IRS investigating Clinton Foundation

Responding to several Republican congressmen who requested a review of potential criminal conduct involving pay-to-play practices Koskinen wrote the issue has been forwarded to IRS Exempt Organizations Examinations program in Dallas, also known as the Different IRS Rules for Clintons Department.

Fox News.

DOJ will not bring charges against Lois Lerner

[lois lerner] News.

I cannot read, for I must pray instead.

But my other eye is reading search results anyway.

Washington Times -- 1 hour ago The IRS did mishandle tea party and conservative groups nonprofit applications, but their behavior didn't break any laws, the Justice ...

Mediate repeats the headline

Daily caller repeats the headline

Fox News adds "and others will not be charged"

All the headlines say the same thing, the Department of Justice found nothing illegal.

For many observers too diffuse to number and account, and for reasons that vary with each person trust in government generally, its departments running roughshod, is diminished incrementally, severely, and that distrust and accumulative mistrust, devolves to the people and to the party that produces it.

Now I must pray. "Lord please smite these surly sisters. Cause their skin to boil and blister. Make their hair fall out in clumps and make their bulk shrivel and waste, and Lord, please do these wonderful things with haste."

Lord: Knock it off. She's none of your business.

But how can I go on with this social injustice unpunished? This perversion of government by political operatives?

Lord: I said, she is her own business. Mind yours.

But, but, she IS my, but, but, but

Lord: Shut up. Eh, peace be upon you. Just know regarding what matters her soul is chewed up. Take care now that not happen to you.

Search Eyes-free, Just Say "Ok Obama"

"An IRS employee tasked with trying to restore and obtain emails on Lois Lerner’s IRS computer’s hard drive was legally blind.  Stephen Manning, the deputy chief information officer for strategy and modernization at the IRS, submitted an affidavit in the True the Vote vs. IRS litigation regarding the persons and procedures used to attempt to recover Lois Lerner’s hard drive containing emails pertaining to Tea Party targeting."

When I saw this tweet I thought it was a joke, a parody. It's not a joke. To paraphrase instapundit 'we are in the best hands.'

Read more: http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/

IRS, busted

Daily Caller (a site with a hyperkinetic JAVA script writer with a disrespect for its readers)
Via Instapundit.

Daily Caller has obtained an advanced copy of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report that demonstrates malicious intent by IRS to improperly block conservative groups that they termed "icky."

Eight senior leaders in a position to prevent the targeting are identified. The report cites six major points in the report. Half we already knew but now the report says they have proof.

Here is a condensed summary:

1) They admit to spinning the issue
2) Stephen Miller almost told the truth but Nikole Flax instructed him not to.

That name is new to me. To the tower!

3) IRS definitely used a different standard on conservative groups.

Well, duh.

4) Lois Lerner expressed frustration with having to approve a lot of groups. Her colleagues assured her she wouldn't have to.

5) IRS sought outside advisor for ways to deny tax-exempt status to conservatives.

6) An email shows the IRS sought to use a new "gift tax" to target nonprofit political groups.

"Feds balk at releasing docs showing IRS sharing tax returns with White House"

Less than a week after ’fessing up that it found some 2,500 documents potentially showing that the IRS shared taxpayer returns with the White House, the Obama administration has reversed course and won’t release the trove to a group suing for access.

In an abrupt decision, the Treasury inspector general’s office said that the documents are covered by privacy and disclosure laws and can’t be provided to Cause of Action, despite a promise last week to hand over some 2,500. (read more)

"Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion"

"Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up."

“They’re going after people who are really not criminals,” said David Smith, a former federal prosecutor who is now a forfeiture expert and lawyer in Virginia. “They’re middle-class citizens who have never had any trouble with the law.”

The practice has swept up dairy farmers in Maryland, an Army sergeant in Virginia saving for his children’s college education and Ms. Hinders, 67, who has borrowed money, strained her credit cards and taken out a second mortgage to keep her restaurant going. (read the whole thing)

Carole Hinders, last year tax agents seized her funds

Wherever the wind blows the taxpayers get fleeced

"The main federal handout for the wind energy industry has grown considerably despite the fact that it expired at the end of 2013. Over the past two years, IRS administrators have relaxed the eligibility requirements to make it easier for in-progress wind farm projects to qualify for government subsidies (known in Washington as the ‘production tax credit’ or “PTC PTC”). The IRS has done so repeatedly and quietly, often without action from Congress."

"Back in December 2012, while Senate Minority Leader McConnell and Vice President Biden were negotiating a last-minute deal to prevent income taxes from rising across the board, special interests in the wind industry engaged in a flurry of lobbying activity. Congress slipped in a provision in the Fiscal Cliff at the 11th hour that extended and greatly expanded wind subsidies through lower eligibility requirements. Previously, wind farms had to be placed in service and generating electricity in order to claim the credit; after the Fiscal Cliff deal, they only had to be in the beginning stages of construction." (read more) 

Forbes OpEd

IRS scandal, day 427

Tax professor, Paul Caron, Pepperdine University School of Law has an unusually long list of links up today having to do with IRS cover up hiding emails from Congress, and asking about instant messaging being stored or searchable, Learner's reaction to the answer, about her advice to coworkers for the need of being cautious in emails, about Learner being worried of Congress asking for emails, about Congress reading them, discussions she had  her lawyer, and about her saving 'some' emails, her collusion, and her caution, and her fear of her own wrongdoing and her illegal activities being uncovered. 

