For your reading “pleasure”, more IRS scandals and outrages, in no particular order:
(1) Who can forget the line dancing or the Star Trek skits, paid for with our tax dollars?
(2) The IRS blew through at least 50 MILLION taxpayer dollars for conventions over the two years during which they were targeting conservatives.
(3) Despite the many IRS-related scandals, the agency plans to pay out $70 MILLION in employee bonuses. Werfel promised to stop this outrage, but now claims that he can’t because of a union contract.
(4) The man nominated to be next head of the FBI, James Comey, tells Senator Ted Cruz that the FBI investigation into IRS targeting of conservatives “should be a very high priority.” Good parsing, Jim. Should be is not WILL be. No Tea Partiers interviewed yet. No answers yet on WHO’S leading this “investigation.”
(5) Was this a “mistake” or deliberate? IRS “inadvertently” placed online tens of thousands of Social Security numbers that belong to donors to tax-exempt organizations that are involved in political activities. What a coincidence! Was this data left online just long enough for opposing political operatives to data mine what is useful to them? Donations to these specific organizations are not tax deductible and must be reported to the public. With Social Security numbers, cross referencing is possible if an unethical group or person illegally accesses other databases that are supposed to be private (like individual tax returns). The people whose Social Security numbers were exposed donated between 2002 and 2008 (the Bush years).
(6) It sounds as if the IRS wants to hide or at least obfuscate what is supposed to be public information belonging to (some?) not-for-profits. Read the story to see how onerous they make it for researchers–deliberately onerous–because the
IRS is worried the big nonprofits [liberal ones?] will be upset if information such as multimillion-dollar CEO salaries is more readily available.
Note that the extra steps they take to put already “machine-processable data” into image format (and thus not easily searchable) costs the taxpayers a lot of money (although it does create more government jobs).
(7) Over 200 full-time IRS employees do no work for the taxpayers. Instead, they spend their time on “union activities.” Full time union work, but on the taxpayers’ dime! It’s in the contract! Republican representatives want to know why. I’d like to know why they don’t already know why. Who writes and approves these contracts?
(8) You’re going to LOVE this one: Way back in 1996, the IRS illegally and unilaterally decided to treat illegal aliens as citizens, costing the taxpayers billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded benefits since the Clinton administration. Not only did the IRS treat illegal aliens as citizens, but it also issued an illegal regulation requiring the agency to respect the “privacy” of illegal aliens and NOT share information about them with ICE! Newt Gingrich sponsored and Bill Clinton signed a law specifically making such a regulation illegal. The bottom line is that way back in 1996 an Inspector General recognized and reported on this ILLEGAL action by the IRS. This story explains:
It has now been seventeen years since the IRS decided it should start issuing ITINs to illegal aliens—or, as the IG put it, made a “policy decision” to “legalize illegal aliens.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Spokesman Brandon Montgomery told CNSNews.com that SSA and the IRS still do not provide ICE with information about no-match W-2s or ITIN tax filings.
In the meantime, illegal aliens have been illegally collecting taxpayer-funded benefits, taking jobs belonging to citizens and legal immigrants, and claiming tax credits to which they are not entitled, while the government looks the other way. This explains how thousands of illegal aliens can get away with filing illegal tax returns from the same address. Even worse, the lack of information sharing risks national security. After 9/11/01, this is unconscionable and inexplicable.
The question is: What, if anything, will Congress do about this outrage? It becomes apparent that both political parties have been looking the other way on this issue. Surely they do NOT want this humongous theft of our tax dollars exposed, right as they plan to ram through “immigration reform”, which currently includes amnesty for corporations, too. Everybody’s getting out of jail free, while the taxpayers are left holding the bag.
(9) It’s confirmed that political candidates and campaign donors had their tax return information breached, but the Dept. of Justice won’t prosecute. The IRS hides behind “confidentiality” to evade answering questions about the breaches. (This reminds me of the passport breach of 2008.) In addition,
investigators also are probing two allegations that the Internal Revenue Service “targeted for audit candidates for public office,” the Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George, has privately told Sen. Chuck Grassley.
I’m shocked, shocked, to learn all this. Aren’t you? This story explains:
Mr. George is forbidden by federal law to disclose any details. We can think of several obvious possibilities. Three years ago Austan Goolsbee, at the time the White House economic adviser, held an off-the-record briefing with reporters in which he made the astonishing claim that Koch Industries paid no corporate income taxes. …
Austan Goolsbee spoke with the confidence of a man who had looked at the Koch tax returns.
