Bryan Preston
PJ Tatler
PJ Media
5/13/2013
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) recently announced his retirement from the Senate. As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, though, he would be in charge of investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s years-long effort targeting conservative groups as long as he remains in the Senate. According to the Daily Caller, Baucus need look no further than his own desk for the origins of the targeting scheme.
Baucus wrote a letter to then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman dated September 28, 2010 urging the IRS to investigative nonprofit conservative groups during the Tea Party-dominated 2010 midterm elections.
“With hundreds of millions of dollars being spent in election contests by tax-exempt entities, it is time to take a fresh look at current practices and how they comport with the Internal Revenue Code’s rules for nonprofits,” Baucus wrote in the letter.
“I request that you and your agency survey major 501(c)(4), (c)(5) and (c)(6) organizations involved in political campaign activity to examine whether they are operated for the organization’s intended tax exempt purpose and to ensure that political campaign activity is not the organization’s primary activity,” Baucus wrote in the letter…
The article continues at PJ Tatler.
Related: IRS officials in Washington were involved in targeting of conservative groups
Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea party-affiliated groups…
IRS Not Just After Tea Party … Megyn Kelly Exposes List of Targets
…The IRS also wanted extra scrutiny on groups whose goals included limiting government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, anyone criticizing how the country was being run, and anyone lobbying to “make America a better place to live.”…
Revealed: The 55 questions the IRS asked one tea party group after more than two years of waiting – including demands for names of all its donors and volunteers
Why Liberals Should be Outraged that the IRS Targeted Conservatives
The IRS started targeting Tea Party members, “Patriots” and similar conservatives starting in 2010.
But the IRS’ harassment of conservatives expanded way beyond those groups…
