And also for being set up to facilitate political money-laundering. When it comes to evading campaign finance limits, the GOP doesn't know why the IRS should even care.

that the IRS would think twice about questioning the propriety/legality of right-wing lobbying/activism groups. Plus, Republicans hate the IRS and used this as the perfect cover to cut their funding even more.

I agree, the republican always look to deflect and hide the fact that millionaires/ billionaires are using the new greed machine put in place with U.S. Supreme Court rulings to place front groups out under the IRS codes as welfare plans and non political

One of the other things that irks me about this whole situation is that, as I understand it, the IRS wasn't prohibiting these groups to operate but scrutinizing, albeit somewhat clumsily, whether or not they were tax-exempt organizations under the law. Now, the net effect of this whole situation is likely to be that these groups will be able to operate tax-exempt largely unregulated and without adequate scrutiny.

The ol' "more government makes things worse" jingle. I'd tune to FOX to see how their spinning this, but the story's likely persona non grata over there!

Last edited Tue Dec 23, 2014, 08:54 PM - Edit history (1)

You can have some political activity - for instance testifying about the focus of your organization - but you can't just be out and out political. A lot of the rightwing orgs were (TeaBaggers) and they basically got a pass to be money-laundering operations as you stated.

Of course the only group that lost their tax exempt status was a progressive one.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/nail-the-coffin-the-irs-scand

Benghazi has been a bust for them and now this too isn't bearing any "fruit" (but they're keeping it going for 2016 in the event that Hillary jumps in the race, which she probably will). I'd like to think that they've wrung all of the juice out of demonizing PPACA but there will doubtless be more repeal votes in the new Congress even though the numbers clearly show that PPACA is helping, not hurting, people and, at any rate, it hasn't brought on the apocalypse they were fervently warning us about. Some wingnuts are freaking out about Cuba but Republicans don't seem to be quite so unified on it, so that's probably a bust for them. Guiliani tried to partially pin the deaths of the police officers in NY on President Obama but so far Republicans aren't really taking the bait on that either and President Obama didn't even say anything offensive/controversial about it so, I ask again, what's next for them? I mean, I'm sure that they'll find something. Any predictions?

So a group calling itself things like "Tea Party Patriots Against the Communist Dictator" wanted tax exempt non-political status, the IRS was swamped with applications after Citizens United gutted all the campaign finance laws, Republicans blocked all reform to fill the vacuum and the IRS decided to use the names of the groups for further inspection?

And what is wrong with that is.....what?

I could have told you that was all it was fucking years ago, for free.

The true purpose of all the Hair on Fire....to protect the the Kochs and other billionaires....

Bet the media will be right in this...hey?

they will be coming fast and furious,so to speak.

1. BENGHAZI

2. O-bama Care!

...and more.

It's all very tiresome.

Vote the Pukes out...oh ya, people just didn't vote.

Damn! There goes another wild goose chase. I'm sure they'll think of a dozen more in the remaining two years of President Obama's administration. Wanna guess what they'll be? Eeeeeew, I can hardly wait!

to waste more money.

gold, so it was spiked. Who still believes the system isn't rigged? Have fun waiting for Santa to show up tomorrow night.

to all the right wingers who are on this forum hiding as democrats........YAWNNNNNNNN..... oh sorry I was just yawning at the same old shit you are trying to put over on Mr. Obama..... keep trying. Hey maybe in 2017, you can try to get him for leaving office after 8 years or something. How about trying these..... get him for leaving the deficit lower, hmmmm no not that. Ohhh ok unemployment, yeah is about 10% now so....what? below 5.5%....ohhhhh, um.... job growth...yeah we have have on a few months of job gro.....what? over 45ish months of job growth....hmmmmmmm, ohhh I got it Benghazi, the congress has proven it was his fault......what? Republican lead congressional committee found no white house fault in Benghazi.....hmmmmmm, IRS, nope, ok well why not in 2015 try giving up on screwing Mr. Obama and work with him to help this country.....bwwwhhahahahahaha , I am sorry, but its that time of the year to make jokes and be jocular.....GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK HEADS RIGHT WINGERS..... STOP YOUR IDIOTIC SHIT....oh and Merry Christmas and have a great New Year.

Issa only wanted info on investigation of conservative groups. It was a witch hunt from the get go. Issa should have been punished for this fraud of an investigation.

who some years ago was the Chief of Staff of the Senate Finance Committee...
so he know whereof he speaks

He pointed out that the original Law about the 501(c) non profit status (i think actually in 1917) said that a group was eligible for such status if their activity was "EXCLUSIVELY" non-political.

Then in 1959, someone in the regulatory agency re-wrote the REGULATION governing to say "PRIMARILY"
which opened up the whole can of worms to the agency having to determine what "primarily" meant.

if it had been left alone there could have been no opening for "interpretation"

and it turns out that actually there were as many left wing groups that were being checked as right wing groups.

I found a link to that LOD segment. Bookmarking! http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/odonnell-the-real-irs-scandal-happened-1