Criminal.
Via WFB:
“President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS,”
—President Obama jokes during his commencement speech at Arizona State University in 2009.
Under President Obama the Internal Revenue Service has repeatedly been accused of using its enforcement powers to punish the White House’s political opponents. Here are six of the most egregious examples.
1. The IRS Targeted Conservative Political Organizations for Investigation
On Friday, the IRS admitted that career employees had specifically targeted organizations that had “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their name.
The harassment of these conservative groups included intrusive and inappropriate questionnaires and a threat to make all the confidential information public. The targeting included explicitly asking for donor lists from conservative organizations as part of their application process.
“We made some mistakes, some people didn’t use good judgment. For that, we’re apologetic,” acknowledged the director of the IRS division overseeing tax-exempt groups, Lois Lerner.
Last year, before a hearing at the House of Representatives, then IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman said, “there’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people.” And still the IRS claims that the targeting of conservative groups was “in no way due to any political or partisan rationale.”
2. ProPublica Published Confidential IRS Filings on Six Conservative Organizations
From December 2012 to January 2013, ProPublica published the confidential pending IRS applications for tax-exempt status of six conservative organizations.
ProPublica acknowledged that the IRS was not supposed to release information on pending claims for tax-exempt status after publishing Crossroad GPS’s application.
“[IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge] cited a law saying that publishing unauthorized returns or return information was a felony punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and imprisonment of up to five years, or both,” according to ProPublica.
Despite being informed of the illegality, confidential applications from the five other organizations were discussed in January.