IRS Flagged "Patriot" Groups Beyond Cincinnati, Report

Joe Wright
Activist Post

More information is coming to light in the wake of the Friday revelations that the Cincinnati division of the IRS targeted Tea Party and patriot groups for scrutiny. As reported by ABA Journal:

Speaking at a meeting of the ABA Section of Taxation, Lois Lerner, who heads the Internal Revenue Service unit that oversees tax-exempt groups, said low-level workers in Cincinnati flagged the groups with “tea party” and “patriot” in their names. The groups were applying for 501(c)(4) status as “social welfare” groups, and they do not meet the standard if they are “primarily engaged” in political activity. 

However, the scope of the investigation has widened to include Washington D.C. and California after the Washington Post received documents to suggest that the same focus on conservative-based groups was being undertaken in those locations as well.

The fact that the IRS was conducting what appears to be a targeted campaign against certain political groups in the heart of Washington D.C. has even wider ramifications than previously believed. Rather than a limited, one-time error in judgement, this campaign is beginning to feel systemic.

According to the Washington Post:

Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. 

IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea-party-affiliated groups, the documents show.

…“For the IRS to say it was some low-level group in Cincinnati is simply false,” said Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the law firm Foley & Lardner who sought to communicate with IRS headquarters about the delay in granting tax-exempt status to True the Vote. 

Moreover, details of the IRS’s efforts to target conservative groups reached the highest levels of the agency in May 2012, far earlier than has been disclosed, according to Republican congressional aides briefed by the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration ­(TIGTA) on the details of their reviews. (Source)

The Internal Revenue Service with a budget of $13.3 billion has proven to be one of the most dangerous U.S. government agencies. The IRS was created 100 years ago, making the private Federal Reserve Bank and the government IRS fraternal twins in creating a system of indentured servitude. In fact, the IRS is increasingly being viewed as the collection division of the Fed, raking in a staggering $2.3 trillion annually. Despite that massive amount, the IRS has a distinguished record of ignoring the shenanigans of major corporations and federal employees, while focusing harshly on the average private citizen and small businesses in particular.

Now, however, it is becoming more obvious that another role of the IRS is its use as a political weapon. Also highlighted by ABA Journal is the opinion of the New York Times, citing “uneven scrutiny” which states: