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Friday, May 17, 2013

IRS Apologizes 3

 
As I said in number 1 this speaks for itself and it is pretty bad.   Below is what I learned from PBS and one of the networks.
 
But
There are some interesting facts here.  These were not regular 501 (c) 3 tax exempts  in which neither the donor nor the receiver pays taxes on the money transferred.  These were either the  501 (c) 4 or the 527.
The second of these is a purely political committee which has taxes due and must reveal its donors.  To qualify for the first category your organization must spend most of its efforts on public service, i.e. on nonpolitical things.  These distinctions are new because of the Citizens United SCOTUS decision.
If you are in this game you want to be in the first group 501(c)4.  So people would be straining to get there.
Furthermore, since it was the year of the tea party, there were lots more right side applications than left.  They would have looked at more tea party things even if they had done it randomly.  
But
They admit that they gave extra focus to right side sounding group names.  
 
 
But (I love the next two.)
It was mostly in one office in Cincinnati.
But  
That office is the headquarters for this kind of determination.
 
 
But 
After Obama got the IG’s (inspector general) report they fired the head guy at the IRS.
But 
He wasn’t there at the time this stuff happened, he gets to stay for a week, and he was leaving in two weeks anyway?
 
 
But
Even the regular reporters are starting to ask real questions since the AP incident.
Example:  “Mr. President, when did you find out about these political IRS actions?”
But                                                                                                                      
That doesn’t mean that they are going to get answers:  In response to the last question he said: “I got the IG’s report yesterday.”  Does he think that that is cute?  I think that it shows contempt for us and the press.  He said some other stuff too, but he did not answer the question.  We have no idea how long he has been sitting on this.  If he had been seriously outraged, as he says he is, then we would have heard about it months ago when those responsible had been fired.
 
 
Am I losing confidence in this man?

 
Yes. No buts about it.

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