Obama’s proposed IRS rules to limit tax-exempt status concern liberals, too

Opposition grows from both sides

Washington Times, by Stephen Dinan, February 24, 2014

The Obama administration’s proposed crackdown on tea party and other nonprofit groups that want to play a role in politics is quietly crumbling as opposition builds across the political spectrum to new IRS rules.

Almost all of the nearly 70,000 public comments submitted as of Monday night were vehemently opposed to the proposal, which would limit the ability of social welfare nonprofits — those organized under 501(c)(4) of the tax code — to even talk about candidates in the two months before an election.

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Proposed IRS rules for non-profits - limiting free speech!

See the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zM_2DrAkxY&feature=youtu.be

'IRS PROBE A SHAM, NONEXISTENT'

Tea-party lawyer tells Congress scandal 'real,' blasts Obama claim

 

By Garth Kant, WND, February 6, 2014

 

WASHINGTON — “The IRS scandal is not over. It is continuing to this day. And the Department of Justice investigation is a sham. It is a nonexistent investigation,” a high-powered Washington attorney testified before Congress this morning.

Attorney Cleta Mitchell, who represents many tea-party groups, blasted President Obama’s claim on Sunday that there is no IRS scandal, and his insistence that there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” in the agency’s targeting of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

“The IRS scandal is not just a bone-headed bunch of bureaucrats in some remote office, contrary to what the president of the United States told the American people,” she said.

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Why I Submitted a Comment Objecting to the IRS Proposed Rule Targeting 501(c)(4) Groups

By Loren Heal, FreedomWorks, February 5, 2014

The Internal Revenue Service is attempting to change the standards for tax exempt status for 501(c)(4) groups. Rather than sticking to enforcing the will of Congress, the IRS, with the full blessing of the political operation in the White House, wants to ensure they won't have to harass conservative and tea party groups about their tax exempt status applications, because those groups won't even bother to apply. They need to hear from America.

Following its targeting of tea party and conservative groups in the runup to the 2012 election, the IRS now wants to codify into regulatory law the organization's illegal and tyrannical behavior. The rules are meant not just to stifle free speech, which would be bad enough, but to favor progressive groups over conservative and libertarian ones.

After initially calling the IRS targeting "outrageous," President Obama shifted to calling it a "phony scandal."  The White House and its allies in Congress have worked hard in favor of the new targeting. 

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5 People and Groups Abused By the Government For Opposing Obama

John Hall, Townhall, February 4, 2014

It's not happenstance or coincidence that Obama and his administration are illegally using neutral government agencies to go after their political adversaries. If it were, they wouldn't be taking the 5th, stonewalling Congress and putting political hacks in charge of their internal investigations. The most important remaining questions about the Obama Administration's attacks on its foes are how far up the ladder they go and whether any impeachable offenses were committed in the process. Given that the mainstream media is essentially an arm of the Democrat Party and that the House Republicans have been about as aggressive as a baby fawn in investigating them, we may never know the full truth. Obama and his administration seem to think they’re above the law and after seeing how conservatives are being illegally mistreated by the government without consequence, they may be right.

READ THE ARTICLE.  

CHUCK SCHUMER CALLS FOR IRS TO CRACK DOWN ON TEA PARTY FUNDING

The Blaze, Becket Adams, January 24, 2014

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service should be used more aggressively to keep Tea Party funding in check, explaining that this would help “weaken” and “exploit” the conservative movement.

Schumer during remarks to the Center for American Progress argued that Tea Party groups have an unfair financial advantage over left-leaning groups because of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, at one point even suggesting that President Barack Obama go around Congress to impose stricter campaign finance laws.

CONTINUED.

Help stop IRS shutdown of voter guides, voter registration drives

These rules could filter down to churches, simply at the whim of the IRS, basically silencing conservatives and Christians for exercising their patriotic and civic freedoms

Canada Free Press By News on the Net American Family Association, Friday, January 24, 2014 

The IRS is proposing regulations that will give them the authority to restrict voter guides, legislative scorecards, get-out-the-vote campaigns and even the voter registration activities of non-profit groups by defining such civic engagement as “candidate-related political activity.”

