The interminable IRS scandal is now on Day 880 by TaxProf count. The TaxProf is Paul Caron, a law professor at Pepperdine University School of Law and Editor of the TaxProf Blog. I consider Paul Caron the dean of the tax blogosphere. His IRS Scandal series is a valuable reference tool if you want to reconstruct the chronology of the scandal, but I think the series may have finally jumped the shark.
After months of denying that the IRS has been targeting tea party groups for special scrutiny, Lois Lerner, Director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division, admitted that the IRS had been giving additional scrutiny to applications for tax-exempt status from goups with the “Tea Party” or “patriot” in their title. She denied there was any political motivation and blamed the practice on a low-level employee in Cincinnati.
The numbering starts on Day 5 (May 14,2013) with a collection of posts including a video of President Obama throwing his purported minions under the bus. On Day 27, the precedent is set that will allow the scandal to continue indefinitely as a TIGTA report on conference spending becomes part of the narrative. The Treasury Inspector General For Tax Administration is one of the many Inspector Generals in the federal government. The thing about internal auditors is that if they don’t find something, they think they are not doing their job. Every TIGTA report will henceforth have a shot at becoming part of the scandal narrative.
Day 29 is of great significance as my contrarian views find their way into the narrative with a link to – IRS Does Not Spend Enough On Conferences. By Day 68 it was already getting tough to keep track so a link to a timeline by Kelly Erb was in order. On Day 100, I notice the first hint of the scandal moving to the cover-up stage with a link to Lois Lerner Accused of Using Personal E-mail for Official Business.
In a February 2011 email, Ms. Lerner advised her staff—including then Exempt Organizations Technical Manager Michael Seto and then Rulings and Agreements director Holly Paz—that a Tea Party matter is “very dangerous,” and is something “Counsel and Judy Kindell need to be in on.” Ms. Lerner adds, “Cincy should probably NOT have these cases.
Day 132 (September 18, 2013) provides an interesting contrast to the current Carson controversy, it was found scandalous that the IRS had flagged groups for anti-Obama rhetoric. (It is worth noting that there were no revocations, because of anti-Obama rhetoric, much less the type of instant revocation that Dr. Carson is calling for.) Dr. Carson, himself makes his first appearance in the narrative on Day 146 as related in this Blaze story as he said that he had his first contact with the IRS after giving this speech.
On Day 160 , an important player in the disclosure war portion of the scandal enters the fray as Judicial Watch files a lawsuit about its FOIA requests. Day 163 adds a new scandal strand as the National Organization for Marriage sues about disclosure of its donor list. On Day 184 we learn about Darrell Issa issuing a subpoena which promised to yield much more fuel to the scandal fire.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks