THEY ADVERTISE THEIR HATRED REGARDING TAXES

Hatred of taxes is a constitutionally protected political belief under the First Amendment.

If there were a proven connection between "hatred of taxes," a belief shared by the overwhelming majority of Americans, liberal and conservative, and actual violations of the tax and criminal code, would you kindly provide evidence of indictments, prosecutions or even settlement between the IRS and any Tea Party groups, of course other than those lawsuits by the Tea Party groups against the IRS. In fact, it is my understanding that the application for the relevant tax status has been approved for all the groups or are still pending and subject to lawsuits against the IRS.

Simply, the IRS must always remain totally apolitical. One you excuse unlawful actions against your political adversaries, it will most assuredly be used against you and your allies when the government inevitably switches parties.

The republicans do enough things stupid and illegal that we don't need to stoop to their level.

...but constitutionally-protected political beliefs aren't tax-exempt.

or they all would not have been approved. Whether you or others disagree with the tax code or the Tea Party groups is entirely irrelevant. If you want to change the tax code, lobby Congress.

The government cannot engage in extra scrutiny of groups, no less withhold approval, because certain civil servants do not agree with the the groups' ideology or politics. That is a clear violation of the groups' First Amendment Rights and related federal law. The IRS must always remain apolitical. This simple and undeniable truth was confirmed because of criminals like Nixon.

If it's acceptable to target and harass conservative groups, when Republicans are in power, expect identical if not worse treatment of liberal groups and individuals.

Simply, directly in response to your comment, some groups with certain constitutionally protected beliefs or activities are in fact tax exempt. Civil servants cannot treat these groups differently because they do not agree with such beliefs. The law is clear and undeniable.

thank you

which was basically when the black man got elected President and, coincidentally, with the confluence of Citizens United, many, many, many loonies thought that they could make a buck out of the gold rush of dark money that was going to flood into the political realm. Wanting to cash in, they started all these 'bagger groups which, unbeknown to them, were obviously partisan, but they didn't really understand what that meant. When they realized that uber-wealthy fucks not only want to buy elections, they wanted a tax break to boot, then they applied for 501c4 status. Otherwise, without it, they could not nurse on the golden teat.

So, all of a sudden there is a rush of applications for non-profit, unaligned groups that are obviously partisan, and, because they are ridiculously uncreative asshats, they all had "Tea" in their names.

The IRS was doing what the IRS should have done and giving them the scrutiny that those frauds deserved.

The rumpus is a fraud perpetrated by the Republican Party used to give them cover for as long as possible, which apparently they still have today and have coincidentally used to bamboozle the electorate into voting again for another group a farkin lunatics.

Get it?

If what you are saying was remotely true, there would be numerous civil and criminal fraud and related prosecutions of these groups. Could you kindly cite or link to articles or cases about how the groups who applied for the 501(c)(4) status were charged with wrongdoing, civilly or criminally? I do not believe that the IRS has even been able to cite any improprieties by these groups in the lawsuits against the IRS, and virtually all were approved. Additionally, the fact that the IRS clearly requested materials like certain membership lists that they could not legally demand, speaks for itself (some of which were leaked to private groups opposing same sex marriage, another severe breach of federal privacy laws which resulted in punishments).

For heaven's sake, the White House has already condemned the targeting. The only issue is the extent and identities of the individuals who targeted, i.e., did the orders come from the White House. High level and career civil servants do not claim their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and government agencies do not mysteriously lose innumerable email, texts and other material from multiple high and mid-level employees, if everything they were doing complied with the law. If the targeted groups were progressive, the outrage would, quite rightly, match or exceed conservative complaints.

You may believe the Tea Party groups were getting the scrutiny they "deserved," but the law clearly does not give civil servants the discretion to make such determinations based on the content of the beliefs of such groups.

You might also note that the 501(c)(4) groups, liberal and conservative, were, and are, actually permitted under the law to engage in "limited" partisan activities. The fact that a lot of new 501(c)(4)'s supported conservative causes or even had "Tea" in their name did not remove their First Amendment protections or permit additional scrutiny by civil servants.

and allow for the rights of even those who hold opposite views. It's neither illegal or unconstitutional to dislike, or even hate taxes.

There are those in government who bring politics to work. They are in elected positions, in partisan EX, SES and Schedule C positions that are term limited. But it's not for career civil servants.

Remember Linda Tripp? She was a career civil servant, probably a GS 12 or 13, who gave that up for a Schedule C GS-15. Then when the Administration ended and she declined to resign, she was terminated.

fuck the teabaggers....AND they were full of shit as usual

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/15/meet_the_group_the_irs_actually_revoked_democrats/

while maintaining tax exempt status, regardless of whether the groups is liberal or conservative. That fact that a liberal group may have run afoul of the law is irrelevant. If you don't like the law, complain to Congress.

Civil servants do not get to single-out groups because they do not agree with their political positions. There is no ambiguity about the law.

You can say "fuck the teabaggers" as much as you wish, but these groups still have First Amendment rights to hold their views, and cannot be treated differently by the IRS because individual civil servants or the administration find their views objectionable.

organizations. Both are non-profits, but only the c(3) is required to be non-political.

"The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that inappropriate criteria had been used by IRS personnel to select certain applications for tax exemption status for further review and that inappropriate procedures were applied against organizations based on their names or policy positions. According to the audit, beginning early in 2010, front-line IRS agents violated IRS policy by failing to handle tax matters in an impartial manner that would promote public confidence:


The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary information requests to be issued. Although the processing of some applications with potential significant political campaign intervention was started soon after receipt, no work was completed on the majority of these applications for 13 months.... For the 296 total political campaign intervention applications [reviewed in the audit] as of December 17, 2012, 108 had been approved, 28 were withdrawn by the applicant, none had been denied, and 160 were open from 206 to 1,138 calendar days (some for more than three years and crossing two election cycles).... Many organizations received requests for additional information from the IRS that included unnecessary, burdensome questions (e.g., lists of past and future donors)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy

out of curiosity

also I'd like to know why this warrants endless investigation while shit like 9/11 and the Iraq war got passes

The fact that a group was ultimately approved is not a legal defense to the extra scrutiny, unlawful requests for information, harassment or delays prior to the approval.

There isn't a "no harm, no foul" exception to civil rights violations like those of the IRS.

Scandal fodder on the "just-in-time" inventory control plan!

Annoyed at the process, but great analogy.

Why would they say as a fact that there was inappropriate treatment when there is an investigation going on? How is checking on the legal status of any group "inappropriate" for the IRS? What is "inappropriate" is for the IRS to change the wording of a LAW created and passed by Congress to completely change the meaning of the LAW..Why is there not aninvestigation over that and why is it not being fixed?

at Obama and that now has backfired on him. The new GOP Benzie Report clears the Obama ADM. of any wrongdoing.