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Report: Another ‘Whistleblower’ Takes Aim at Trump — This Time From IRS

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An Internal Revenue Service (IRS) bureaucrat has filed a so-called “whistleblower” complaint claiming he received information that at least one Treasury Department political appointee moved to “improperly interfere” with the annual audit of President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence’s tax returns, according to the Washington Post.

The Post, citing multiple anonymous sources, cannot provide key details of the complaint due to privacy laws that prohibit the disclosure of details concerning tax return filings. The complaint’s existence was revealed in court filings earlier, though it failed to garner much public attention. Two Trump administration officials downplayed the complaint due to the fact that it is based on “hearsay” and suggested it could have been prompted by political bias.

Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-MA), who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, received the complaint in July and claims it includes evidence of “potential ‘inappropriate efforts to influence’ the audit program.” . . .

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has disclosed to Neal that his office transmitted the complaint to the inspector general.

In June, the House Ways and Means Committee filed a lawsuit against the Treasury Department and the IRS in an effort to obtain President Trump’s tax returns. At the time, Neal said his panel doesn’t need to justify why lawmakers seek the president’s tax return information. The panel stated that the administration defied a subpoena for the records “in order to shield President Trump’s tax return information from Congressional scrutiny.” (Read more from “Report: Another ‘Whistleblower’ Takes Aim at Trump — This Time From IRS” HERE)

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WATCH: IRS Armed Guard Pulls Gun on Uniformed Sheriff’s Deputy, Almost Turns Lethal

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A security guard at an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office in Ohio pulled a gun on an on-duty cop for carrying his service pistol in a gun-free zone.

The security guard, Seth Eklund, was later arrested and is now facing charges of aggravated menacing for pointing his gun at uniformed Lucas County Sheriff’s deputy Alan Gaston, who entered the Toledo, Ohio IRS office on Monday, May 31 to inquire about a letter he received, ABC 13 News reported on Wednesday.

Gaston had gone to the office while on duty to request a phone number to follow up with a matter described in the letter. Security camera footage showed Gatson walking in the office while wearing his police uniform with service pistol, but when he walked out, Eklund followed him at gunpoint.

Upon seeing Gatson enter the office, Eklund ordered the deputy to take off his gun and place it in his vehicle. Since it is against law enforcement procol to disarm while on duty, Gatson declined, and Eklund responded by pointing a gun to the deputy’s back. . .

Someone from inside the IRS office had called 911 to report a man with a gun who would not leave, but failed to mention that the security guard was holding a gun to a uniformed law enforcement officer. (Read more from “IRS Armed Guard Pulls Gun on Uniformed Sheriff’s Deputy, Almost Turns Lethal” HERE)

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Satanic Temple Recognized as ‘Church’ With Tax-Exempt Status

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The Satanic Temple (TST) announced Friday that the IRS has recognized it as a “church” with tax-exempt status.

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“We are pleased to announce that for the very [first] time in history, a satanic organization has been recognized by the United States federal government as being a church,” the group posted on Instagram.

“This acknowledgment will help make sure The Satanic Temple has the same access to public spaces as other religious organizations, affirm our standing in court when battling religious discrimination, and enable us to apply for faith-based government grants,” the organization continued. . .

According to the Catholic News Agency (CNA), “IRS regulations draw a clear distinction between “churches” and other religious organizations”:

A church must have certain characteristics, according to IRS requirements, including: a recognized creed and form of worship; distinct ecclesiastical government; formal code of doctrine; ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed courses of study; established places of worship and regular religious services.

(Read more from “Satanic Temple Recognized as ‘Church’ With Tax-Exempt Status” HERE)

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IRS Has a New Plan to Investigate Tax Dodgers. Here’s How You Could Be Impacted.

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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is trying something different. The government currently has a proposal listed on the Federal Business Opportunities website looking for a social media tool that allows IRS agents to find Americans who have dodged their tax liabilities.

Here’s what the proposal says (emphasis mine):

Businesses and individuals increasingly use social media to advertise, promote, and sell products and services. For example, taxpayers can create “online stores” on social networking sites free of cost. Much of this information is unrestricted, allowing the public, businesses and various governmental agencies to discover taxpayers’ locations and income sources.

But the IRS currently has no formal tool to access this public information, compile social media feeds, or search multiple social media sites. The IRS’s hope is that a vendor-supplied tool would help expedite IRS case resolution for existing compliance cases, providing a more efficient way of identifying resources and assisting with the collection of known tax deficiencies, leading to increased collection of revenue involving unfiled tax returns and other tax liabilities.

The IRS emphasizes that this tool, if the agency decides to pursue the use of it, would be done to assist with previously identified tax compliance cases. The IRS respects taxpayer rights, and such a tool would not be used to search the internet or social media sites for purposes of identifying or initiating new tax audits. The IRS believes responsibly using publicly accessible information on the internet or social media sites can assist with previously identified tax cases. In addition, the IRS believes the tool can help it resolve troublesome instances related to tax-related identity theft, helping quickly identify honest taxpayers who have been victimized by identity thieves.

(Read more from “IRS Has a New Plan to Investigate Tax Dodgers. Here’s How You Could Be Impacted.” HERE)

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IRS Pushed to Bill Churches $1 Billion

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A demand from atheists that the IRS bill churches and other religious organizations a total of some $1 billion would violate freedom of worship and destroy many congregations, a new court brief contends.

In a case now at the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, churches are seeking to overturn a stunning district court decision by Judge Barbara Crabb . . .

It provides that a housing allowance is not considered taxable income when the house is for the convenience of the employer. While pastors do benefit, the tax deduction also is available for workers who live overseas, employees of educational institutes, any member or former member of the uniformed services, government workers living overseas, any American citizen living abroad and others.

Crabb’s verdict in the case brought against Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and others by the Freedom From Religion Foundation found that while the exemption is valid for secular employees, it should not be available for Christian pastors, setting up a discriminatory standard for the benefit . . .

A brief in the case filed by the Becket Fund on behalf of Chris Butler, a pastor from the South Side of Chicago, contends ending the housing allowance “would discriminate against religious groups by treating them worse than many other secular employees who receive similar tax treatment.” (Read more from “IRS Pushed to Bill Churches $1 Billion” HERE)

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Judge Orders IRS to Reveal Who Took Part in Tea Party Targeting

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A federal judge has ordered the Internal Revenue Service to release the names of specific employees involved in targeting Tea Party groups, after years of litigation over what conservatives have long called “chilling” behavior by one of the government’s “most feared” agencies.

Judge Reggie B. Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia also said the IRS must provide information about which groups were targeted and why, along with a strategy to make sure such targeting doesn’t happen again.

The IRS is involved in multiple lawsuits with conservative groups related to the Tea Party targeting scandal; this particular case involves True the Vote.

“We’re thrilled the judge has taken this step and it feels good to have it recognized that they need to be held to account,” True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht told Fox News on Monday. “What happened to me was very personal—my name was thrown around the IRS, and the names of the people involved need to be known. What they did was criminal.”

The targeting scandal drew much attention in 2013 when the IRS, headed at the time by Lois Lerner, admitted it was applying extra scrutiny to conservative groups applying for nonprofit status. (Read more from “Judge Orders IRS to Reveal Who Took Part in Tea Party Targeting” HERE)

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Why Are Trump’s Justice Department Appointees Protecting the IRS?

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Various media sources have reported that federal District Court Judge Reggie Walton has ordered the IRS to finally respond to various legal requests for information and documents made by the conservative tea party organizations that sued the agency.

But the question that no one is asking is why that order was even necessary, and why the Justice Department, which is now supposedly under the control and authority of the new administration, hasn’t reversed its obstinate, inflexible, and stubborn defense of the IRS.

It was over four years ago that the inspector general for tax administration at the Treasury Department released a report detailing that the IRS had targeted conservative nonprofit organizations seeking tax-exempt status, and that then-IRS employee Lois Lerner admitted what had been happening at an American Bar Association meeting in Washington.

The inspector general report found that officials were delaying the processing of applications and requesting voluminous, unnecessary, and irrelevant information, due to the perceived opposition of the nonprofits to liberal policies being promulgated by President Barack Obama and their association with the tea party movement.

