IRS Scandal explodes. "no evidence that would support a criminal prosecution."

[michal1980]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...cans-find-10-of-tea-party-donors-audi/?page=2

First it was that the IRS targeted Tea Party Groups. Now it came out that if you donated to the Tea Party groups you were 10x more likely to be audited.


Obama's admin keeps reaching new lows on government terrorism.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Isn't the conservatard bubble cute?

 

[michal1980]

Isn't the conservatard bubble cute?

aww look you have cute pre-canned responses. Did you the article?

Doubt it, you just has to defend the turd of a president at every turn.


I wonder how you'd feel if liberals were the targets of the IRS just because they donated to democrats.

 

[DominionSeraph]

aww look you have cute pre-canned responses. Did you the article?

Doubt it, you just has to defend the turd of a president at every turn.

What evidence do you have that they were audited for any reason other than normal flags on the tax filings? None.
What evidence do you have that the President was in any way involved? None.
Yet you have invented that they were specially pulled up on the President's order because they showed up on a Tea Party donation list.
Why don't you thrill us with a captivating tale on how you're persecuted for being white while you're at it?

 

[DominionSeraph]

Does anyone else notice what appears to be severe cognitive deterioration in michal1980? He used to be capable of considerably more than incoherent rage.

E: Never mind; looking back I see no evidence of what I was thinking of. I must have confused a few copy & pastes from conservative pundits for his own words.

 

[Jhhnn]

HOR Repub bigwig makes charges about IRS audits of Teahad donors on secret list & is instantly believed by the Faithful. Nefarious motivation for alleged audits instantly accepted, as well, cuz Conspiracy! Oppression! Oh my God Obama!

The IRS, of course, can't defend itself against the charges because taxpayer information is confidential, even when dealing with a right wing money laundering machine.

 

[boomerang]

Isn't the conservatard bubble cute?

Not nearly as cute as you.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Benghazi.

Birth certificate.

Yadda-yadda-yadda; liberals.

 

[Texashiker]

Does anyone else notice what appears to be severe cognitive deterioration in michal1980? He used to be capable of considerably more than incoherent rage.

Pot calling the kettle black.

You almost never contribute anything of value to the discussion. Your little one-liner comments got old real fast.

 

[sportage]

Oh the humanity

 

[PokerGuy]

There would have to be further investigation to determine causation vs correlation. Yes, the IRS more frequently audited tea party donators more frequently, but if that is based on objective criteria that trigger audits, it's not a problem. If the likelyhood of an audit was influenced by political bias, then there should be jail time for all involved.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

It appears that those two IRS employees in the Cincinnati office were damn busy!

 

[Bowfinger]

There would have to be further investigation to determine causation vs correlation. Yes, the IRS more frequently audited tea party donators more frequently, but if that is based on objective criteria that trigger audits, it's not a problem. If the likelyhood of an audit was influenced by political bias, then there should be jail time for all involved.

This, exactly. It's nice to see at least one righty gets it. The set of people who contributed to these Tea Party advocacy groups is a small subset of all taxpayers. Even if the 10% allegation is true -- not yet verified -- we don't know the financial characteristics of that 10% compared to the set of all taxpayers. We need an apples to apples comparison, i.e., with taxpayers in similar financial situations who did not contribute to those specific groups, in order to compare audit rates.

 

[thraashman]

There would have to be further investigation to determine causation vs correlation. Yes, the IRS more frequently audited tea party donators more frequently, but if that is based on objective criteria that trigger audits, it's not a problem. If the likelyhood of an audit was influenced by political bias, then there should be jail time for all involved.

I appreciate and admittedly am somewhat surprised by the calm, intelligent, and measured response. And I in fact I almost completely agree. I'm not sure if jail time specifically would be necessary, but harsh punishment definitely.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Pot calling the kettle black.

You almost never contribute anything of value to the discussion.

And whose fault is that, Mr. I-have-a-civil-right-to-have-a-program-aired-on-HGTV?

I'm not here to teach you what you should have learned in elementary school. When you exhibit that you have paid little to no attention in your government-supplied schooling, I'm not going to sit here and correct you; I'm just going to point and laugh. If you don't like it, pick up a book.

 

[werepossum]

There would have to be further investigation to determine causation vs correlation. Yes, the IRS more frequently audited tea party donators more frequently, but if that is based on objective criteria that trigger audits, it's not a problem. If the likelyhood of an audit was influenced by political bias, then there should be jail time for all involved.

Agreed, though with the IRS so politicized finding that information will be quite difficult. However, I suspect one could safely say that all such donors are audited at higher rates than the general public simply because of their generally more complicated financial activity.

It is problematic with the IRS admittedly keeping donor lists and passing donor lists to proggie groups, but it's not necessarily evidence of more wrongdoing.

It appears that those two IRS employees in the Cincinnati office were damn busy!

