Fox News runs with they headline that she did, and Rep. David Camp thinks she did, but, Grassley thinks she was targeting a Tea Party group. Some news orgs follow along with the Grassley targeted meme, others go with group targeted
Congressional investigators have uncovered emails showing ex-IRS official Lois Lerner targeted a sitting Republican senator for a proposed internal audit, a discovery one GOP lawmaker called “shocking.”
The emails were published late Wednesday by the House Ways and Means Committee and pertain to the woman at the heart of the scandal over IRS targeting of Tea Party groups.
The emails appear to show Lerner mistakenly received an invitation intended for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in 2012.
The invitation offered to pay for Grassley’s wife, and
“Looked like they were inappropriately offering to pay for his wife. Perhaps we should refer to Exam?” she wrote.
Her colleague, though, pushed back on the idea, saying an offer to pay for his wife is “not prohibited on its face.” There is no indication from the emails that Lerner pursued the issue any further.
Just the very indication that a top IRS official would so casually suggest and audit is blood chilling. Mark Stein wrote of the IRS “The IRS is its own law enforcement agency: judge, jury and executioner. If it decides you’ve done something wrong, it garnishes your wages, takes out a lien on your house, or freezes your kid’s bank account – all without due process.”
“We have seen a lot of unbelievable things in this investigation, but the fact that Lois Lerner attempted to initiate an apparently baseless IRS examination against a sitting Republican United States Senator is shocking,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said in a statement.
but, Grassley seems to think it is the group that would be “referred to exam”
Grassley said in a statement that this kind of incident fuels concerns people have about “political targeting” at the highest levels. “It’s very troubling that a simple clerical mix-up could get a taxpayer immediately referred for an IRS exam without any due diligence from agency officials,” the senator said.
Reading the emails (the link in the first excerpt), Lerner doesn’t say who would be audited. The reply states that if an audit occurred, it would need to be on Grassley, because the income would be to Grassley, as it would be part of a “speaking fee”, and suggests that Matthew Guiliano is “not sure we should send to exam”.
The IRS, in response to the publication of the emails, said in a statement that it could not comment on “any specific situation” due to taxpayer confidentiality issues.
Except for all those Tea Party records sent to the FBI, as well as released to private Democrat supporting groups, one of which has resulted in a $50k settlement.
But the agency added: “As a general matter, the IRS has checks and balances in place to ensure the fairness and integrity of the audit process. Audits cannot be initiated solely by personal requests or suggestions by any one individual inside the IRS.”
Yet, the very notion that Lerner could be so cavalier in suggesting an audit is chilling. And, did they have the same checks in place regarding the stonewalling of applications for Tea Party groups to receive 503(c)(4) status?
Crossed at Right Wing News.
In the end, Sen Grassley was not audited.
What Lerner typed: “Looked like they (the unnamed charity or org) were inappropriately offering to pay for his wife. Perhaps we should refer to Exam?†Lerner wrote to Matthew Giuliano, then a tax law specialist.
Giuliano said no and Lerner accepted that. It sounds as if she was suggesting the unnamed charity be looked at. Her tax expert said no and she accepted that.
(By the way, if they were hiding and deleting emails, why wouldn’t they have deleted this one?)
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/lois-lerner-irs-chuck-grassley-108322.html#ixzz35kQ1MWoG
In the end, all the Tea Party and so-called “Patriot” groups received the government subsidies they requested.
The only group that didn’t receive their tax exempt status (subsidy) was the Maine chapter of Emerge America, which was deemed too directly political. They train Democratic women for running for office. Further, because of the interest generated by the extra scrutiny in the Maine chapter, the entire national org had their subsidy revoked! Thanks a lot, Lois!
In the end, all the Tea Party and so-called “Patriot†groups received the government subsidies they requested.
And we have a nominee for dumbest statement of the year!
Tell me Jeffery, if you and a competitor apply for a license or patent to get a product to market, and your competitor is granted the license immediately, but you are subjected to additional scrutiny he did no have to endure, additional paperwork he did not have to endure, additional inspections he did not have to endure, the release of private information he did not have to endure, are you going to think “it’s all okay” because you eventually got the license?
No one – not even you – would accept that.
g2,
Your analogy suffers from irrelevance. The organizations were not competing for market share, they were applying for government subsidies. The government is obligated to make certain the applying orgs are worthy before granting them taxpayer funded subsidies. So yes, some orgs had to wait longer to get their subsidy than if the gov’t had just responded immediately without investigating. The only org to get their subsidy revoked was a progressive one. The American taxpayers are subsidizing all these dark money political organizations, both liberal and conservative.
J-And your knowledge of money suffers (still) from irrelevance. The groups weren’t applying for subsidies, they were applying for tax breaks. If somebody lets you keep more of what you already own they’re not “giving” you anything. Please try and keep up.
j,
Who are the victims in the IRS pseudo-scandal? Why do you think the American taxpayer is obligated to subsidize these money laundering schemes. And why would you claim tax breaks aren’t subsidies?
Most organizations pay taxes on the money they take in. Some, like these political “charities”, get special exemptions, giving them more money to funnel to their favorite candidate. In fact, most of these orgs only exist because of the taxpayer subsidies! I would think genuine Tea Party types would want to pull the plug on these grifters.
This far-right notion that taxes are confiscations is silly.