The IRS targeting also included, according to an internal memo, any organization “involved in limiting/expanding government [and] educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

Apparently, the IRS considered educating Americans about their constitutional rights something that should be impeded.

Dozens of organizations, including Linchpins of Liberty and tea party groups as geographically dispersed as the Honolulu Tea Party and the Myrtle Beach Tea Party, filed a federal lawsuit in May 2013 in the District of Columbia.

Ever since then, the Tax Division of the Justice Department, which is currently headed by acting Assistant Attorney General David A. Hubbert, has put up a mulish fight defending the IRS, including doing everything it can to prevent the IRS from having to provide any of the information and documentation that the plaintiffs are seeking about the targeting.

On Aug. 15, Walton held a hearing on the discovery battle that the Justice Department has been waging. At the hearing, according to The Washington Times and Fox News, Walton told the Justice Department that it was time for the IRS to finally fully disclose what happened internally at the agency, to “lay it on the line” and “put it out there.”

The Justice Department’s lawyer, Laura Conner, told Walton that the IRS should not be forced to “respond to far-reaching inquiries.” But Walton asked, “Why hide the ball? If there’s nothing there, there’s nothing there.”

On Aug. 17, Walton issued a written order telling the government to do an extensive search of IRS records relevant to the organizations that were targeted from May 2009, the earliest that any of the organizations had an application for tax-exempt status pending, to March 2015, the date of a subsequent Treasury Department inspector general report.

Most importantly, Walton ordered the IRS to answer a series of questions. These include the following:

1. Why was tax-exempt status delayed for each of the nonprofits in this lawsuit?

2. Who were the IRS employees involved in the decisions that resulted in the delays in granting tax-exempt status?

3. What specific actions has the IRS taken to remedy the discrimination the organizations experienced?

All of this is well and good since it means that the IRS—after four years of delays—is going to finally have to tell us who (in addition to Lerner) planned, organized, and participated in the abuse of the government’s tax power to target Americans for their participation in the political process, their opposition to Obama and liberal policies, and their support for the Constitution and the rule of law.

Walton’s order is a significant victory for the plaintiffs in this lawsuit. But why were this hearing and this order even necessary in the first place?

As soon as President Donald Trump was inaugurated and the first members of the Trump transition team landed at the Justice Department, one of the first steps they should have taken was to order the Tax Division to stop its deliberate litigation strategy of fighting all attempts to ferret out what exactly happened at the IRS, and who was responsible for it.

Instead, the Justice Department has continued to obstruct discovery in this lawsuit that has been going on for four long years, resulting in Walton’s Aug. 17 order against the IRS and the Justice Department.

Even worse is the fact that during the Obama administration, the Justice Department filed a motion for summary judgment asking Walton to entirely dismiss this lawsuit.

This position should have been reversed the moment the Trump administration came into office. Instead, on Feb. 2, two weeks after the president was inaugurated, Hubbert filed another pleading in support of its motion for summary judgment, arguing once again that the IRS should not have to produce any information or documents and that the tea party groups’ lawsuit should be thrown out.

What are the political appointees at the Justice Department doing? Why are they continuing to protect the IRS? Why are they trying to stop the efforts to find out who at the IRS was responsible for this abusive behavior?

And while we are on the subject of the IRS scandal, why haven’t Trump’s political appointees at the Justice Department reversed the refusal of Ronald Machen, former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, (who was an Obama appointee) to enforce the contempt citation issued by the House of Representatives against Lerner for her refusal to cooperate with the congressional committee investigating this abusive conduct?

As I have previously explained, Machen’s attempted justification of that refusal was legally wrong. His claim that Lerner had not waived her Fifth Amendment right was factually incorrect and contrary to the direct case law prevailing in the District of Columbia.

Lerner’s contempt citation can and should be presented to a federal grand jury as required under 2 U.S.C. §194, which states that it is the “duty” of the U.S. attorney “to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action.”

Machen refused to carry out that duty and so far, unfortunately, the new management at the Justice Department has also failed to carry out that duty, as well at its responsibility to hold the IRS responsible for its dangerous misbehavior. (For more from the author of “Why Are Trump’s Justice Department Appointees Protecting the IRS?” please click HERE)

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IRS Rehires 213 Employees Ousted for Falsifying Documents, Avoiding Taxes, Other Offenses

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The Internal Revenue Service rehired 213 employees who ducked taxes, falsified documents, were convicted of theft, or made unauthorized use of taxpayer data, an inspector general’s report says.

