Originally published on Forbes.com.
Paul Caron, the TaxProf, dean of the tax blogosphere has called the end of an era. We were all distracted with the inauguration, an admittedly important event, but given the number of peaceful transitions of power we have had since 1800, well 1860 anyway, not really that remarkable. Professor Caron declared that he was ending daily coverage of the IRS scandal with Day 1352.
His announcement is particularly meaningful to me. Check out the lead paragraph:
In response to inquiries from Peter J. Reilly (Forbes) and Brian Leiter (University of Chicago Law School), I previously discussed when I would stop my daily coverage of the IRS Scandal
Professor Caron explained
My answer is the same as it has been throughout the scandal: I will stop when the daily commentary in the press and blogosphere on the scandal (from both the right and the left) ends. At several points in the scandal, as I was running out of content, a new chapter would unfold and my daily coverage would continue.
At any rate, his mention of me in this context gives me a sense of having really arrived in the tax blogosphere after over seven years since my very first post.
What Is It All About?
It is probably worth reminding everyone what I call the core IRS scandal was all about. This is from Day 1 – May 10, 2013
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 groups 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.
Bottom line,I remain the last IRS scandal agnostic. Frankly, I don’t think you needed a big conspiracy to account for the IRS getting its works gummed with exempt applications from groups calling themselves a party but claiming they were mostly not political. On the other hand, both Joe Kristan and George Will think there is a scandal and that is a tough pair to be dismissive of.
How It Evolved
In October 2015 I wrote two posts in which I indicated that the quality of the TaxProf’s series was being diluted, by the addition of extraneous matter I supported my argument with two posts, one that followed the series through Day 516 and a conclusion that went up to Day 880 which I considered the shark-jumping moment of the series. Ben Carson had called for the IRS to immediately revoke the tax-exempt status of the Council Islamic-American Relations because the organization had demanded that he withdraw from the presidential race.
The connection to the core scandal was pretty tenuous:
The IRS should immediately revoke CAIR’s tax-exempt status. Under the Obama administration, the IRS has systematically targeted conservative nonprofit groups for politically motivated audits and harassment. The agency should now properly do its job and punish the real violators of America’s laws and regulations.
The core scandal had been about difficulties processing applications for exempt status. Conservative groups were not getting their exempt status revoked for single statements.
The Other Extensions
There were quite a few strands of stories that were legitimately connected to the core scandal. Lois Lerner’s emails, the congressional investigations, emails lost on servers, how quickly Koskinen moved the investigation on are examples. But extraneous material started creeping in.
On Day 27 there was coverage of a TIGTA report on overspending on an IRS conference in 2010. The IRS is not the only federal agency with an inspector general that will issue embarrassing reports like this. On Day 110, there is talk of targeting veterans, because of IRS enforcement of the requirement that a large proportion of the membership of veterans organizations be people who are, you know, veterans. On Day 357 , we have George Will writing about civil forfeitures for structuring.
On Day 385 Z Street comes into the picture with coverage of a lawsuit, filed in 2010, complaining about the IRS having a special Israel policy. I’m willing to buy Z Street as legitimately related to the core scandal in that it is about the IRS conceivably targeting a certain type of conservative. Day 397 adds an element to the scandal narrative, that in my mind indicates that there was not any high-level administration involvement. It concerns Lois Lerner transmitting information on 501(c)(4) organizations to the FBI. This whole strand of the scandal narrative indicates to me that the problem was not the IRS, but rather Lois Lerner. She hoped to crusade against money in politics and she was unable to get anybody else to take much of an interest. It is worth remembering that Lois Lerner was not career IRS. She came out of the FEC. Also, she was serving under a Republican IRS commissioner.
Day 509 was about UnFair Exposing The IRS, a purported documentary that used the scandal narrative to create an infomercial for the Fair Tax. Day 516 is about the pre-Lerner scandal concerning an offhand remark by Austan Goolsbee about the Koch brothers. On Day 530 , there is a story about VA employees resigning to avoid being fired. The connection to the IRS scandal is by comparison with Lois Lerner. Day 537 notes the 40th anniversary of Watergate, so let’s ask Bob Woodward about the IRS scandal.
Day 712 add a new strand. That would be the agreement between the IRS and the Freedom From Religion Foundation that the IRS will finally do something about church politicking. Day 736 is one of those ox goring things, as Republican Marsha Blackburn is circulating a letter among Republican congress folk to encourage John Koskinen to open an investigation of the Clinton Foundation.
And finally, there is Day 880, which has Ben Carson calling for the immediate revocation of a group that criticized him.
If You Really Want To Form An Opinion
It seems that the IRS Scandal even more than usual is something that is viewed through ideological glasses. If you would really like to take a hard look at the core scandal, I would recommend the Senate Finance Committee report. The report is in three parts. It lays out the agreed facts that have been determined from fairly exhaustive investigations and then two narratives, one Republican and one Democrat that can be drawn from those facts. The notion that the Obama administration was directing the IRS to target conservative groups is now something of an article of faith on the right. The Republican narrative relies on a kind of a tone at the top dog whistle to support that belief.
Comments
I reached out for some comments on the closing of the day by day scandal coverage. Joe Kristan refereed me to his post, which ironically became Day 1353.
Thanks to TaxProf Paul Caron for staying on this undercovered story. The IRS and Lois Lerner admitted the targeting on Day 1. People have been trying to walk that back ever since, either by moving the goal posts (“the President was never implicated”) or by pretending the targeting never happened. The tax agency taking on itself the task of targeting political organizations is scarier than it doing so at the bidding of the White House.
Now we wait to see whether the new President will disarm the IRS, or wield it.
Robert Flach, the Wandering Tax Pro wrote me
I did not follow the professor’s coverage. I agreed with you that he “jumped the shark” way back. I felt he was truly beating a dead horse.
I personally strongly oppose the Tea Party and the religious right – but I am also no fan of the Commissioner and felt he mismanaged the IRS.
I was lucky to catch the Pro before he goes into tax season hibernation. Bob refuses to use the expensive and unreliable software that he rest of the industry has embraced giving him a tax season that Joe Kirstan likens to a two month death march.
Paul Streckfus of the EO Tax Journal wrote me
It’s probably time, even if Lois Lerner is the gift that keeps on giving. What’s interesting is whether Trump wants to keep the scandal alive. The wild card is the House Freedom Caucus. They probably expect Sessions to open another investigation of Lois Lerner. If so, Caron may have stopped his countdown too soon!
The scandal has really devastated the IRS exempt function. The groundwork for the next scandal has been laid in this one. The ]next scandal will be about how nobody is watching exempt organizations creating a playground for scoundrels.