Many, including AFA, believe these rules are an attempt to shut down conservative organizations like AFA, Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and the Tea Party.

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FBI, dragging feet on IRS probe, finally contacts tea party groups Contacts were due 7 months ago

The Washington Times, by Stephan Dinan, January 9, 2014

The FBI finally has begun to contact some of the tea party groups targeted by the Internal Revenue Service for inappropriate scrutiny in the first public signs that the administration’s criminal investigation is progressing.

A lawyer representing some of the tea party groups that battled the IRS for tax-exempt status told The Washington Times that a “small number” of his clients were recently contacted, seven months after the investigation was supposed to have begun.

The progress was revealed a day after The Times reported that the Justice Department lawyer who is leading the investigation into the IRS, Barbara Kay Bosserman, has donated more than $6,000 to President Obama’s presidential campaigns — a move that, for many Republicans, has called into question the entire investigation.

“They say the fox isn’t good to guard the henhouse; the fox is probably not good to investigate the henhouse, either,” said Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican. “I think these investigations need to be done by independent people outside of the administration.”

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OBAMA DONOR TO HEAD IRS TEA PARTY TARGETING INVESTIGATION

Breitbart, January 8, 2014

The attorney heading the internal investigation into potential unfair targeting of conservative groups by the IRS is a frequent and significant donor to both the Democratic National Committee and President Obama, Rep. Darrell Issa revealed today, in what he calls a "startling conflict of interest" that jeopardizes the investigation.

Rep. Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter today to Attorney General Eric Holder revealing new information that reached the committee on who is conducting the internal investigations at the IRS regarding the inappropriate targeting of conservative groups. Seeking an explanation as to why the FBI has been unresponsive to the committee, Rep. Issa noted that current and former IRS officials revealed Barbara Bosserman, a trial attorney within the IRS's Civil Rights Commission, is leading the internal investigation.

CONTINUE READING.

Tea partyers launch counterattack on IRS nonprofit rules

Washington Times, January 7

Tea party groups are rallying their troops for a fight over the new rules the IRS is carving out on how to regulate tax-exempt groups that participate in political activities.

ABC reported that tea party groups were caught off guard when the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service rolled out the proposed rule changes before the Thanksgiving break and now they are calling on members of the grassroots movement to weigh in on the proposed changes before the end of a 90-day comment period.

“They seem hell bent to do whatever they’re setting out to do because of the way they issued the rules and the fact that the comment period happens during the holiday season, Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, told ABC.  “I think changing the rules in an election year is extraordinarily unfair and unprecedented,” he said.  ABC reported that more than 10,000 people have responded to the call to arm by submitting their comments, which would be looked at by the IRS as it considers the new regulations.

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Issa: FBI impeding inquiry into IRS targeting of conservative groups

The House’s chief investigator says the FBI is stonewalling his inquiry into whether the agency and the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative group True the Vote for special scrutiny, and Rep. Darrell E. Issa is now threatening subpoenas to pry loose the information from FBI Director James B. Comey Jr. 

Mr. Issa, California Republican, and Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, are leading the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s IRS inquiry. They also said the FBI is refusing to turn over any documents related to its own investigation into the IRS, which began in the days after an auditor’s report revealed the tax agency had improperly targeted tea party groups for special scrutiny.

Six months after it began, the FBI’s investigation has resulted in no release of information. The congressmen said the FBI even rescinded an offer for an in-person briefing with the assistant director in charge of the investigation. The reversal, after the FBI consulted with the Justice Department, suggests political meddling, the two investigators said.

