Frankly, I’m not appalled…
Everybody hates the Internal Revenue Service and everyone who files a tax return lives with the fear of being audited or penalized for a mistake or tax transgression. Even taxpayers with no reason to be fearful.
Kinda like when you’re driving down the road, doing the speed limit and absolutely nothing wrong, but you still get a little nervous when a cop pulls up behind you.
Why is that?
That a George Bush appointed IRS head overseeing a department that targeted a new wave of conservative groups that literally sprang up overnight in 2008 and were seeking tax exempt status seems quite logical.
I’ll let hellraiser Dave Helling tip you on why.
“Congress could put an end to IRS interference with political groups by Friday, if it wanted to: Simply outlaw social welfare nonprofits, the secret groups from the right and the left that now launder hundreds of millions of dollars in political contributions,” Helling writes. “The IRS would have nothing to investigate.”
Get the picture?
A trendy new group of social and fiscal conservatives – aka the Tea Party – arises out of thin air and suddenly the IRS is besieged by requests for tax exempt status for what reason? So the groups can re-purpose donors money for charitable causes or to achieve political objectives?
In the case of the latter, is that why we give tax deductions to charities?
As Helling notes, it’s a way to create a more-or-less fake charity and give power hungry people a tax write off on their donations so that they can funnel money to conservative causes. As opposed to the needy and the greater good.
To me it makes sense that being inundated by such organizations springing up willy-nilly out of thin air that the IRS would want to target and scrutinize these new groups before granting them tax exempt status.
They just happened to be conservative.
Were similar groups with equally suspect motives flood the IRS with requests for tax exampt status, I would hope the agency would target and check those groups out as well.
Back to Helling…
“That no one has discussed this possibility tells us all we need to know about contemporary politics,” he continues. “No one is really interested in stopping the torrent of paper-sack money going to consultants, TV stations and campaigns. Too many people are getting rich, and too many cynical partisan accusations are available for the next round of commercials.”
Remember all that talk about Republicans wanting to close loopholes in the tax system to make things fairer? How about closing this one and making charities actually be charities.
Then the IRS can focus more on Paul Wilson‘s concept of insuring that a greater percentage of monies raised by charities go to the actual causes, rather than into the pockets of the charity heads and their staff.
Sounds reasonable to me and for that reason it will never happen.
Representative whores like making money and they write the rules.
I understand your point. Where i don’t agree with you is thinking it was explainable that only conservative groups would be targeted. The Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court in 2010 opened the door for all these quasi-nonprofit groups to form, both conservative and liberal. It was then that the IRS started after these conservative groups. Why did they not also go after their liberal counterparts? If they hadn’t been ideologically selective on who they targeted, nobody would even be talking about this.
Harry Reid just left a news conference where he said the IRS needs to be given MORE power to do what they are doing, as theres no one else equipped to do it! He stated we need the ability to scrutinize shadow groups trying to gain non profit status, like Karl Roves.
So, there you have it. Mr Reid supporting the illegal leaking of personal information from the IRS, names Rove by name, and not only doesnt think its wrong, he wants them to be charged with doing more of it!
And people think Chuck is nuts!
Speaking of charities and crazy chuck’s, here is one charity that had NO trouble aquiring status as tax exempt.
Huh…, what a shock.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/14/irs-official-lerner-approved-exemption-for-obama-brothers-charity/
Check the law. I thought that contributions to 501 C (4)s was not tax deductible. I thought that the reason they wanted a tax exemption was so that the contributions they collected would not count as income to the organization.
http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Other-Non-Profits/Donations-to-Section-501%28c%29%284%29-Organizations
Contributions to civic leagues or other section 501(c)(4) organizations generally are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.
If so, then the hellraiser is Wrong. Good thing he’s not a blogger.
This is probably ok in the SEC, but I don’t know if it is ok in America,
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/14/Progressive-Group-Says-IRS-Gave-Them-Confidential-Docs-On-Conservative-Groups
No problem with the Environmental. Green, and Alternative energy groups obtaining their tax exempt status. Registered green lobbyists have increased 500% since Obama took office.
Anyone wonder how Harry Reid got Mitt’s tax return?
Hearne, I don’t know if you have noticed, but Steve Rose has not had an article in the star the last two weeks. Any idea why???