The links go to all over, not just right wing sites, although it appears it is the right wing that is most interested in discussing these new findings, Washington Times, Washington Post, Washington Examiner (twice) Wall Street Journal (three links) Tribune Review, Politico, NPR, News Max, Market Watch, Main Justice, Las Vegas Review-Journal, American Center for law and Justice and the expected top right-o-sphere sites. Notably absent are the top left wing sites, apparently they prefer their readers be kept uninformed when not actually mal-informed. 

Taxprof.typepad.com

IRS Conservative Groups Targeting Update

Instalinks.

Judicial Watch: New Documents Show IRS HQ Control of Tea Party Targeting; Documents also Reveal Unusual Pressure from Key Democrat Senator to Target Conservatives.

Interesting, isn’t it, that Levin decided not to run for re-election after the IRS scandal got out.

Related: IRS’s tea-party noose tightens: Targeting campaign was directed by HQ in Washington, D.C. – not by a few ‘rogue agents’ in Ohio, documents reveal.

UPDATE: Judicial Watch Obtains New Documents Showing IRS Targeting Came Directly From Washington D.C.

“Aren’t we in the United States? We did nothing wrong”

Terry, who came to Michigan from Iraq in 1970, soon did what immigrants often do: He went into business, buying Schott’s Supermarket in Fraser, Mich., where he still works six days a week. The Internal Revenue Service, a tentacle of a government that spent $3.5 trillion in 2013, tried to steal more than $35,000 from Terry and Sandy that year.

Sandy, a mother of four... remembers, “They just walked into the store” and announced that they had emptied the store’s bank account. The IRS agents believed, or pretended to believe, that Terry and Sandy were or conceivably could be — which is sufficient for the IRS — conducting a criminal enterprise when not selling groceries.

What pattern of behavior supposedly aroused the suspicions of a federal government that is ignorant of how small businesses function? Terry and Sandy regularly make deposits of less than $10,000 in the bank across the street. Federal law, aimed primarily at money laundering by drug dealers, requires banks to report cash deposits of more than $10,000. It also makes it illegal to “structure” deposits to evade such reporting.

Because 35 percent of Schott’s Supermarket’s receipts are in cash, Terry and Sandy make frequent trips to the bank to avoid tempting actual criminals by having large sums at the store. Besides, their insurance policy covers no cash loss in excess of $10,000.

In 2010 and 2012, IRS agents visited the store and examined Terry’s and Sandy’s conduct. In 2012, the IRS notified them that it identified “no violations” of banking laws. But on Jan. 22, 2013, Terry and Sandy discovered that the IRS had obtained a secret warrant and emptied the store’s bank account. (read more)

While trying to avoid "actual" criminals this family made themselves a target of another set of criminals, our own government. In an instance when "government is good" and "taxes are good" is proven to NOT necessarily be so, all the time. For the power to tax is also the power to destroy and there is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

Mr. Rumsfeld's Letter To The IRS

Sarah Hall Ingram

I do not trust her. But somehow I do. No I don't. But somehow I do. No I don't.

It's the shifting, first here, then there, first stomping on the necks of conservatives using position within government department, but oh no, that was after she already shifted to oversee healthcare compliance. Others shift to leave with pay and others shift to retirement. 

Is this an IRS Tea Party Targeting Smoking Gun?

The IRS Hit List Democrats Don’t Want You To See

 

National Review media editor Eliana Johnson on new evidence that proves the government targeted conservative groups. Plus, when did Treasury learn of the abuse?

Wall Street Journal

New IRS guidelines for American Legion

Patrick Howley at Daily Caller says this smells like Lois Lerner.

IRS now requires American Legion posts to maintain dates of service and the character of service recored for all members.

Or else!

$1,000 a day, Bitches.

They know it's her too. Her department.

Have you ever been to one? An American Legion? The ones in Denver have awesome breakfasts, and I mean awesome. Everybody goes. It's like a big get-together where they fly into action and present an ace breakfast on Sundays. The full panoply of expected breakfast items, except probably the eggs must be scrambled. I forget. And for as little cost as possible. That's part of it, I think, to keep the cost down. I would never know about this were it not for my parents involvement. They went to all those clubs. I bought a few drinks at my Dad's VFW one time and I was astounded how inexpensive they are, like half price from what I was used to. Like the whole idea was to keep the guys together in one place drinking together cheaply.

The IRS subjected conservative groups already granted tax-exempt status to additional scrutiny during the 2012 election cycle

thehill via Instapundit

Elijah Cummings is trying everything he can to push back and hold the tide, here is what he says about Darrell Issa expanding the probe into IRS treatment of organizations already recognized as tax-exempt by the IRS  that appear to have faced questionable treatment by the IRS:

* Issa is pushing a political narrative by picking choice quotes and disregarding contrary evidence.

* not conducting a responsible investigation focused on implementing real reforms

* urges to focus on obtaining the full set of facts rather than making unsubstantiated allegations. 

Cummings said that in a letter to Issa on Monday

The Leadership Institute was audited in 2011 and 2012 for activites in 2008 election year, even though it had functioned as tax-exempt since 1979. It faced invasive questions including questions about intern, where they went to work. Ultimately turning over to IRS more than 23,000 pages of documents at a cost of $50,000 (jeeze, that's $2.00 a page) 

Organizations already tax exempt appear to have faced questionable treatment by the IRS, Issa wrote to Treasury Inspector general 

Cummings countered bravely

* groups were referred to the special unit on a case-by-case basis

* unit did not automatically mean an audit would occur

* referrals to the group were actually meant to facilitate an approval, not burden the organization with additional inquiries.

* liberal groups cam under the same scrutiny

Jack Lew reiterated progressive groups were improperly targeted alongside conservative ones, adding there is no evidence of political pressure

More details at the Hill.