Investigators are investigating whether the IRS audited the political opponents of the administration. Donors to Mitt Romney presidential campaign complained they were subjected to sharp scrutiny after they sent a check to Mr. Romney’s Restore Our Future super PAC. Frank L. VanderSloot, one of the top Republican contributors, was among those harassed. Though he did nothing wrong he had to spend $80,000 on accountants and lawyers to prove it. …
This sounds like an “enemies list,” which would be a high crime among misdemeanors, if true.
See number (5) above and you’ll understand why it might not have been an “inadvertent mistake” to post the Social Security numbers of donors to political not-for-profits.
(10) The IRS believes it doesn’t need a stinking warrant to read your electronic communications:
An IRS 2009 Search Warrant Handbook obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union argues that “emails and other transmissions generally lose their reasonable expectation of privacy and thus their Fourth Amendment protection once they have been sent from an individual’s computer.” The handbook was prepared by the Office of Chief Counsel for the Criminal Tax Division and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
(11) The IRS is being sued by the National Organization for Marriage for leaking its confidential tax records to political opponents. The IRS also stands accused of leaking nine tax-exempt applications belonging to conservative groups to their political opponents, including information about Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS. Yet again, we’re to believe that this was “inadvertent”. Nothing to see here, folks, but incompetence (that benefits progressives). Move on.
(12) Last but not least, more uppity and illegal activity by the IRS’s Fifth-pleading Lois Lerner, who hurriedly okayed tax-exempt status for Obama’s half-brother Malik‘s law-breaking “charity”, after questions were raised about its status in the media. Lerner even gave Malik unprecedented retroactive amnesty, something she does not have the legal authority to do; but she did it, anyway. The “charity” was operating illegally for 27 months, but don’t hold your breath waiting for any charges to be filed. Number (8) above explains how other Obama relatives, the illegal aliens Omar and Zeituni, were able to stay and work in the USA for so long undetected.
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Bridgette
itooktheredpill
Miri
newssleuth
We the People of the United States 
remember “the witch” Christine O’Donnell?
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2013/July/Christine-ODonnell-Tax-Records-Targeted-by-IRS/
more on Biden’s State’s back door:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/17/former-gop-senate-candidate-christine-odonnell-tol/
Good point, Papoose. I forgot the link to Biden.
“More than two years after her upstart Senate campaign rocked the Delaware political world, Christine O’Donnell got an unexpected contact from a U.S. Treasury Department agent warning that her private tax records may have been breached.
The phone message earlier this year shocked the battled-scarred candidate, a tea party favorite who knocked off Republican mainstay Michael Castle in the primary before losing in a bid to win Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s former seat. …
Now Mr. Martel, a criminal investigator for the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, was telling her that an official in Delaware state government had improperly accessed her records on that very same day. Beyond that, Ms. O’Donnell and Senate investigators who have tried to help her have run into a wall of silence, leaving more questions than answers about whether abuses of the IRS system extend to private individuals and not just the tax-exempt groups already identified as victims. …
Investigators for Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, an influential Republican who serves on the Finance and Judiciary committees, have uncovered one key issue: a backdoor system in which state officials can access Americans’ private tax records in the name of investigating with little oversight or accountability. …
But the Justice Department has declined to prosecute any of the offenders. Treasury officials have refused to give Mr. Grassley any specifics on the cases or to describe the disposition of Ms. O’Donnell’s case, claiming even people who improperly access tax records have an assumption of privacy under federal tax laws. …”
She was also TARGETED for the same Alinsky tactics the left and the media, too, used against GOVERNOR Sarah Palin. Remember? Both of them were dumb bimbos.
This is a great find, Papoose. TY. Check out this part; doesn’t it sound so very familiar?
“Ms. O’Donnell has spent the past six months trying to find out more about what happened to her personally, with little success.
Investigators have told her the probe has been closed, without offering an explanation. Ms. O’Donnell’s attempts to get records about the possible misuse of her tax files through Freedom of Information Act requests have been delayed or denied. …”
More: “She fought through a three-year audit into her personal finances that ended with her repaying $1,100 to the federal government. Family and friends also were subjected to audits, though they were cleared, she said.
She had been warned that such events were possible.
As she was considering a Senate run, Ms. O’Donnell said she was told by a prominent political figure in Delaware that if she challenged Mr. Castle, the IRS and others would “F with her head.”
Ms. O’Donnell said she has reason to believe her political opponents were behind the scheme.
