Field hearings on Ohioans targeted by the IRS

Press release:

Chairman Mike Dovilla Announces Field Hearing on Ohioans Targeted By Internal Revenue Service

State Representative Mike Dovilla (R–Berea) today announced the House Policy and Legislative Oversight Committee will conduct a field hearing on Ohioans targeted by the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt status based on political leanings. The committee hearing will take place on Thursday, July 25, 2013, at 1:00 p.m. at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services.

BACKGROUND:

On May 28, 2013, State Representatives Terry Johnson (R–McDermott) and Dale Mallory (D–Cincinnati) introduced House Concurrent Resolution 27 to urge the IRS to take immediate action to correct its policies and cease targeting organizations applying for tax-exempt status based on the organization's political affiliation. News reports since the introduction of H.C.R. 27 have identified numerous Ohioans who were targeted by the IRS.

In announcing the hearing, Chairman Dovilla said, “The U.S. Constitution and the Ohio Constitution provide Ohioans with the right peaceably to assemble and petition their government. It is unacceptable and appalling that government personnel would seek to harass ordinary citizens and the groups which they formed in order to prevent their full participation in our democratic republic.”

FOCUS OF THE HEARING:

The hearing will focus on Ohioans who were discriminated against by the Internal Revenue Service’s Cincinnati Field Office based on the political leanings inferred from IRS forms.

DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS:

Any individual or group that wishes to testify must submit written comments for the hearing record to rep07@ohiohouse.gov. All submissions must be in either Microsoft Word or PDF. At the conclusion of the hearing process, comments from Ohioans will be submitted to the Ohio Congressional Delegation.

-30-

IRS covered up 'tea party' policy in response to FOIA requests

Well, well, well...this gets more interesting day by day...

In 2011, The 1851 Center for Constitution Law made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the IRS asking for any "tea party" related policies. They were told there there no such documents. But the Inspector General's report showed specific policies were in place in 2010.

So they kept the information from Congress and the public.

Oh - and they also closed their FOIA reading room and locked the door..and no one had a key. Apparently "there's nothing worth reading in the FOIA public reading room anyway."

UPDATE: A very nice IRS disclosure officer tells @fschouten and me there's nothing worth reading in the FOIA public reading room anyway.

— Gregory Korte (@gregorykorte) May 16, 2013

This article from Ben Domenech really goes to the heart of the matter:

The point is that these scandals cut at the core conceit of Obama’s ideology: the healthy and enduring confidence of big government to be good government. As technological capabilities advance and the scope of government expands, the types of domestic scandals we’re seeing here are only going to increase in frequency and invasiveness, with personal information shared more frequently, easier for even low level bureaucrats to acquire and manipulate. At the same time, Americans are becoming increasingly skeptical and cynical about their public institutions, with their trust in the federal government at historic lows. They distrust the agencies and bureaucrats even as the politicians of our age are investing more and more power in them.

Today, the media, the Obama administration, and David Axelrod are undertaking the task that conservatives could not: illustrating with each passing day that the progressive approach to modern governance and policy is inherently flawed and that vast governments are ripe for abuse. What we are seeing from the IRS and the DOJ is not something new, nor does it represent a perverse approach to benign bureaucracy: it is the inevitable consequence of an approach which puts mechanisms in place and then assumes they will not be used for ill. You should expect government to go as far as it can, whenever it can, in any ways that it can, toward the full exploitation of the power made available to it. Expecting government to behave otherwise is to expect the scorpion not to sting the frog.

The progressive answer to this is more rules and regulators, more agencies and safeguards and accountability projects. Republicans should recognize this intervention for the ridiculousness it is – creating more federal entities to watch over federal entities – and focus their arguments instead on the only solution which will actually work: removing power from the federal government and returning it to the states or the people. The only way to ensure that government doesn’t abuse a power is to make sure it doesn’t have this power in the first place.

Here is the press release sent out by the 1851 Center. It's written by Lynn Walsh.