READ MORE:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/2/lawmakers-suspect-fbi-is-impeding-irs-inquiry-targ/#ixzz2mQ3N32zJ

IRS continues to hound Tea Party Patriots, demands more data for tax-exempt status - Washington Times

The initial firestorm surrounding the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups may have subsided, but tea party leaders say the situation has only become worse and may lead to more lawsuits against the embattled agency.

New documents show the depth of information the IRS is seeking from Tea Party Patriots, a leading conservative group that first applied for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status in late 2010 and one of many organizations singled out for extra scrutiny by the Obama administration.

An IRS letter sent to the group last week and obtained by The Washington Times contains a laundry list of requests related to virtually all the group’s activities, including its involvement in the 2012 election cycle and its get-out-the-vote efforts, fundraising activities, all radio and TV advertising, and other information.

The IRS also is asking for detailed financial records, including “the amounts and percentages of your total expenses that were for fundraising activities in the tax year 2011, 2012 and 2013.”

The Aug. 20 request came as a shock to Tea Party Patriots, which said it already has provided to the IRS extensive information on all of its activities and thinks it is long past time to receive a “yes” or “no” answer.

The letter also is proof that, while President Obama and other liberals have referred to the situation as a “phony scandal,” conservative organizations still are targets, said Cleta Mitchell, a Washington, D.C., lawyer representing the Tea Party Patriots and several other conservative groups.

“This is tantamount to an audit. This is the continuation of the same thing they’ve been doing for four years. They have not stopped,” she said Thursday. “Tea Party Patriots has responded to all of the requests of the IRS to date, but that has gotten us nowhere. They just keep asking more questions. We are now looking at potential legal remedies, but that’s not easy. Congress has made it quite difficult to sue the IRS.”

The letter, according to the IRS, is simply an attempt to gather information necessary for the agency to determine whether the Tea Party Patriots is eligible for tax-exempt status under current law. Meeting the tax-exempt criteria requires that a group’s “primary” function and activities not be political in nature.

CONTINUED:  IRS continues to hound Tea Party Patriots, demands more data for tax-exempt status - Washington Times

American Thinker, July 22, 2013: The IRS Intervened in Tea Party Elections

Did the IRS intervene in Federal election campaigns for Congress?

According to the Washington Times, U.S. Treasury investigative special agent Dennis Martel has uncovered a new example of political abuse. 

On March 9, 2010, Christine O'Donnell's personal income tax records were illegally accessed by a Delaware public official. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) reports that a previously-undisclosed "back door" to the IRS computer system was used to invade the privacy of Christine O'Donnell's tax records.

Who knew? It turns out that state government criminal investigators can directly -- though illegally -- access IRS records through a "back door." Along with O'Donnell, at least four other political candidates and four conservative donors have been identified so far as victims of this abuse.

A Congressional investigation of the IRS "back door" conducted by Sen. Charles Grassley [R - IA] is now under way. However, even Grassley, Martel, and the Washington Times have not yet put all the pieces together.

Dennis Martel and Sen. Grassley are missing details of how this IRS abuse cleverly sabotaged a U.S. Senate campaign. In this column, we connect the dots using this author's personal knowledge of the O'Donnell campaign.

In May 2013, the IRS was forced to admit that it had been targeting tea party organizations. Details have slowly dripped out concerning the involvement of IRS headquarters in Washington in the persecution of conservative activists. Cincinnati IRS staffer Elizabeth Hofacre has identified IRS attorney Carter C. Hull as supervising the inquisition of tea party applicants.

Then, in a July 18 hearing before Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee, Hull dropped a bigger bomb, revealing that the targeting of tea party groups and other conservatives was directed by the IRS Chief Counsel's office headed by Obama's political appointee William J. Wilkins.

Now, Dennis Martel's new revelation takes the scandal even farther, to individual conservatives and election campaigns. We have discovered how paranoid the IRS was about the tea party. After all, the tea party's mission was to fight taxes. The IRS took that very personally, it now appears.

READ MORE:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/07/the_irs_intervened_in_tea_party_elections.html#ixzz2Zn3X30rG

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