IRS apologizes for inappropriately targeting conservative groups during 2012 election

The IRS is apologizing for targeting conservative groups during the 2012 election season

LINKY => http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-...tical-groups/?utm_hp_ref=homepage&ir=homepage

Yes indeed the worker was wrong but will anything be done about their actions? What total BS.

Gubmit workers are pretty much mindless robots who do what they are told. They were TOLD to over scrutinize based on key works in the applications. Don't give them any more credit than they deserve, because most of them do nothing more that what they are told to do, and thinking is something done only by upper managers...sometimes.

Apologies are not worth the air space they take up. Retribution is what is needed, and not the low level twit who's doing their job. Heads must roll at the management and/or decision making level of the organization.

To little too late. especialy for those who suffered at the hand of TRS agents.

This is akin to the media saying they were sorry they didn't pay attention to the September 11 2013 incompetent, and possibly treasonous, actions of the POTUS until well after he was re-elected. Assuming, of course, that any media has done so.

The IRS, without the People's consent, has become not only a taxing authority but a data collection agency. And under ObamaCare the abuses of privacy be unimaginable.

JEV said:

Gubmit workers are pretty much mindless robots who do what they are told. They were TOLD to over scrutinize based on key works in the applications. Don't give them any more credit than they deserve, because most of them do nothing more that what they are told to do, and thinking is something done only by upper managers...sometimes.

Apologies are not worth the air space they take up. Retribution is what is needed, and not the low level twit who's doing their job. Heads must roll at the management and/or decision making level of the organization.

Click to expand...

The agents should have used whistle blower laws to report the management people who told them to do this.

Yes, retribution is needed.....Civil and/or criminal lawsuits. Can you imagine what would happen if the IRS profiled black or Hispanic groups???

Lenny said:

The agents should have used whistle blower laws to report the management people who told them to do this.

Yes, retribution is needed.....Civil and/or criminal lawsuits. Can you imagine what would happen if the IRS profiled black or Hispanic groups???

Click to expand...

Why yes I can and it would not be pretty. The same thing needs to happen for this but we all know it will not...

leadarrows said:

The same thing needs to happen for this but we all know it will not...

Click to expand...

You're probably right but that isn't going to keep me and some others from putting pressure on elected officials.

This isn't anything new for the IRS, so it's a chance for a lot of people who have been screwed by them to step up and say something.

Melensdad said:

Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS unit that oversees tax-exempt groups, said organizations that included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status were singled out for additional reviews.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Then, the IRS should go after all those congresspersons and lobbyists who are responsible for initiating discussion, introducing, enacting, and implementing the Patriot Act.

From Loveland Magazine 11 May 2013:
------------------------------------------------------------------
IRS Owes Conservative Groups Far More Than A Mere Apology For Their Unfair Treatment — U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) released the following statement following the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) apology for subjecting Tea Party groups across Ohio to burdensome, additional investigations during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status with no provocation or cause:

“Although I am happy that it has finally admitted to placing politics over policy, the IRS owes conservative groups far more than a mere apology for their unfair treatment. It is crystal clear that additional safeguards are in order to prevent this obtrusive behavior in the future. This overt and excessive harassment of groups targeted for their political beliefs is despicable, and many questions remain. How were ‘low-level workers in Cincinnati’ able to initiate practices that completely undermine the IRS’s promise to treat all groups with an even hand? Even more, what were they hoping to do with the copious personal information they obtained from these groups? Having led IRS reform in the ‘90s with then-Senator Bob Kerrey, I am sorely disappointing to see this agency head down this path yet again. I expect quick answers from the IRS as to how this happened in the first place and what steps are being taken to ensure that it never happens again.”
------------------------------------------------------------------

article

I wonder if this is the same IRS:

Senator Edward V. Long, chairman of the Senate subcommittee that had probed into the illegal practices of IRS agents and officials, summed up the testimony of agents and harassed individuals: "IRS has become morally corrupted by the enormous power with which we in Congress have unwisely entrusted it. Too often, it acts like a Gestapo preying upon defenseless citizens."

