Senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011, according to a draft of an inspector general’s report obtained by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner.
The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.
But on June 29, 2011, Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog’s report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with “Tea Party,” `’Patriot” or “9/12 Project” in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says.
The 9/12 Project is a group started by conservative TV personality Glenn Beck. In a statement to the AP, Beck suggested that the revelations were hardly news to him and other conservatives.
“In February 2012, TheBlaze first reported what the IRS now admits to – that they unfairly targeted conservative groups including the 9/12 project,” Beck said, citing his website and TV network. “It is nice to see everyone else playing catch-up and finally asking the same questions that TheBlaze started raising over a year ago.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-12 04:59:302016-04-11 11:21:31IRS Knew Tea Party Was Being Targeted In 2011: Report (+video)
Photo Credit: APBy BYRON TAU, LAUREN FRENCH and TARINI PARTI. The Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday to conservative political groups for giving their tax documents extra scrutiny — validating the worst fears of Republican activists who have long accused the Obama administration of politicizing the process.
Roughly 75 groups were singled out using words like “tea party” or “patriot” in tax documents, Lois Lerner, who is responsible for overseeing tax-exempt groups, said on a hastily arranged conference call Friday afternoon.
The White House said Friday that the IRS inspector general is investigating the matter.
“What we know about this is of concern,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said, emphasizing that the IRS is an independent agency with only two political appointees. The agency is technically a division of the Treasury Department.
“It certainly does seem to be based on what we’ve seen to be inappropriate action that we would want to see thoroughly investigated,” Carney said. Read more from this story HERE.
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Obama’s spokesperson actually had the gall to blame the illegal targeting on a Bush IRS appointee:
GOP blitzes Obama administration after IRS admits targeting tea party groups during election
By Alexis Levinson. Republican lawmakers are calling for a full investigation into the Internal Revenue Service after a top official revealed Friday that the agency specifically flagged tea party and conservative groups for review to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.
Several Republicans voiced suspicion last year that the IRS was unduly focused on conservative groups, after several groups reported that they had been asked to fill out extensive amounts of paper work and go to great lengths to prove they were not violating their tax-exempt status.
Earlier today, ahead of a report by the inspector general for tax administration, the IRS admitted that it had targeted conservative groups for additional reviews, with an eye toward catching violations of tax-exempt status. Groups were singled out based on keywords such as “patriot” and “tea party” in their tax-exempt status applications, according to Lois G. Lerner, the IRS’s director of tax-exempt organizations.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan sent a letter to the inspector general in June 2012 asking that the committee be provided with “periodic updates” on the investigation into whether the IRS was applying an inappropriate level of scrutiny to such groups.
“The Committee will aggressively follow up on the IG report and hold responsible officials accountable for this political retaliation,” reads a new statement on the oversight committee’s web site. A representative from the committee confirmed to The Daily Caller that this would include hearings, but did not give a time or schedule. Read more from this story HERE.
‘I’m not good at math’: The IRS’ public relations disaster
By Aaron Blake. About a half-hour into a conference call with reporters Friday afternoon, senior Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner said something she will regret.
“I’m not good at math,” she confessed as she tried to summon a statistic.
Lerner clarified that she is a lawyer and not an accountant (a fair defense) but the remark instantly blew up on Twitter — an IRS official being bad at math!? — and wound up punctuating what was a torturous response to the IRS’ admission that it inappropriately targeted tea party groups.
A skeptical press corps peppered Lerner with questions, many of which she and her staff were unable or unwilling to answer. Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-11 04:23:522016-04-11 11:21:33IRS Targeted Tea Party Groups in 2012 Election, Now Apologizes (+video)
Photo Credit: Daily CallerConservative radio talker Mark Levin appears to have touched off the investigation into Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative political groups back in March 2012.
In a letter last year on behalf of the Landmark Legal Foundation, an organization he heads, Levin requested an investigation into what he called “misconduct.”
On Friday, the Internal Revenue Service revealed that it had improperly targeted conservative groups for audits during the 2012 election. During a conference call, Lois Lerner, the IRS’s director of exempt organizations, explained that IRS staffers selected groups that included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax exempt status.
Levin told The Daily Caller Friday afternoon his organization had litigated similar complaints of political audits during the Clinton administration and specifically referenced the Heritage Foundation as one of the tax collector’s targets at the time.
More recently, Levin said, conservative and Tea Party groups approached him complaining of harassment by the IRS, which prompted his organization to petition Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-11 04:23:442016-04-11 11:21:33Mark Levin May Have Prompted IRS-Conservative Group Revelations
Photo Credit: US NewsThe Internal Revenue Service relies on technology more than ever to sniff out tax cheats using robo-audits and data mining—but so far it has caught lot of minnows, and big fish are still eluding detection.
Even as millions of people’s accounts are screened online and matched against their digital files elsewhere, the IRS’s data-detection tools come nowhere close to collecting the $400 billion in tax dodges estimated to take place each year. The area in which its robo-audits have had the most impact is on tax returns for low-income taxpayers who try to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit. In total, fraudulent claims totaled $2 billion, just 0.01 percent of the total of individual taxes. The EITC was the biggest single compliance problem cited.
That amount is expected to rise in the tax year ahead as the IRS extends the use of data mining to include the personal data of millions more taxpayers. Its sophisticated data-matching and pattern-recognition technology, largely developed by IBM over the past decade, will reach up the income ladder to include more middle-income and small-business filers who itemize deductions, although it is unlikely to have any impact on the complicated filings of high-net-worth taxpayers in the top 5 percent of income earnings, say tax experts who have studied the IRS plans.
