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Curious IRS Timing
The IRS has admitted targeting groups that wanted to speak on issues during the 2012 election season. But did the agency also target tax-exempt groups that opposed Administration policy priorities?
At a House oversight hearing last week, Treasury Inspector General Russell George opened the door on the possibility of more IRS political targeting. Asked by Chairman Darrell Issa whether there were other political criteria that IRS workers had been told to “be on the lookout” for, Mr. George said he could “not give you a definitive answer, sir, at this time. But I certainly will.”
A definitive answer is needed because troubling cases are surfacing. The Arlington, Virginia-based Leadership Institute, a 501(c)(3) that trains young conservative activists, says it was audited in 2011-2012 and had to produce some 23,000 pages of documents for the IRS as well as answer questions about where its interns came from and where they are currently employed.
Curiously, the intrusive questionnaire came from the IRS’s Baltimore office on February 14, 2012, soon after the Cincinnati office asked the Hawaii Tea Party on January 26, 2012 to “provide details regarding your relationship with the Leadership Institute” and “provide copies of their training materials.” The group’s audit fell squarely within the IRS’s 2010-2012 season for conservative targeting.
A Pennsylvania pro-Israel group called Z Street says it filed for 501(c)(3) status in December 2009, intending to operate purely as an educational group. Founder Lori Lowenthal Marcus says that its tax counsel called the IRS in July 2010 to check on the slow pace of approval, and the IRS acknowledged its targeted enforcement.
Asked about the slow pace of approval, the IRS auditor on the case, Diane Gentry, said the application was taking so long because auditors were supposed to give special scrutiny to groups “connected with Israel.” Ms. Marcus says Ms. Gentry further explained that many applications related to Israel had to be sent to “a special unit in D.C. to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.” Z Street filed suit in August 2010 in federal court in Pennsylvania alleging “viewpoint discrimination,” and its case has since been moved to Washington, D.C. Ms. Gentry did not return our phone calls.