IRS Covered Up "Tea Party" Policy in Response to FOIA Requests

In 2011 FOIA response, IRS denied existence of records that Inspector General found clearly existed at the time

Columbus, OH - The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law today released a 2011 Internal Revenue Service response to its Freedom of Information Act request denying the existence of any "tea party"-related policy - - a policy that the Inspector General for Tax Administration has found to have clearly existed at that time.

Suspicious that the IRS may have been employing an "anti-tea-party" policy, the 1851 Center, through investigative journalist Lynn K. Walsh, submitted a June 2010 Freedom of Information Act request to the IRS for all documents related to this policy. In its 2011 response, the IRS headquarters, through "Disclosure Manager" Marie Twarog states as follows:

You asked for documents relating to any training, memos, letters, policies, etc., that details how the Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division reviews applications for non-profits, 501(c)(3) and other not for profit organizations specifically mentioning "Tea Party", "the Tea Party", "tea party", and "tea parties".

I found no documents specifically responsive to your request.

However, in its May 14 Report, the Inspector General specifically finds that "[t]he first Sensitive Case Report [identifying tea party groups] was prepared by the Technical Unit" in April of 2010 (See Page 32). The Report's Appendix goes on to chronicle the existence of a series of 2010 policies and related documents targeting "tea party" and other conservative organizations.

"Either IRS Headquarters was entirely incompetent in maintaining awareness of prominent policies and documents within the IRS, or it deliberately covered up the existence of anti-conservative IRS policies. Either is terrifying," said Maurice Thompson, Executive Director of the 1851 Center. "Legal action is necessary to ensure that the IRS does not lie to taxpayers in this manner in the future."

The released documents constitutes the most prominent evidence of either a cover-up or lack of institutional control related to the tea-party policies, and are the only example of the IRS specifically denying the existence of such policies in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Importantly, the IRS did not claim that the requested documents were exempt from FOIA; it instead claimed that the documents did not exist.

Yesterday, the 1851 Center released that in its May 20, 2010 response to the 1851 Center's application for tax-exempt status, the IRS demanded that, in order to receive approval of its application, the 1851 Center must: "Please explain in detail your organization's involvement with the Tea Party."

Read the IRS FOIA Response HERE.

Read the FOIA Request made to the IRS HERE.

IRS harassment not limited to 'tea party' groups

Looks like Tea Party and Patriot groups weren't the only conservative targets the IRS went after.

This via email:

IRS Targeting of 1851 Center in May of 2010 Demonstrates Broader Corruption

IRS harassment was not limited to "tea party" organizations, and began earlier than many believe


Columbus, OH - The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law today emphasized that Internal Revenue Service harassment of groups advocating for limited government extends as far back as early 2010, and includes organizations exclusively dedicated to protecting constitutional rights, including the 1851 Center.

In its May 20, 2010 response to the 1851 Center's application for tax-exempt status, the IRS demands that, in order to receive approval of its application, the 1851 Center must:
"Please explain in detail your organization's involvement with the Tea Party."

The 1851 Center explained that it provides legal representation to Ohioans whose constitutional rights have been aggrieved, including tea party organizations and members, and ultimately received tax exempt status. However, this instance is significant because it reveals infractions beyond what even the Inspector General for Tax Administration's May 14 Report reveals:

• While the Report focuses on 501(c)(4) political and/or lobbying organizations, the 1851 Center applied for status as an educational and/or civil public charity under Section 501(c)(3) (the 1851 Center is a public interest law firm that litigates civil rights cases without engaging in politics).
• While the Report indicates that "[t]he Determinations Unit developed and used inappropriate criteria to identify applications from organizations with the words Tea Party in their names," the 1851 Center made no reference to "tea party," nor "patriot" or "9-12," in is application, much less in its name.
• IRS harassment of liberty-oriented groups, and intent to root out "tea party" activities, even through non-tea party sources such as 1851, has been in full force for a minimum of three years.

In its IRS filings, the 1851 Center indicated that its mission was "to defend constitutional rights and human rights through legal action." The Center supplied no information that would have indicated any particular relationship with any particular tea-party organization.

"As with demands made of other organizations, the IRS demand to the 1851 Center was at minimum, irrelevant, and appears to have been calculated to do political opposition research on organizations opposing the President's policies through, ironically, doing nothing more than enforcing the United States and Ohio constitutions." said Maurice Thompson, Executive Director of the 1851 Center. "Investigators must acknowledge that the breadth of this scandal extends to not just 'tea party' groups, but to conservative and libertarian think tanks and public interest law firms across the nation."

The 1851 Center has been a steadfast opponent of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act since March of 2010, having initiated the Ohio Health Care Freedom Amendment, service as amicus counsel on the lawsuits opposing the individual mandate, and counseling against a state-based Obamacare exchange and more recently against Medicaid expansion.

Read the IRS Demand Letter to the 1851 Center HERE.

###

Ohio Liberty Council asks for investigation of IRS on tax-exempt status delays and demands; raises 'politically motivated' question

Many of us have seen the story about the IRS failing to grant tax-exempt status to the Richmond Tea Party Group (RTG). It appears this may be a targeted pattern or strategy from the IRS.

Like RTG, Ohio Liberty Council has been trying, for the last 18 months, to obtain tax-exempt status only to be faced with "unreasonable, overly burdensome, intrusive and possibly politically motivated" requests for information that, the group states, "have little to do with determining our organization’s qualifications for non-profit status."

So they're fighting back.

Yesterday, they announced they are going to refuse to comply with the latest round of requests and ask Ohio's congressional delegation to investigate the delay and IRS demands.

In a letter to the IRS, OLC President Tom Zawistowski wrote:

Therefore, we hereby refuse to comply with your request. We have asked our Congressional Representatives to investigate your actions and intentions and we are exploring every legal means available to defend our rights. We answered all pertinent questions about our organization in our detailed original 1024 application in June of 2010 and see no reason why non-profit status should not be granted. We hereby request that our organization be granted non-profit status on the basis of that application without further delay.”
...
I defy any American to read this list of demands by the IRS and not be outraged. This is the kind of personal information that this government is going to be demanding from your church, your doctor, your hospital, your business and your favorite charity going forward. This isn’t speculation, these documents prove it is actually happening and will continue – particularly under Obamacare. Like the Catholic Church, we will not comply, we will resist with all our might, and defend the Constitution.”

The list of questions from the IRS included an 'updated description' since the application was originally filed in June, 2010. It seems to me that the failure of the IRS to timely act in reviewing an application for tax-exempt status should not result in additional work by the requesting organization. But that's what you get when government fails to do it's job: additional work on your part.

They want to know all events and activities of the group, including the qualifications of the people conducting all such activities and events. And they don't just want to know past events - but future events as well, including any payment for speakers or panel participants.

Does anyone in their right mind think any organization could provide such information on future events? Exactly how far into the future is the Ohio Liberty Council supposed to go?!?

They're supposed to predict how much time members of OLC are going to spend on conducting such events and whether or not - again, in the future - the group will spend any time or resources attempting to influence the outcome of legislation.

Also like RTP, Ohio Liberty Council was given very little time to respond. The IRS request was dated January 26th and the response had to be received by February 16th. Taking out several days for mail, this left with group with about two weeks to, basically, predict the future.

Oh, and just to make it more difficult, the letter instructs them NOT to fax the response nor to call about the status of the response. And if the response isn't received on time, they'll just assume OLC doesn't want the tax-exempt status and close the case. Oh - and they could require a whole new application if the response was just delayed in the mail.

When one organization has a problem like this, it could be just that organization. When two similar organizations are being treated the same way by a government agency, I'm thinking the problem lies with the government agency.

I can only wonder if the delays and scrutiny will apply to the Occupy Wall Street tax-exempt request.