“Real time” audits of electronic tax returns. The IRS’s next phase in high-tech tax collection will be to create a “real-time” check of tax returns to “match them to third party information,” said U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George in testimony before Congress. Starting this year, the IRS tools will be able to track all credit card transactions, for starters. The agency has also instructed agents on using online sources such as social media and e-commerce sites including eBay, as well as the rich data generated by mobile devices. In one controversial disclosure in April, the ACLU showed documents in which the IRS general counsel said the agency could look at emails without warrants, but the IRS has said it will not use this power.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-02 00:49:002016-04-11 11:22:14IRS Now Using Technology to Track All Credit Card Transactions
The Internal Revenue Service is collecting a lot more than taxes this year — it’s also acquiring a huge volume of personal information on taxpayers’ digital activities, from eBay auctions to Facebook posts and, for the first time ever, credit card and e-payment transaction records, as it expands its search for tax cheats to places it’s never gone before.
The IRS, under heavy pressure to help Washington out of its budget quagmire by chasing down an estimated $300 billion in revenue lost to evasions and errors each year, will start using “robo-audits” of tax forms and third-party data the IRS hopes will help close this so-called “tax gap.” But the agency reveals little about how it will employ its vast, new network scanning powers.
Tax lawyers and watchdogs are concerned about the sweeping changes being implemented with little public discussion or clear guidelines, and Congressional staff sources say the IRS use of “big data” will be a key issue when the next IRS chief comes to the Senate for approval. Acting commissioner Steven T. Miller replaced Douglas Shulman last November.
“It’s well-known in the tax community, but not many people outside of it are aware of this big expansion of data and computer use,” says Edward Zelinsky, a tax law expert and professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and Yale Law School. “I am sure people will be concerned about the use of personal information on databases in government, and those concerns are well-taken. It’s appropriate to watch it carefully. There should be safeguards.” He adds that taxpayers should know that whatever people do and say electronically can and will be used against them in IRS enforcement.
IRS’s big data tracking
Consumers are already familiar with Internet “cookies” that track their movements and send them targeted ads that follow them to different websites. The IRS has brought in private industry experts to employ similar digital tracking — but with the added advantage of access to Social Security numbers, health records, credit card transactions and many other privileged forms of information that marketers don’t see.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-04-12 01:58:032013-04-12 01:58:03IRS Tracks Your Digital Footprint
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-04-09 02:54:402013-04-09 02:54:40Video: IRS Collecting Tax Payer Information from Facebook and Twitter
Citing figures indicating that more than 100,000 federal employees owe more than $1 billion in federal taxes, a House committee on Wednesday approved legislation that would require the firing of government workers who are “seriously tax delinquent.”
The legislation, introduced by Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, advanced through the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. It now has to pass the full House to be implemented into law.
“Most taxpayers file accurate tax returns and pay the taxes they owe on time, regardless of their income,” Chaffetz, a Republican, said during the hearing Wednesday. “Federal employees and individuals applying for federal employment should do the same.”
The Federal Employee Tax Accountability Act of 2013 requires the termination of employment for tax delinquent federal employees, while also prohibiting the hiring of new federal employees with a substantial amount of delinquent tax debt.
“The intent of the bill is simple,” Chaffetz said. “If you are a federal employee or applicant, you should be making a good faith effort to pay your taxes or to dispute them, as all taxpayers have the right to do.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-03-21 01:21:302013-03-21 01:21:30Federal Employees Who Don’t Pay Taxes Would Be Fired Under Bill That Passed Committee
Photo Credit: KVALEUGENE, Ore. — A Fall Creek resident filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Government and an IRS agent that he alledges pressured him into sex by threatening a tax penalty.
The law firm representing Vincent Burroughs filed the suit with the U.S. District Court in Eugene on Jan. 25 “as a result to coersive conduct by Defendant (Dora) Abrahamson,” an Internal Revenue Service agent from Cottage Grove.
Burroughs claims that in August of 2011 Abrahamson called him and said he would be audited by the IRS. He claims that at the time he didn’t know her.
Burroughs says that he had not met Abrahamson before those calls, nor had he heard that he was being audited by the IRS.
“She was sending me texts that she wanted to come out, give me massages because she needed to help me relax,” Burroughs said in a phone interview with KVAL News.
Photo Credit: Andrew Aliferis In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.
Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.
The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.
The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.
“The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000,” the regulation says.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-02-01 03:14:112016-04-11 11:25:40IRS: $20,000 Minimum Health Care Decree
Fewer taxpayers are getting through on the Internal Revenue Service hotline, their wait times for help has surged to 17 minutes, and 40 percent of those who write in questions wait over 45 days for an answer, a deterioration of taxpayer service that is just getting worse, according to a new government audit.
It’s not much better for professional tax preparers seeking help, according to a new Government Accountability Office report on IRS taxpayer operations. The GAO found that just 73 percent of tax preparers who needed assistance from a live IRS official got through on the phone and their wait was an average of 22 minutes–19 minutes more than the wait in 2007.
And unfortunately for taxpayers, help is not on the way. The GAO found that the IRS doesn’t have a plan that can fix the service breakdowns fast enough and Congress isn’t expected to help out with more money.
The “IRS does not have a strategy to reverse declines in service,” said Uncle Sam’s auditor. “The federal government’s tight budget environment makes any meaningful increase in resources for taxpayer service unlikely,” it added.
There is good news, however, in their annual report.
