Eliana Johnson @ National Review:
From the outset, Internal Revenue Service lawyers based in Washington, D.C., provided important guidance on the handling of tea-party groups’ applications for tax-exempt status, according to both IRS sources and the inspector general’s report released in mid May.
Officials in the Technical Unit of the IRS’s Rulings and Agreements office played an integral role in determining how the targeted applications were treated, provided general guidelines to Cincinnati case workers, briefed other agency employees on the status of the special cases, and reviewed all those intrusive requests demanding “more information” from tea-party groups. At times, the Technical Unit lawyers seemed to exercise tight control over these applications, creating both a backlog in application processing and frustration among Cincinnati agents waiting for direction.
An IRS employee who asked not to be identified tells National Review Online that all members of the agency’s Technical Unit are based in Washington, D.C. A current list of Technical Unit managers provided by another IRS employee shows that all such managers are based at the agency’s headquarters on Constitution Avenue in the District of Columbia, and the IRS confirmed, in a testy exchange with National Review Online, that the Technical Unit is “based in Washington.”
According to the IRS source, who is based in Cincinnati, complex cases are routinely elevated to the Technical Unit for guidance. Many of the questions that agents sent to groups most likely came “from Tax Law Specialists — lawyers — in D.C.,” the Cincinnati employee explains. “With tea-party cases, questions from the Tax Law Specialists were way too aggressive,” he says. The Washington Postdescribed these lawyers as parsing “the murkier, more complex applications” — including those of tea-party groups.
This account comports with the one laid out in the inspector general’s report, although this aspect of the report has been neglected in much of the press coverage. On May 17, 2010, according to the IG report, Determinations Unit specialists in Cincinnati handling tea-party applications were instructed to “send additional information request letters to the Technical Unit for review prior to issuance.” Ten days later, the Technical Unit “began reviewing additional information request letters prepared by the Determinations Unit.”
The IG report indicates this became a source of frustration, and specialists in Cincinnati pressed for a streamlined approach. “Why does the Technical Unit need to review every additional information request letter when a template letter could be approved and used on all the cases?” they asked via e-mail. The Washington unit rejected this approach and, in February 2011, was developing individualized letters itself. According to the IG report, an update from the Technical Unit acting manager to the Determinations Unit manager indicated, “Letters were being developed and would be reviewed shortly.”
We now know that such letters asked for lists of groups’ reading materials and volunteers, copies of fliers, and printouts of Facebook pages.
This close and consistent involvement of Washington bureaucrats contradicts testimony offered May 17 by Treasury Department inspector general J. Russell George and acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller, who said that the scandal resulted from poor management and a lack of oversight. George told the House Ways and Means Committee that Determinations Unit specialists in Cincinnati sent letters to tea-party groups “with little or no supervisory review.” Yet the IG report itself indicates in its timeline that the letters were often written and reviewed by the Technical Unit.
Although this is no laughing matter, it is amusing to watch White House ”talking points” change from one day to the next.
A moral Jay Carney would have offered his resignation by now.
He knows he’s being used.
He must like it.
Waiting his turn to be thrown under the bus.
THIS is the most despicable actions deliberately done by an agency, which had given so much power,
they must be cut of in a radical way,
it show how OBAMA MINDSET has influence the HATEFUL WILL OF THE NATION
under his term, his multiple agencies he kept opening to sqeez the people into his oppressive agenda he has now arrive at the end of his term and is being exposed finaly
and not to soon,
he cannot refer this time as he usualy did, on the RACIST CARD, because he showed clearly how effectively he used it on the GOOD CITIZENS WHO SAW HIS INNER DARK AGENDA AND WOULD NOT LET IT PASS,
too bad they had to be tormented so long, before someone open the door to show how deep the IRS
had gone with the CITIZENS,
my previous story , I could never forget , of that young family who where broken apart because of the IRS ,was done on OBAMA WATCH, way back from the beginning the poor man who was selling newspapers from a corner boot harass and thrown out
of his house with his wife and children resulted in a broken marriage of that young family, because he owed money which was not that much, and could have been dealt with in a other manner,
is the story of how many? we’ll never find out, because they could not even think,
they could fight the IRS,
and it went on and on, now in the open it must be seriously dealt with surgical knives.
these are criminal actions
Steven Miller admitted that planting the question that sparked the IRS abuse scandal was his idea.