Among the atrocities recorded is the waitress who was confronted by an IRS agent who demanded $275, declaring that she owed it to the government and threatening to confiscate and dispose of her old car unless she paid up that day. She borrowed the money from a friend and spent several days obtaining sworn affidavit documenting her deductions which showed that she did not owe any money; and only then did IRS admit that she did not owe the money that they had tried to intimidate her into paying. In another incident, Noel Smith, a farmer in Taylor, Missouri, was told by a friend that he had read in the newspaper that IRS was seizing his farms. He subsequently learned that his bank accounts had been seized, his farms, his safe deposit box and all contents had been seized, and a demand had been made for $501,000. Mr. Smith, with help from some friends, hired lawyers and accountants to "unravel the fantastic IRS claims." Meanwhile the agency began selling off his produce and equipment. After four years, the IRS changed their claim to $54,573. Mr. Smith paid it, considering it to be a "ransom" for what was left of his farms. He and his accountants had determined that he owed nothing. He declared: "I did not think it could happen in the United States".

Is this not the same IRS that had hired 5,000 agents under the "Affordable Health care Act" of 2009.

But no worries folks, they are apolitical right? They would never allow politics to influence their investigations?

And yet, there are over 40% of Americans, who think this plan is a good idea.

FrancSevin said:

Is this not the same IRS that had hired 5,000 agents under the "Affordable Health care Act" of 2009.

Click to expand...

Yes, I believe it is the same IRS:


Journalist Erica Ritz wrote for The Blaze 8 July 2012:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Governor Paul LePage of Maine is making news for allegedly referring to the IRS as the “new Gestapo” Saturday, after blasting the president’s overhaul of our health care system. ..."Now that Congress can use the taxation power of the federal government to compel behavior or lack thereof, what’s next? ...This decision has made America less free. ‘We The People’ have been told there is no choice. You must buy health insurance or pay the new Gestapo – the I.R.S."
------------------------------------------------------------------------

article

This is not a new phenomenon. Congressman George Hansen, in a speech in the Congress, printed in the Congressional Record, 21 February 1979, noted: "The IRS long ago seems to have lost its sense of mission as a tax-collection agency and with all the grace of the hobnailed gestapo has embarked on a course of implementing and enforcing social reform with the view that Americans are basically dishonest, uncharitable, bigoted, criminal-minded and even violent to deal with. ...For years we have become progressively inured to the routine contempt the IRS has chronically demonstrated for accepted civilized standards of fairness, something which has its roots in the regrettable presumption that in tax matters the citizen is guilty until proven innocent, an innocence that has to be proven at the expense of the taxpayer, no matter how groundless or frivolous the charges. ...All totalitarian governments have at least one agency which, in the name of protecting the regime, claims the right of total control of the citizens. We can do without an American Gestapo or KGB."

indago said:

Then, the IRS should go after all those congresspersons and lobbyists who are responsible for initiating discussion, introducing, enacting, and implementing the Patriot Act.

Click to expand...

I agree.

Unfortunately I was tepidly in favor of the original Patriot Act vote, looking at it as something with limits. Its grown beyond my worst fears and is, in fact, totally out of control with the Dept of Homeland Security taking over the job of the Brownshirts.

The folks who warned us about the Patriot Act were correct. While I was never a strong supporter, I admit my error. Its turned into the Antipatriot Act.

Melensdad said:

I agree.

Unfortunately I was tepidly in favor of the original Patriot Act vote, looking at it as something with limits. Its grown beyond my worst fears and is, in fact, totally out of control with the Dept of Homeland Security taking over the job of the Brownshirts.

Click to expand...

Journalist Alicia Caldwell wrote for The Associated Press 1 May 2013:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of three college students arrested Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombings case was allowed to return to the United States from Kazakhstan in January despite not having a valid student visa, a federal law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

Authorities charged the student — a friend and classmate of one of the men accused of setting off the deadly explosions — with helping after the attacks to remove a laptop and backpack from the bombing suspect's dormitory room before the FBI searched it.

The government acknowledged that U.S. Customs and Border Protection was unaware that the student was no longer in school when he was let back into the United States.

The disclosure was another instance of possible lapses by the federal government in the months before the Boston bombings. The Obama administration earlier this week announced an internal review of how U.S. intelligence agencies shared sensitive information and whether the government could have disrupted the attack. Republicans in Congress have promised oversight hearings starting next week.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

article

Then, what good is all this:

SECURITY AGENCIES SPRAWL

The IRS is the only government agency which allows for the presumption of guilt. A presumption in which one must prove innocence. It has far too much power in a democracy not to have abused it.

Not only are the tax free C-4 been harrassed and threatened, but any donor to them could also have been intimidated. Far too much descresion is allowed to political appointees when you have anagency that can be so manipulated.

Where is the press onthis? Had CBS or the AP been so haraigned, would they be so nice about it then?

Now another chicken has come home to roost. The justice dept. admitted today that it had obtained phone records of some 20 AP employees. Wonder how much fat will go in the fire over this??
Mike