“An official with this investigation told me that there was evidence linking this inappropriate use of my tax records with the Delaware political leadership, Delaware political leaders on both sides of the aisle,” she said, though she declined to identify the official with whom she spoke.”
Nothing about this in my local paper or the other national paper I read daily. Gee, isn’t THIS news? Imagine if this were, say, Hillary Clinton’s or Barack Obama’s tax records. Note the reference to “both sides of the aisle.” The story talks about Karl Rove. Remember how the DemoncRATS and the likes of Rove teamed up to demonize the Tea Party?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/19/delware-officials-admit-snooping-gop-candidate-chr/
“Delaware officials admit tax snooping; won’t identify Christine O’Donnell as target
The director of Delaware’s tax-collection office said Friday that his agency accessed the federal tax records in 2010 of an unnamed taxpayer, believed to be former GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell.
Patrick Carter, director of the state’s division of revenue, would not identify Ms. O’Donnell as the taxpayer but said he approved the inquiry “for routine purposes.”
“A state Division of Revenue investigator accessed records on or after March 20, 2010 following information that came to the attention of the division,” Mr. Carter said in a statement. “The record access led the state revenue investigator to conclude there was no basis for further state investigation of a taxpayer and no action was taken by the state Division of Revenue against the taxpayer.” …”
Right. Perhaps so, but they SAW what they WANTED TO SEE on the pretext of a “routine purpose.” And to whom was said information transmitted, if anyone? http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130719/NEWS02/130719020/Delaware-officials-defend-decision-access-Christine-O-Donnell-s-tax-records?nclick_check=1
“… Patrick Carter, director of the Delaware Division of Revenue in the state Finance Department, says he approved access to a taxpayer’s federal records for “routine” purposes and was questioned by a federal investigator on the matter earlier this year. State tax auditor David Smith was the official who accessed the records, Carter said. …”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/23/records-of-christine-odonnell-tax-snooping-disappe/ OUTRAGEOUS, BUT NOT SURPRISING. What hasn’t been disappeared when it threatens to harm Barry and his DemoncRAT allies?
“Records of Christine O’Donnell tax snooping disappear
Delaware state officials have told Congress that they likely destroyed the computer records that would show when and how often they accessed Christine O’Donnell’s personal tax records and acknowledged that a newspaper article was used as the sole justification for snooping into the former GOP Senate candidate’s tax history.
The revelations to Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office came Tuesday as the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, the government’s chief watchdog for the Internal Revenue Service, formally reopened its investigation into the matter by re-interviewing Ms. O’Donnell.
“It is an active investigation now,” Ms. O’Donnell told The Washington Times after meeting with the same Treasury agent who first informed her in January that her tax records were improperly accessed. …
“The state says it looked at Ms. O’Donnell’s federal records because of a newspaper article describing a federal tax lien against her,” Mr. Grassley said. “Does the state look at every taxpayer who faces a federal lien or only those who happen to appear in a newspaper article? Is it routine for a state employee to email his boss about looking at a taxpayer’s records on a Saturday, when the article appeared? It’s hard to evaluate what happened in the O’Donnell case without answering these questions, and I’ll continue to work to get more information.””
They should just subpoena the records from the NSA.
WOW! I guess we now know at least one of the political candidates who was targeted by the IRS and I guess it’s JUST A COINCIDENCE that she’s a Tea Partier:
“… [T]he U.S. Treasury Department told Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that at least four politicians had their private information examined improperly by the IRS.
Former Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell said she is one of them. She said the day she announced her run for the U.S. Senate in 2010, the government placed a tax lien on her house.
The problem is she didn’t own the house at the time. The IRS later withdrew the lien, calling it a “computer glitch.” [“inadvertent mistake?”]
But in January, O’Donnell was informed by a criminal investigator for the Treasury Department that her records had been improperly accessed on the day she decided to run. [So it ought to be easy to find the IRS EMPLOYEE cum DemoncRAT plant who did this, but I’m guessing this is the case that HOLDER of the DOJ decided not to prosecute, as was mentioned in yesterday’s hearing. I hope Grassley gets to the bottom of this.]
O’Donnell claimed she had been warned that if she ran for Senate, the IRS would “(expletive) her head.”
