Intuitively, I'd be inclined to agree with you. However, how do you reconcile this assertion with the fact that it's being reported that not one group has been denied exempt status as a result of this increased scrutiny?

I'd say their definition of whats legitimate needs some fixing then.

i looked this up thinking it can't possibly be true...dear god, the party of stupid never ceases to amaze me with just how mind numbingly dumb they can get @_@

Bad, or nonexistent, parameters for what actually constitutes fraud concerning these "social welfare" groups. It just goes back to what I said earlier: the IRS has always been behind the curve when new tax laws spring up that foretell the rise of whatever shill entity that becomes the craze of that year. They were behind the 527s, and they are SO far behind on the 501c4s. The IRS and the FEC should investigate every single one of these groups because there's absolutely no reason they need tax-exempt status to do what they do, but when you're working with cooky tax laws there's only so much they can do. It's wrong of them to target anyone based on political preferences, but they need to find a way to start somewhere and fast.

Regardless if they were targeted or not, the sheer timing made Tea Party groups a victim. The fever surrounding their arrival on the national stage coincided with the SCOTUS decision, which coincided with the new practice of some random jackass now being able to say "hey, I'm going to start an organization to educate people about the Constitution, but all I'm really going to do is use it as a shill so I can move $10 million to Sharron Angle's campaign coffers." The timing played a big part in this, just like it did when the IRS went after the NAACP in 2004.



Look no further: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/05/voters-trust-clinton-over-gop-on-benghazi.html

In my opinion the funniest (and saddest) part of the entire report is this little nugget:



This party... lol

According to this poll, "this party" was more likely to correctly identify where Benghazi is 64% to 53%, constituted only 31% of the polling respondents, were half as likely to not know what Teapot Dome was, were still more likely than not to assert that Benghazi is not the worst scandal in US history, and finally, 'very liberal' people were almost as likely as 'somewhat conservative' to consider Benghazi the worst ever.

/fun with numbers.

Anyone know much about these 501(c)4 groups? According to a letter from an IRS official to Orrin Hatch, the law allows Section 501(c)(4) organizations to self-declare and hold themselves out as tax-exempt; they do not have to obtain any approval from the Internal Revenue Service, though they may. What were they trying to get from the IRS? The optional approval? Or did the IRS call them and challenge their declaration of a tax exempt status?

I found this article discussing what 501(c)4 groups are and what they're supposed to do http://theweek.com/article/index/244152/what-is-a-501c4-and-when-is-the-irs-supposed-to-investigate-one,:



I don't see how this isn't the primary activity of tea party groups, e.g. defeating a particular political candidate would not be a legit primary activity. Apparently Rove planned to have his 501(c)4 spend 50% on education so that would be their primary task (though I'm not sure if this was met).

This post was edited by N1ccolo on May 14 2013 05:03pm

By the way, anyone notice this in the Politico article?



If this is legit, the idea that it was fully motivated by political targeting could be unjustified.

LOL Politico. In any event: Of course it's unjustified. It's not a political controversy, and the IRS isn't a political entity. Now that it's been reported that various "leftist" groups faced the same delay maybe the slow thinkers in the headnodding crowd will figure this out. If not, then hopefully someone will read the IG report to them very slowly.



Here's the real problem with this entire episode: these groups should be flagged, they should face additional scrutiny, because they're guilty of tax fraud. While groups shouldn't be targeted because of political preference, if a group is stupid enough to put "Tea Party" in their name then they deserve to be flagged because as anyone that's familiar with 501c4's knows the most important rule created by the new tax laws is that the groups' primary focus must not be political, it must be promoting social welfare. The second-most important rule is that political expenditures must not exceed the 50% cap. Karl Rove didn't have half of his spending on "education," he assured his tax-exempt status for Crossroads when the IRS was completely overrun and made toothless (by his party of course) and then they went out last year and spent $100 million on attack ads. What the groups usually do to get around or through the cap rule is to dump a lot of their money on "consultants." Though the problem is that even when a group doesn't make the percentages work in accordance with the law, Rove's group being the best example, the agency is still too weak to do anything about it.

That's what's so dumb about this controvery. Marco "I have no idea who's running the IRS" Rubio is going to introduce legislation to "make sure the IRS can't..." and the only thing that's going to happen is that they're going to make the IRS weaker with the same playbook that they've been using since 2001, and there will be even less oversight in the future concerning these shill groups as there is now.



It's not surprising that you'd come to these conclusions given that you struggle with math and especially polling, but there are too many incorrect assumptions to let slide. I'm guessing you didn't read (or understand) the cross-tabs, or cross-tabs in general even. A 39-31-30 party self-identification breakdown is pretty close to the standard (and inside the accepted range) in order to receive an even number of responses. This is due to a number of factors (roughly 40% of self-identified "Independents" are actually core Republican voters, impacted "leaners" due to national party popularity/unpopularity) being the main two. So while 31% of respondents to this poll up front are self-identified Republicans, the actual opinions reach parity or extremely close to it. The opinions of the "someone else" 2012 voters spell that one out.

It's expected that a higher percentage of Republicans would identify which country Benghazi is in based solely on the fact that Benghazi is all they hear about from their "news sources." "Libya" will come up much more frequently in the cross-talk of Rush Limbaugh's rants or a "Breaking: New Revelations concerning Libya" scroller at the bottom of Fox News than it will on ABC, CBS, NBC, and the other sources that Democratic voters typically consult. The cross-tabs that score by self-identified ideology and not 2012 vote share bare this out. Democrats are treated to much more information and analysis on background checks, immigration reform, filibuster reform, the budget battle, VAWA, the fiscal cliff, and all the other things that have occurred over the last 8 months while Faux News has been going on and on and on about Benghazi.

The problem with each of your assumptions is scoring, but that's not entirely your fault because PPP accepted a poll with 8% who claimed they voted for someone else/couldn't remember (read: Romney), and you're not able to interpret findings adequately enough to know how hiccups in self-identification and leaners change things.

...so lets see...the IRS admits it was wrong...Obama says it was wrong...politicians from both side agree it was wrong... but Jay says it's okay and calls them tax frauds to boot ...what a hoot



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This post was edited by WidowMaKer_MK on May 15 2013 01:17pm