+1

 

[nehalem256]

It is problematic with the IRS admittedly keeping donor lists and passing donor lists to proggie groups, but it's not necessarily evidence of more wrongdoing.

+1

I would think doing so would be a crime. So yeah it is evidence of wrongdoing.

 

[cubby1223]

This, exactly. It's nice to see at least one righty gets it. The set of people who contributed to these Tea Party advocacy groups is a small subset of all taxpayers. Even if the 10% allegation is true -- not yet verified -- we don't know the financial characteristics of that 10% compared to the set of all taxpayers. We need an apples to apples comparison, i.e., with taxpayers in similar financial situations who did not contribute to those specific groups, in order to compare audit rates.

Yes, that, exactly.

You are advocating here an investigation. There are two ways to go about this, (1) find the closest set of individuals who did not contribute to political organizations and see what their audit rate was, basically making best-guess assumptions on who is comparable but still in the end the entire comparison will be based on best-guess assumptions and the assumptions will always have some inherent political bias, Democrats feel one group is the "right" comparison, Republicans feel another group is the "right" comparison, we end up where we began, a political fight that is not making any progress towards an answer, or (2) find out from the IRS precisely what triggered these audits, of which the IRS has continually ignored requests and deadlines to provide document records, and refused to answer when directly questioned.


I mean, does it not at least stand out as wrong that the IRS is able to ignore congressional oversight? Regardless of your personal political beliefs involved in this one case scenario?

 

[boomerang]

On another matter, the commissioner told the panel that he is taking steps to be able to deny agency bonuses to IRS employees who hadn’t paid their taxes. The agency’s inspector general last month reported that more than 1,000 employees received bonuses within a year of having tax problems.

Mr. Koskinen said he is working with the IRS union to rewrite their agreement so that those employees can’t be paid bonuses.

“Going forward, if someone has been disciplined for failure to comply with
the tax code, they will be ineligible for a performance award,” he said.


He also said the agency would try to fire employees who cheat on their taxes.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry...

 

[werepossum]

I would think doing so would be a crime. So yeah it is evidence of wrongdoing.

Passing donor lists to outside politically left groups, yes. I meant that while this new information is problematic because of that recent history, this new information is not necessarily evidence of further wrongdoing. Sorry that wasn't clear.

The facts that the IRS compiled donor lists, kept them after reporting that they had been destroyed (which MIGHT have been accidental), and passed them to leftie groups does not necessarily mean that those lists are still being used to improperly audit those donors. In fact, 1 in 10 sounds suspiciously low to me for wrongdoing. During the Clinton years Limbaugh was audited every single year, and O'Reilly too until he went public. 1 in 10 might well be the normal rate for people with the capacity and inclination to make big political donations.

Yes, that, exactly.

You are advocating here an investigation. There are two ways to go about this, (1) find the closest set of individuals who did not contribute to political organizations and see what their audit rate was, basically making best-guess assumptions on who is comparable but still in the end the entire comparison will be based on best-guess assumptions, or (2) find out from the IRS exactly what triggered their audit, of which the IRS has continually ignored requests and deadlines to provide document records, and refused to answer when directly questioned.

I mean, does it not even stand out as wrong that the IRS is able to ignore congressional oversight? Regardless of your personal political beliefs involved in this one scenario?

Very well said. And yes, it's very wrong. This is what Nixon tried and failed to do.

 

[piasabird]

It is illegal to ask for the donor list. What if they targeted liberals that supported CARE or some Aids Research Fund or atheist causes or Abortion Activists?

 

[HomerJS]

my vocabulary has just increased


explosion = "10% of tea party donors audited by IRS"

Nice to know 10% constitutes an explosion

 

[trenchfoot]

my vocabulary has just increased


explosion = "10% of tea party donors audited by IRS"

Nice to know 10% constitutes an explosion

It's right out of Karl Rove's/Joe Goebbel's Reich Ministry of Propaganda tutorial textbook on how to win friends and influence people.*

As an aside, I still have to LMAO every time I wonder what Karl's parents were thinking of when they gave him his middle name. If they only knew the irony of that act.


*(Forgive me Mr. Carnigie).

 

[michal1980]

my vocabulary has just increased


explosion = "10% of tea party donors audited by IRS"

Nice to know 10% constitutes an explosion

The overall audit rate is less then 1%. so donating to the tea party makes you 10x more likely to be audited.

what level would it have to reach for you to say its an explosion?

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

There would have to be further investigation to determine causation vs correlation. Yes, the IRS more frequently audited tea party donators more frequently, but if that is based on objective criteria that trigger audits, it's not a problem. If the likelyhood of an audit was influenced by political bias, then there should be jail time for all involved.

Totally agree (though I don't know that I would necessarily call for jail time - that would depend on the severity of the problem and what the evidence was regarding their intent).