WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service apologized to Tea Party groups
and other conservative organizations on Friday for what it now says
were overzealous audits of their applications for tax-exempt status.
Lois Lerner, the director of the I.R.S. division that oversees
tax-exempt groups, acknowledged that the agency had singled out
nonprofit applicants with the terms “Tea Party” or “patriots” in their
titles in an effort to respond to a surge in applications for tax-exempt
status between 2010 and 2012.
