Lois Lerner Literally Runs Away from Questions about IRS Targeting Conservatives

76 Percent Think IRS Destroyed Lerner E-mails

A new Fox News survey tested Team Obama’s credibility: "The Internal Revenue Service says that two years of emails from IRS employees about targeting conservative and tea party groups were accidentally destroyed because of a computer crash and cannot be recovered. Do you believe the IRS that the emails were destroyed accidentally or do you think they were destroyed deliberately?"

The answer: only 12 percent believe the lame “accidentally destroyed” thesis, and 76 percent picked “deliberately.” Asked if Congress should keep probing, 74 percent said yes. No one at the networks will be touching this poll, but James Taranto at The Wall Street Journal wondered:

What percentage of respondents do you think believe the IRS?

We'd have said between 30% and 40%. The administration, backed by its allies in the Democratic Party and the media, has cast the scandal in partisan terms, as a Republican witch hunt. Obama himself told Fox's Bill O'Reilly in February that while "there were some bone-headed decisions," there was no "mass corruption. Not even a smidgen of corruption."

Given the partisan polarization of America's political culture--a long-term trend that predates Obama's presidency but certainly has not been arrested by it--we'd have expected at least Obama's hard-core political base to express support for the IRS position.

He was shocked by the 12 percent: “That's congressional-approval-rating territory." Jennifer Harper at the Washington Times included the partisan breakdown: 90 percent of Republicans, 74 percent of independents, and even 63 percent of Democrats aren't buying the "accidentally destroyed" claim...and 66 percent of Democrats back more congressional investigation.

Taranto concluded:

The president's claim that there was no corruption never quite made logical sense. To believe it, you have to accept two premises: that the IRS acted on its own, without direction from the White House or other politicians; and that it did so incompetently rather than corruptly. Both these premises could be true. But if the first one is--if the problem at the IRS was the lack of supervision rather than the following of corrupt orders from above--then Obama is in no position to make authoritative declarations about what the IRS was up to.

The Fox poll is a stunning vote of no confidence not just in the Obama administration but in the government itself. Public skepticism of government is a healthy impulse, and in this case it seems fully warranted. A government that cannot inspire even a minimal degree of public confidence is a danger to itself and to the country.

Hat Tip to: NewsBusters

PROOF Internal Revenue Service targeted Tea Party Donors

 

Despite assurances to the contrary, the IRS didn’t destroy all of the donor lists scooped up in its tea party targeting — and a check of those lists reveals that the tax agency audited 10 percent of those donors, much higher than the audit rate for average Americans, House Republicans revealed Wednesday.

Republicans argue that the Internal Revenue Service still hasn’t come clean about the full extent of its targeting, which swept up dozens of conservative groups.

“The committee uncovered new information indicating that after groups provided the information to the IRS, nearly one in 10 donors were subject to audit,” Rep. Charles W. Boustany Jr., Louisiana Republican and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee’s oversight panel, told IRS Commissioner John Koskinen at a hearing Wednesday.

“The abuse of discretion and audit selection must be identified and stopped,” he said.

Mr. Koskinen didn’t specifically address the accusations during the hearing, and the IRS didn’t respond to a request for comment late Wednesday evening.

The revelation was made on the same day that the House voted on a nonbinding resolution asking the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS targeting.

Investigators last year reported that the IRS singled out tea party and other conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status and gave them special scrutiny, including asking inappropriate questions about their activities and membership. The request for donor lists was among the inappropriate activities.

The IRS initially denied to Congress that it was singling out tea party groups, despite vocal complaints from groups that had their applications delayed for years. But faced with the internal audit, the agency admitted it had been subjecting these groups to special scrutiny.

Read More: The Washington Times

How Much Does Al Sharpton owe The IRS and Everybody Else?

The Rev. Al Sharpton’s nonprofit paid him nearly $242,000 — even as it carried $1.6 million in debt, according to documents obtained by The Post.

In all, the controversial activist and his empire, including the National Action Network and two for-profit companies, were $5.3 million in the red, public records show.

Most of NAN’s money woes stemmed from more than $880,000 in unpaid federal payroll taxes, interest and penalties. It also paid more than $100,000 to settle two lawsuits, byproducts of the unpaid bills.
And it still owed $206,252 in loans to Sharpton’s for-profit Bo-Spanky Consulting Inc. and Sharpton Media LLC, the records show.

Sharpton drew a $241,732 salary and perks that included first-class or charter air travel, tax filings show. He owes the IRS $2.6 million in income tax, and nearly $900,000 in state tax.

The defunct Rev-Al Communications Inc. owes the state almost $176,000, and Bo-Spanky is $3,500 behind on state-tax liens.

Sharpton has said he is on a repayment plan with state and federal-tax authorities.

NAN last year took in more than $3 million in donations, which allowed it to chip away at its tax burden. This year, its board of directors voted to resolve the tax issues and paid all back state taxes, said Executive Director Tamika Mallory.

The civil-rights group is also addressing the $883,503 it owes in federal payroll taxes, she added.

And it is close to finished repaying the Peabody Hotel in Memphis $106,981 owed since 2008, when NAN skipped out on its bill after its annual convention, according to its 2010 audited financial statements.

Plus, it paid $5,500 to a Phoenix developer to settle a legal dispute over the rental of chapter offices.

Reported by: The NY Post

IRS Targets Conservatives

 

The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.

Organizations were singled out because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

"That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review," Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.
"The IRS would like to apologize for that," she added.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice.

Agency officials found out about the practice last year and moved to correct it, the IRS said in a statement. The statement did not specify when officials found out.

About 75 groups were inappropriately targeted. None had their tax-exempt status revoked, Lerner said.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called on the White House to investigate.

"Today's acknowledgement by the Obama administration that the IRS did in fact target conservative groups in the heat of last year's national election is not enough," McConnell said. "I call on the White House to conduct a transparent, government-wide review aimed at assuring the American people that these thuggish practices are not under way at the IRS or elsewhere in the administration against anyone, regardless of their political views."

Read More: Associated Press