But was it his idea alone?
Jay Carney allowed that the White House was consulted about how to inform the public that the abuse had been going on.
Carney said that White House deputy chief of staff Mark Childress spoke with Treasury Department officials about how to best reveal the IRS’s targeting.
Man!
For a guy so ”engaged” in killing bin Ladin, Obama sure was out of the loop on this part of a much closer to home bit of executive responsibility!
Mark Childress is the deputy White House chief of staff, his boss is chief of staff Denis McDonough, right under Obama’s nose!
All the perks….vacas, golf, parties, (one big one tonight) Reggie Love, BUT NONE of the work.
What a life!
Nan G
hi,
I notice that you come with many different names just for the WHITE HOUSE ALONE,
how many of those work on the only job is to advise OBAMA,
and each one has to be careful how to do it? they all are scared stiff
OF OBAMA EXPLOSIVE CHARACTER, so what if he explode,
will he kill you or punch you?
he does have other way to destroy you?
like destroying your profile in public to make them hate you?
don’t worry about it, now we know him, and won’t believe anything he say
@NanG
“For a guy so ”engaged” in killing bin Ladin, Obama sure was out of the loop on this part of a much closer to home bit of executive responsibility!”
Of COURSE Ofraud is going to “take all the credit” when things go right, especially by way of Competent Professional United States Military Navy Seals who don’t screw things up... seems like the Navy Seals are the ‘Only Professionals’ Ofraud has going for him….
You bet Ofraud will be ‘engaged’ especially, ESPECIALLY when it will advance him politically…remember the Ofraud motto… it’s all about ME, MYSELF AND I…
“All the perks….vacas, golf, parties, (one big one tonight) Reggie Love, BUT NONE of the work.
What a life!”
So now I know why it will take Obummber A WEEK to show up in devastated Moore, Oklahoma, to show SUPPORT and empathy for those Fellow Americans Hurting… Yea, there is that ME, MYSELF and I thing going on again…. Oh, wait, he’s a narcissist… they only know how to “feign” empathy…. and pick and choose who to feign it on…
@FAITH7: But we all know that our Dear Leader PBUH cares. He’s just so busy with affairs of state, making sure that the country runs smoothly to the bottom of the cliff,to go to Oklahoma. Besides they didn’t vote for him did they or better yet, give him money for his never ending campaign.
IRS tea-party bloodbath continues in Congress, as evidence emerges that IRS’s own internal probe ended in May 2012, six months before election, but was hidden from legislators
Even some Democrats were upset:
Feathers are flying. One wonders when the barrels of tar will be rolled in.
Just came across this on Drudge:
Darrell Issa: Lois Lerner lost her rights
Let us not forget that this is the same IRS official who joked with a reporter about her poor math skills explaining that she was a lawyer not an accountant. She surely learned in law school that you can’t turn the 5th amendment on when you want it and off when you don’t.
Recall that a day or so back, several Liberal journalists were called to the White House (but not members of the WHpress corps) .
So, what talking point was given?
It took a news cycle, but now we know.
And the irony is delicious!
Those attendees to the private White House meet are all calling for IRS heads to roll!
They want FIRINGS!
Now for the irony:
The IRS agents are part of a powerful union.
Firing is OUT OF THE QUESTION!
fire THE UNION ALL TOGETHER,
why the UNION IN GOVERNMENT JOBS ANY WAY,
Are they afraid to be screw by the GOVERNMENT WHO HIRE THEM?
this should not be, if they can do what they want and arrogantly treat the PEOPLE LIKE SHIT
for years and to win an election they should be close,
NO UNION Needed, is the PEOPLE they deal with UNIONIZE? no, this GOVERNMENT IS RUN AS A COMMUNIST PARTY,
ELECTED FRAUDULENTLY AS A DEMOCRAT PARTY,
THIS NOT AMERICA
let them be on their own and accountable not to their UNION
but to the PEOPLE THEY ARE SUPPOSE TO SERVE in a polite and respectfull manner as they are given by the PEOPLE