I thnk my friend Brickmuppet's synopsis makes pretty clear the scope and nature of the problem here:kcdodd wrote:I find this rather specious. Knowing whether someone is paying >49% to political campaigns does not have anything to do with any question other than "list expenses on political campaigns". That number would have been on their first application, would it not, since that is one of THE criteria? So, the only reason the IRS would need further inquiry would be if they just thought they were essentially lying, right? So, in reality, if they were profiling "Tea Party" groups, it has to be because they thought "Tea Party" obviously meant they were lying, not that they were obviously political. However, it seems to me that the >49% criterion could not have even been what interested the IRS, except as a cover now after the fact. They seemed to ask every question EXCEPT questions related to that. Why do you need to know donors, if the only pertinent question is about your expenses? This is just grade-A spin-doctoring my friend.necoras wrote:The law says that 501(c)(4) groups are to be used to promote social welfare, not political campaigns. Many of the groups which were targeted for in depth questioning about their expenses and intents named themselves "something something TeaParty." They were obviously political in nature. That in and of itself is not enough to preclude tax exempt status, but it does warrant further scrutiny.
To then come back and claim that you were being persecuted for your beliefs because there was further scrutiny is asking that the law, which requires that groups with significant (> 49%) political expenditures pay taxes, is asking that the law not apply to your group. In order for the law to apply any group which is obviously political in nature needs to be investigated. This includes finding out how much money they take in, how much money they spend, on what, when, etc. You can argue that the fact that it took 2 years in some cases for the IRS to come back with an answer is excessive, but you could also argue that it just means they don't have enough people to handle the workload.
As I've stated before, the problem is that most left leaning groups which were obviously political in nature don't seem to have undergone the same in depth scrutiny that the right leaning groups did.
http://brickmuppet.mee.nu/13012586#more
I don't think you can overstate the stakes going on about this deliberate assault on our liberties.