The Office of Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which also first discovered the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups in 2013, examined the agency’s hiring from January 2015 through March 2016.

For these 15 months, the IRS official in charge was Commissioner John Koskinen, an appointee of President Barack Obama.

House Republicans for months sought to impeach Koskinen for obstructing a congressional probe into the agency’s targeting of the applications for tax-exempt status made by nonprofit tea party and conservative groups.

“Given the substantial threat of identity theft and the magnitude of sensitive information that the IRS holds, hiring employees of high integrity is essential to maintaining public trust in tax administration and safeguarding taxpayer information,” the inspector general’s report says, adding:

Four of the more than 200 employees had been terminated or resigned for willful failure to properly file their federal tax returns; four separated [from the agency] while under investigation for unauthorized accesses to taxpayer information; and 86 separated while under investigation for absences and leave, workplace disruption, or failure to follow instructions. This includes positions with access to sensitive taxpayer information, such as contact representatives.

As a political appointee in the executive branch, Koskinen doesn’t have the civil service protections that career government employees do. President Donald Trump could order his firing at will.

The inspector general released the report July 24. Asked about it Thursday, an IRS spokesman referred The Daily Signal to a letter to the inspector general from E. Faith Bell, the agency’s acting human capital officer.

“To the extent possible by law,” Bell wrote in the June 28 letter, “the IRS will take all steps allowable to prevent the rehiring of former employees with conduct and performance issues.”

Bell added that she had commissioned a team to implement corrective actions.

“This team will ensure existing hiring practices and policies are updated to reflect our use of IRS employment data, specifically any misconduct and performance prior to making a tentative offer [of new employment] to a former IRS employee,” Bell wrote.

The wealth of protections for federal employees under the civil service and union agreements “makes my head hurt,” Grover Norquist, president Americans for Tax Reform, told The Daily Signal.

“The average American is not happy with the way the IRS behaves on a good day,” Norquist said. “It’s disappointing that they are rehiring people who were fired for very bad behavior.”

Koskinen should go, Norquist said, and the sooner the better to avoid another political controversy similar to Trump’s ousting of James Comey as FBI director.

“All Koskinen would have to do is say something publicly about Trump’s taxes, and then Trump can’t fire him,” Norquist said. “Given the outrageous way he has behaved, why not move much sooner?”

Obama named Koskinen to the job in 2013, directing him to clean up the targeting scandal. But Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said he obstructed their probe and should be impeached.

“I don’t know why President Trump hasn’t fired John Koskinen since there is more evidence the agency is mismanaged,” said Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative government watchdog group.

“Koskinen is a very typical Washington creature and is very at home in the swamp,” Flaherty said in an interview with The Daily Signal. “It’s a puzzle to me why Trump hasn’t acted.”

The IRS already had one of the worst reputations and the most power of any federal agency, Flaherty argues.

“Against the backdrop of fear that the IRS has been used for political purposes, now you may have people who can’t be trusted with sensitive personal information,” he said.

The White House twice referred comment on Koskinen to the Treasury Department, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The IRS rehired 2,000 former employees from 2015 through early 2016, the inspector general’s report says. Many were seasonal employees, and about 10 percent were problematic.

IRS officials who make hiring decisions don’t have access to the applicant’s employment history with the agency and 27 failed to disclose on paperwork that they had been terminated, the report found.

Instances of such nondisclosure are supposed to be referred to the independent Office of Personnel Management, which the report says the IRS didn’t do.

The inspector general issued a report in December 2014 that found 824 questionable rehires from 2010 through 2013. Of those 824, a total of 60 seasonable employees were rehired in 2015 despite substantiated prior conduct and performance issues, the new report says. (For more from the author of “IRS Rehires 213 Employees Ousted for Falsifying Documents, Avoiding Taxes, Other Offenses” please click HERE)

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Armed, Jack-Booted Federal Agents Destroy Immigrants’ Small Business, Now They’re Fighting Back

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The unmarked vehicles arrived in the morning. More than 20 armed agents poured out.

