Internal Revenue Scandal

Scott Hardie | May 16, 2013
Thoughts on the IRS targeting conservative groups?

When I first heard that groups matching terms like "Tea Party," "Patriot" and so on were being given extra scrutiny by the IRS, my first thought was that it was related to the sovereignty movement, in which some people renounce their US citizenship to avoid being subject to American laws. All kinds of people join the movement for all kinds of reasons, but it's doubtless that some join to save on taxes, and it makes sense to me that the IRS would want to be extra careful that no one wasn't paying who should have. Then I remembered the guy who flew his plane into an IRS office, and even though there was no evidence that he was connected to or sympathetic to the Tea Party movement, it was widely assumed that he was. I could see why the IRS would want to take any extra precautions they could after that incident, even if it seems like a case for the FBI.

It has gradually became clear that the scandal is not really about either of those, although they may have influenced it. The scrutiny goes way beyond a reasonable level, the targeting is much too precise, and the benefit is far too meager. It's appalling and unacceptable.

Tony Peters | May 18, 2013
was it wrong? Yes and yet not one was denied taxfree status except a Liberal group that had nothing to do with the TeaParty. That the IRS should be deciding what groups are political and which are social welfare is the biggest scandal. The USE if the 501 C4 status by these groups is the real crime they are doing nothing to warrant tax free status under this statue.

Scott Hardie | May 21, 2013
Slate has an thought-provoking article that argues that conservatives who may favor racial profiling in criminal justice and homeland security are now being subjected to a form of it themselves, which demonstrates how profiling is morally wrong and ineffective at catching the real cases of tax fraud.