The IRS: Taxing Your Patience and Patriotism Since 2011
Bullying has officially entered a new school playground; the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS, one of the most powerful departments within our federal government, has been harassing conservative citizen groups and organizations for more than two years. This comes despite repeated demands for investigation and information during the same two year period from the House Ways and Means Committee as to whether this practice was taking place...
Bullying has officially entered a new school playground; the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS, one of the most powerful departments within our federal government, has been harassing conservative citizen groups and organizations for more than two years. This comes despite repeated demands for investigation and information during the same two year period from the House Ways and Means Committee as to whether this practice was taking place. In June of 2012 Inspector General Russell George was appointed to investigate mounting allegations that the IRS was harassing private organization - what he found is embarrassing. According to his report, Lois Lerner, the Director of Tax Exempt Groups within the IRS, was told in June of 2011 that the practicing of political targeting was taking place within the department. Lerner turned a blind eye and the IRS continued to claim no knowledge of this practice when directly questioned by the House Ways and Means Committee. Now nearly two years later, Lerner has publically apologized for the targeting. Queue the flood gates. An internal IRS memo dubbed “Be on the Look-Out”, or BOLO, listed terms like “patriot” and “tea party” as alerts to IRS agents to perform more scrutiny on these filers or applicants for tax exempt status. Flagged organizations and groups were told to turn over names of their donors, donation amounts and even list their policy positions on political issues important to their organization. This information is not and has never been required by law for tax exempt filing purposes. I watched in disbelief as this saga unfolded – albeit in the midst of the Benghazi and Associated Press bombshells this week. Then, in a press conference Wednesday, the President warned of a “partisan agenda” fearing that “political motivations” would unfairly escalate the IRS story. An egregious intrusion on citizens’ rights should not be prefaced and trivialized under a fear of partisanship. Every American should be concerned by these actions. This involves every citizen. The power wielded by the IRS has been abused. Period. The administration’s solution was to point fingers at low level “rogue” employees in the IRS’ Cincinnati office and Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller, whose temporary assignment was ending in June. The Administration may declare this as a resolution; I see this as a scapegoat. Then there is Mrs. Lerner, who, despite being embattled and at the center of this controversy and knowing of these indiscretions in June of 2011, still has her job. We on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee are taking a different approach. This week we’re having a little visit with Mrs. Lerner, along with her colleagues Neil Wolin, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury responsible for supervising the IRS, and Douglas Shulman, the former IRS Commissioner. They, along with Inspector General Russell George, whose report led to the uncovering of this embarrassment, will answer questions in our committee hearing “The IRS: Targeting Americans for Political Beliefs.” I’ll be doing my part to keep you posted on Facebook (Cynthia Lummis) and twitter (@cynthialummis), but if you have further questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to contact me. I encourage everyone to watch the hearing live at: http://oversight.house.gov |
Congressman
