. It’s hard to think of any reasonable standard for extra review that starts with “I didn’t like their name.”
Further evidence: given that they don’t seem to have taken action against any of the groups they hassled, it seems clear that this was, in fact, an objectively bad filter.
Rather than learning from this, the IRS instead did basically the same thing again, apparently on the logic that people who dislike taxes or complain about the government can’t possibly be promoting social welfare.
Now, maybe 501(c) organizations are a big scam and don’t promote social welfare nad we should get rid of them, as I’ve seen some columnists complain. But this doesn’t actually seem like the right time to have that conversation. Rather, it seems like a distraction from the fact that IRS employees decided that groups which advocated for smaller government were somehow specially untrustworthy, and acted on this opinion by singling them out for extra bureaucratic hassles. This is hugely disturbing, and right now our focus should be on making sure it doesn’t happen again, not reforming the laws governing tax-exempt organizations.
Not sure if it is a coincidence or not, but I got audited in 2010 and 2011. It was the first time in my life that has ever happened.
Today the sons a bitches were outed for spying on the Associated Press. If this and the use of the IRS to intimidate conservatives is not enough to impeach the President for presiding over a police state what is it going to take. Do we really want free stuff enough to throw away over 200 years of freedom?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/ap-phone-records-government-intrusion-unprecedented_n_3268569.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D312508
Prove Obama caused this or knew about it then we’ll talk. Let me ask you this. Were you kicking and screaming about the patriot act?
I can’t prove he did it or even knew about it. He darn well should have known though. If Obama is so inept as to put morons in charge of the Departments of State, Justice, and Revenue that trample the Constitution he is not fit to be President of the United States. The idiot even gave a speech using the word “if” after the IRS admitted its wrong doings. This man is no leader and he is sure as hell no President.
I was indeed against the patriot act and wrote my congressman. Maybe I need to prepare to be audited.
It is crystal clear by now that these United States are neither a Republic, nor a Democracy. It is an Obamanation, run by an idiot savant who doesn’t have a clue of the contents of the Constitution. He ought to be impeached as soon as possible.
Yes, I was. See, that’s what consistent and honest people do. They criticize all forms of malfeasance equally, regardless of party. Unlike folks like you, who seem interested in protecting your golden goose who’s now in office.
You’re a hypocrite if you won’t join in criticizing this. Jon Stewart did it. Why can’t you?
If Obama ordered or knew about and didn’t stop specific and unequal targeting of conservative groups, I’d have a big problem with that. There’s your answer. If it was a rogue action, I’m still not happy about it, but can’t crucify Obama for it. It’s become as he put it a political circus. You’d think the way people demonize him he’s micromanaging ever government department at all levels. He simply cannot control every day to day operation of every department. By that logic, Bush is solely responsible for 9/11/2001 because he failed to end the CIA v FBI pissing match. Dig?
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