By Robert Romano Things are getting very, very interesting in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal targeting tea party and other 501(c)(4) organizations, with the House Committee on Oversight leading the investigation issuing a wide-reaching subpoena for executive branch documents. Included in the request made by committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Ind.) to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew are all of the communications […]

By Robert Romano The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeting of tea party and other 501(c)(4) organizations has now reached the post of the agency’s top lawyer, chief counsel William Wilkins, a political appointee. The bombshell was revealed in recent congressional testimony as reported by the House Oversight Committee . How far we have come. […]

By Robert Romano “Political campaign intervention in 501(c)(4)s was not something we have previously dealt with very much.” That is how Holly Paz, in 2010 the manager of the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Exempt Organizations technical office, based in Washington, D.C., described to congressional investigators her office’s lack of experience dealing with political cases for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organizations . 501(c)(4)s are the groups that […]

By Robert Romano An Americans for Limited Government review of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revenue procedures has revealed that the Determinations Unit responsible for targeting tea party and other groups applying for tax-exempt status was required to send certain applications to the Exempt Organizations (EO) Technical office […]

By Robert Romano Congressional Democrats continued with a common theme focusing on whether 501(c)(4) organizations, which do not have to disclose donors publicly, should be allowed to engage in any political activity at a May 22 House oversight hearing on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeting of […]

By Robert Romano Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is pleading her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself in the ongoing Congressional investigation over targeting by the agency of the tea party. Lerner was set to give testimony before the […]

By Robert Romano In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, outgoing Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Steven Miller’s suggested that the targeting of tea party and other groups was in part caused by Congress’ failure to provide “clear rules” on what constitutes political activity. “With […]

By Marta H. Mossburg Less than two weeks ago President Obama stood in front of graduates from The Ohio State University and told them to reject those who warn of government tyranny. “Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing […]

By Robert Romano “We were simply doing what our bosses ordered.” So say the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees in Cincinnati who were charged with targeting tea party and other conservative groups with improper and invasive scrutiny , according a Fox19 in Cincinnati exclusive report on May 15 . If true, this seemingly contradicts a Treasury Inspector General report on the matter released earlier that day , which stated: “the […]

By Robert Romano Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) in a 2010 letter requested that then-Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Douglas Shulman deeply investigate 501(c) non-profit political organizations. The letter called on Shulman to “survey major 501(c)(4), (c)(5) and (c)(6) organizations involved in political campaign activity to examine whether […]