West Jersey Tea Party joins lawsuit against IRS

The Medford-based West Jersey Tea Party has joined a class action lawsuit filed by a host of tea parties and other conservative groups from across the country against the Internal Revenue Service for allegedly targeting them for extra scrutiny, harassment and delays when they applied for tax-exempt status.

The West Jersey Tea Party is one of approximately 30 groups now participating as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was originally filed May 20 in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati by the Colfax, Calif.-based NorCal Tea Party Patriots in response to a Treasury Department inspector general’s report that revealed tax-exemption applications from tea party groups and other conservative and religious organizations across the country had been singled-out by IRS employees for extra scrutiny and delays.


Applications from some progressive or liberal groups also received extra scrutiny as well.

The complaint alleges the IRS actions violated the groups’ constitutional rights and federal privacy laws. It seeks unspecified damages for “loss of benefit of tax exempt status, cost of complying with burdensome requests, loss of donors and membership fees … punitive damages, litigation costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.”

West Jersey Tea Party joined the plaintiffs last week and was expected to be named in forthcoming legal documents, officials said.

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IRS still hasn't fixed Tea Party problems

WASHINGTON -- Front-line screeners at the Internal Revenue Service don't have any guidance on how to handle tax-exempt applications from political groups in the wake of the Tea Party scandal, an IRS employee told congressional investigators this month.

Without that guidance, the IRS is giving all applications from political advocacy groups a secondary screening. And Tea Party groups are getting a second look whether there's any indication of political advocacy or not.

That's according to an unnamed IRS agent in the Cincinnati office whose desk is the first stop for non-profit groups seeking tax-exempt status. The 15-year IRS employee was interviewed by House Ways and Means Committee investigators behind closed doors August 1. USA TODAY reviewed a redacted transcript of the interview Monday.

House Republicans say the interview shows that the IRS is still targeting Tea Party groups.
"IRS screeners continue to flag certain applications for secondary scrutiny based on name alone," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman David Camp, R-Mich., said in a letter Monday to acting IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel. The interview shows that Werfel's efforts to correct the problems in the Exempt Organization Office have failed, Camp said.

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The Tea Party on the comeback trail

They say no publicity is bad publicity. Is the same true for aggressive oversight by the Internal Revenue Service?


That's a question some folks in the Tea Party might be asking. Amidst the scandal of a politicized IRS putting conservative groups through the wringer prior to the 2012 elections, the Tea Party finds itself the subject of a number of recent media accounts.

It makes sense to take a more sober look at the Tea Party, about as maligned a political group as has come down the recent pike. For example, there was never a racist tack to anything the Tea Party advocated, and racists were never a welcome or prominent part of Tea Party rallies. There wasn't anything more outrageous about 99.9 percent of Tea Party gatherings than there was about 79.9 percent of anti-Bush rallies in the 1990s. After all, one man's heartfelt political beliefs are another's dangerous radicalism.


Still, none of that stopped portrayals of the Tea Party as something just short of an energized and resurgent Klan. So, too, with the slang "tea baggers" moniker which, if applied with the same ill intent to other groups, could possibly be construed as a hate crime.
 
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NPR Posts House Chart Laying Out IRS Harassment of Tea Party

The Corner at National Review Online, David French (a lawyer probing the IRS scandal) reports that NPR has posted a chart summarizing the House Oversight Committee’s findings on the IRS targeting of “progressive” groups versus conservative, Tea Party and “patriot or 9/12" organizations. The numbers are not close.

There were only seven “progressive” groups targeted and all seven were approved for tax-exempt status. By contrast, the IRS targeted 104 anti-Obama groups, and 56 of them are still waiting for approval (or gave up). French says it makes the New York Times look silly:
At

If progressives experienced similar targeting, why didn’t they make any notable contemporaneous complaints? After all, conservatives raised the issue well over a year ago, members of Congress asked the IRS commissioner about it directly, and the New York Times was even moved by the complaints to write its now-clownish March 7, 2012, editorial claiming the IRS was merely “do[ing] its job.”

Perhaps progressives didn’t complain because their targeting experience involved seven groups that were asked an average of just five additional questions (rounded up to be generous) and were approved at a 100 percent rate.

By contrast, 104 ”phony scandal” conservative groups experienced an average of 15 additional questions (14.9 to be exact), only 46 percent were approved, and 56 groups are either waiting for a determination or have withdrawn in frustration. There is simply no comparison.

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Issa to IRS - "You are slow rolling us!"

Commentary:  If there is nothing to hide, then why are IRS officials not releasing information, taking the 5th Amendment, and "resigning"?

New Congressional Subpoenas of Treasury Department for IRS Documents Regarding Tea Party

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa sent a subpoena for U.S. Internal Revenue Service documents to the Treasury secretary, saying he thinks the agency’s chief counsel’s office is “compromised.” 

The IRS hasn’t been forthcoming in responding to committee requests for documents related to the agency’s scrutiny of Tea Party groups seeking tax exemptions, Issa, a California Republican, said today. He spoke at a hearing of a subcommittee of his panel in Washington and issued the subpoena afterward.

“You are slow-rolling us,” Issa told acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel.

“That’s not true,” Werfel responded.

Issa’s move escalates the confrontation between Republicans and the administration over the IRS, which apologized in May for applying tougher scrutiny to Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status.

As Congress leaves for a five-week recess, Issa rejects President Barack Obama’s attempt to label the matter a “phony” scandal and insists that incomplete responses make it impossible to determine what happened and who was responsible.

At least four IRS officials have lost their positions. Seven congressional committees have opened inquiries into the IRS, requesting internal documents that would help explain how and why the agency scrutinized Tea Party groups.

“I’ve asked you for information; you’re not forthcoming,” Issa told Werfel. “The office of chief counsel, a politically appointed office, has been compromised.”

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(Commentary:  The Office of the Chief Counsel has Barack Obama's political appointee William Wilkens who is only 1 of 2 Obama appointees out of the 60,000 total employees.  The ties to the White House appear to be materializing, but Congress cannot seem to get timely cooperation.)

IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins a Big Donor and Loyal Democrat

 As witnesses have testified to the House Ways and Means Committee, the chief counsel for the Internal Revenue Service may have played a role in the IRS’s practice of reserving special scrutiny for Tea Party and other conservative political groups. William Wilkins, chief counsel and one of two political appointees at the IRS, was “closely involved in some of the applications” for tax-exempt status, according to a press release from the committee.

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This is the face of a big donor to Barack Obama, William Wilkins.  He is one of only 2 political appointees by Barack Obama in the I.R.S. His office has been implicated in front of the U.S. Congress by I.R.S. employees in the targeting of TEA Party groups.

Congressional Testimony: IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins Office Played Part in Scandal - Obama Appointee

Career IRS employees have testified on Capitol Hill that the federal agency's chief counsel played a part in the scandal of targeting conservatives....

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IRS scoreboard: 100 percent of “targeted” liberal groups were approved, conservatives languished

A House Ways and Means Committee staff analysis of the applications of 111 conservative and progressive groups applying for tax exempt status found conservative applicants faced, “more questions, more denials, more delays,” says committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich. That is, when the IRS sent groups letters asking for further information, conservative groups were asked more questions — on average, three times more. All of the groups with “progressive” in their name were ultimately approved, while only 46 percent of conservative groups won approval. Others are still waiting for an answer or gave up.

Top I.R.S. Official Invokes the 5th Amendment in I.R.S. - TEA Party Scandal

Lois Lerner, the top I.R.S. official invokes the 5th Amendment in I.R.S. - TEA Party Scandal

She has since been placed on PAID administrative leave.  Two other top officials have already "resigned".