“Whether it’s one, eight or 80 (cases), it’s an abuse of power at the IRS. It’s using the IRS as a political weapon, and that shouldn’t be done,” O’Donnell told The Washington Times. “
http://aclj.org/free-speech-2/aclj-calls-testimony-linking-irs-targeting-irs-chief-counsel-extremely-disturbing
“… Rep. Darrell Issa – chairman of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform – released a letter detailing testimony from Carter Hull, a now-retired Washington tax specialist who was responsible for providing guidance on reviewing tax-exempt applications for Tea Party groups. Hull told Congressional investigators that Lois Lerner, Director of Exempt Organizations who is now on paid leave, directed that the Tea Party applications be sent directly to the office of IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins for specific review and examination prior to the 2010 election.
“This is one of the most extremely disturbing revelations yet,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. “It is now clear that the IRS Chief Counsel, appointed by President Obama in 2009, was involved in examining and reviewing applications from Tea Party groups – many that were basically shut out of the 2010 election process because of delays in handling of their applications. This development raises significant questions about what the White House knew and when. In a politically charged run-up to the 2010 election, why was one of President Obama’s most trusted and partisan appointees involved in examining the applications for Tea Party groups? We look forward to tomorrow’s testimony [now over] and further information about the origins of this unlawful and unconstitutional scheme that violated the First Amendment rights of our clients.” …”
That letter linked above asks for priority attention to their requests for all communications between the IRS, the IRS Counsel’s office, and THE WH.
http://aclj.org/free-speech-2/irs-scandal-escalates
“… IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins is a direct political appointee of President Obama in 2009 and significantly calls into question the Obama Administration’s ever evolving timeline of who knew what when, but even more importation who directed and orchestrated the targeting of the Tea Party.
President Obama’s IRS claimed IRS Chief Counsel, one of two politically appointed IRS positions, was not aware of the IRS targeting until this year. Yet, testimony from multiple IRS lawyers in Washington, D.C., released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform now directly implicate IRS Chief Counsel’s office. According to multiple IRS attorneys in D.C., including tax law specialist Carter Hull, who oversaw the review of the Tea Party cases, Lois Lerner, former Director at the Exempt Organizations Division, and her top advisor directed that certain Tea Party applications as part of a “test” group be sent to her office and IRS Chief Counsel for review in the winter of 2010-2011.
Chief Counsel’s office, after months more of delay, then demanded Mr. Hull make further inquiries of the Tea Party. According to the testimony, it was Chief Counsel’s office that was demanding to know more information about the conservative groups’ activities “right before the [2010] election period. In other words, immediately before.”
In addition, the testimony indicates that the Chief Counsel’s office was heavily involved in preparing a template for handling these cases, something Mr. Hull testified was impractical “because these organizations, all of them are different. A template wouldn’t work.” Yet, as he testified, a template was prepared by someone in Chief Counsel’s office in conjunction with other tax law specialists. Even more disturbing he testified that after three years, IRS Chief Counsel’s office had not made a determination about these “test” Tea Party cases, even though in 2011, Mr. Hull had all the information he needed to make a recommendation as to their request for tax-exempt status. …”
In a way, I’m very glad that someone of the caliber of Jay Sekulow is now experiencing the kind of stonewalling that we “birthers” have experienced in trying to pry information out of this administration. Also with the “scrubbing” of information from the record. Maybe he and others like Gowdy will have the ability to crack this nut.
IRS…Scandal is Unraveling ….
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/07/irs_scandal_is_unraveling.html
Yes, but note the media blackout. There can BE no “scandal” with no coverage, and Barry’s a master at inveigling the media to look the other way and at giving them plenty of distractions–like an impromptu speech about Trayvon Martin.
Zombies are real.
Another Tea Party person persecuted by the IRS: http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/26/feds-investigate-redneck-day-at-arizona-high-school-have-nothing-better-to-do/#ixzz2aAru4LD1
“Exclusive: IRS watchdog reviewing claims of improper audit of Tea Party farmer
The IRS’s internal watchdog is reviewing allegations that the agency improperly audited a Tea Party owner of a small Virginia farm whose repeated clashes with a local environmental group and the county over zoning laws have made her a cause celebre for property-rights advocates. …
Amid the publicity, Boneta last year also received notice of an IRS audit – an audit she believes is directly related to her disagreements with the environmental group and the county and is intended to frighten her into backing down.
“The audit had the effect of really scaring me,” she told the Washington Examiner. “If that was the intention, it worked. I was terrified. The auditor asked me questions that were uniquely related to my litigation with Fauquier County and the Piedmont Environmental Council. If not collusion, how could this be possible?”
A spokesman for the PEC said the group has nothing to do with the zoning issues she was having nor the audit. …”