re: #225 Killgore Trout

The IRS job is to administer the IRC. It means preventing entities from obtaining tax benefits and status they are not entitled to.

That includes the 501(c)(4) nonprofit status. Congress has not provided sufficient funding to check every single entity with as much scrutiny as there should be to prevent tax avoidance/evasion by gaining nonprofit status where none is deserved because the group is engaging in political activities.

This particular office used shorthands to try and weed out entities that were engaging in this kind of behavior. Some of them happened to be right wing groups. But they weren’t alone. Left wing groups also tried to gain the benefit.

Both sides should be prohibited as per the terms of IRC 501(c)(4) and associated regulations, rulings, and IRS materials.

Congress has refused to remedy the situation except for the GOP efforts to try and gut the IRS ability to vet entities seeking this exemption and punish the IRS for doing the job that Congress intended by writing the statute the way it did.

There are any number of real fixes for this - eliminate the exemption for political entities, provide an exemption specifically for any entity that engages in any kind of political activity, etc.

But the GOP uses the anti-government hatred to feed its insatiable need for campaign contributions, and anti-IRS rhetoric feeds that need like none other.

Yet, Issa’s investigations have found… bupkus as far as targeting of right wing groups to exclusion of all other groups. Issa specifically sought out only one kind of fact from the IRS and IG. He wanted to ignore the other side altogether, but when that’s taken into account, it shows the IRS was doing its job as intended.