Hours later, Mii’s Bridal & Tuxedo was out of business after serving customers for decades. Its entire inventory of wedding gowns and dresses as well as sewing machines and other equipment were sold at auction . . .

The owners, Tony Thangsongcharoen, 68, and his wife, Somnuek Thangsongcharoen, 72, are fighting back. The Garland couple sued the government in federal court in Dallas in March for more than $1.8 million, alleging the IRS violated its own procedures during the tax seizure at the small storefront on Garland Road in March 2015 . . .

Allegations of improprieties against the IRS for its asset seizures are not new. The agency has been under fire in recent years for seizing the bank accounts of mom and pop businesses due to their banking transactions.

The IRS claimed that the businesses intentionally tried to evade federal bank reporting requirements by making cash deposits just under the $10,000 limit. Critics say the IRS is being heavy-handed for seizing money from businesses when they haven’t been charged with a crime. (Read more from “Armed, Jack-Booted Federal Agents Destroy Immigrants’ Small Business, Now They’re Fighting Back” HERE)

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The IRS Can Seize Your Money Based on a Hunch. This Bill Will Bring That to an End.

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The federal government currently wields a tremendous amount of power over the citizens of the United States, far more than the Founders intended.

One manifestation of federal overreach is civil asset forfeiture. This practice allows the federal government to confiscate the wealth of its citizens upon the mere suspicion of wrongdoing.

The IRS, not content with expropriating the wealth of its citizens on April 15 every year, has now taken up the practice of seizing funds that have been involved in perfectly legal transactions on the basis of a hunch.

Thankfully, legislation in the House and the Senate has been introduced to bring this practice to a halt. Both chambers should act on the bills swiftly.

Under the Bank Secrecy Act, financial transactions of over $10,000 trigger bank reporting requirements. If there are multiple transactions of just under $10,000—by a business, for example—the IRS may become suspicious that there is nefarious activity occurring.

That suspicion can result in assets being seized from innocent Americans. As the House Committee on Ways and Means reported last year:

Current law allows the Federal government, including the IRS, to use civil procedures to seize assets the government believes are involved in illegal activity without ever having to prove that the owners of the assets actually were engaged in criminal activity.

Current law circumvents ancient concepts like due process and innocence until guilt is proven. The federal government then places the burden of reclaiming the assets on the citizen it targeted.

This situation threatens the liberty of American citizens.

The Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration conducted a review of this practice and concluded in a March 30 report that the IRS “criminal investigators mainly pursued law-abiding citizens and businesses when seizing assets in civil forfeiture cases because they were easier to go after.”

The report found that the extent of the problem was significant. In fact:

The inspector general found money seized and forfeited by the IRS was legally obtained in 91 percent of a sample of 278 structuring investigations it reviewed occurring between fiscal years 2012 and 2014. Altogether, those funds totaled $17.1 million and involved 231 cases.

Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., made progress in righting this wrong in the last session of Congress. He introduced the Restraining Excessive Seizure of Property through the Exploitation of Civil Asset Forfeiture Tools (RESPECT) Act.

The RESPECT Act would require that the IRS first prove “that the money was connected to a crime,” and would also “exempt from federal income tax any interest that the Treasury pays on seized funds that are returned.”

The bill had bipartisan cosponsors and passed the House by a vote of 415-0 last September. The Senate did not take up the bill, and it languished. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s companion bill also was never acted on.

Roskam introduced the bill again in the House, and Scott has introduced the bill in the Senate this year, on the same day that the Treasury’s tax inspector general released his critical findings about the IRS seizing money from innocent Americans.

This bill is a bipartisan ray of light in an increasingly fractured political process. Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., joined Roskam in introducing the bill.

Republicans and Democrats agree that the IRS is overstepping its authority and needs to be restrained. Scott has also introduced the Senate companion bill.

There is clear bipartisan consensus that civil asset forfeiture is an abuse that needs to be halted. To protect taxpayers, small businesses, and the basic integrity of rule of law, the RESPECT Act needs to get to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature. (For more from the author of “The IRS Can Seize Your Money Based on a Hunch. This Bill Will Bring That to an End.” please click HERE)

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