I’ve just got to take one more spin around the contrived IRS “scandal” track.
The Tea Party and its radical “Patriot” offspring are political organizations. They’re gaming the system by avoiding taxes by claiming alleged no-profit status. If I had any reservations about the IRS, it would be the question of how dense do you have to be as an investigative agency not to pick up on that irrefutable fact?
I will help out the easy-to-fool bureaucrats with some real life facts and figures, but first an observation. Maybe, just maybe, the IRS is heavy with Tea Party sympathizers. The IRS’ newly-resigned Interim Commissioner, Steven T. Miller, was once Deputy Commissioner for Services and enforcement under G.W. Bush. One of the entities he oversaw was the IRS Tax Exempt and Government Agencies Division tasked with looking into non-profit organizations. Maybe this is all a scam to make it look like the Tea Party and Patriot organizations were being intentionally targeted and gee, golly whiz, they’re just as honest as they can be. Why, we didn’t find anything suspicious. Maybe this phony patina of “the letter of the IRS law” behavior will spare any future snooping into the radical right’s non-profit business. There’s my paranoia. By the way, Daniel Werfel, the new acting IRS head, comes from the White House Budget office and has also worked for Republicans. Let us continue.
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A lot has been made of the IRS wanting to know who Tea Party donors and money supporters were while processing applications. This is apparently outside the bounds of the IRS right to know. It’s not outside my bounds and it’s no secret. The Koch brothers fund the political Pied-a-Terre for the Tea Party with substantial fiscal input from FreedomWorks. Jane Mayer let that cat out of the back way back in the August 30, 2010 issue of The New Yorker Magazine.
Mayer credits David and Charles Koch and other conservative foundations with greasing the tea party propaganda skids with multiple-millions of dollars. Organization and implementation money mostly came from FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity (AFP). David Koch and Koch Industries board member, David Fink, founded the latter.
Here are the requirements for retaining tax-exempt non-profit status as a 501 (c) (3) taken from Title 26: Internal Revenue Code, Part 1, Income taxes…
(3) Authorization of legislative or political activities. An organization is not organized exclusively for one or more exempt purposes if its articles expressly empower it:
(i) To devote more than an insubstantial part of its activities to attempting to influence legislation by propaganda or otherwise; or
(ii) Directly or indirectly to participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.
The easy conclusion is that the groups under scrutiny simply don’t meet those requirements.
Digging deeper into this tea party, Republican, political propaganda abyss, let’s take a peek at a recent South Carolina Tea Party convention speaker lineup. At the podium was the most right-wing Senator in all the land, Jim DeMint, just before leaving the Senate and assuming the leadership of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. Also making his way to the dais, Representative, Tim Scott, damn near as right-wing as DeMint and soon to assume his Senate seat. It’s Scott’s vacated seat that Mark Sanford recently won. This moral and ethical misfit was greeting by fellow House Republicans as a conquering hero.
Meanwhile back at the convention, Dick Armey, who at that time was still in the good graces of FreedomWorks, spread some of his predictable BS. Shortly thereafter Armey left his consultancy with the organization as FreedomWorks guaranteed him $400,000 a year until he was 92 (potentially $8 million if he were to live that long), to prevent a threatened Armey lawsuit; something about Matt Kibbe, another “FreedomWorker.” Kibbe was being groomed to be the new face of the organization. Armey accused Kibbe of pocketing book royalties that should have gone to FreedomWorks. The media hinted there was a gun involved. Yikes!
The State Republican Party Chairman said a few words, as ironically did Kibbe. There were a total of 4 FreedomWorks speakers over the two-day confab. The Tea Party Patriots founder spoke the first day. Tea Party state convention delegates also heard from the Republican governor, the Attorney General, Treasurer and the State’s Education Superintendent. There were also several “experts” on assorted issues (“Free Market Warrior”, Sharia Law, the fair tax) all slanted waaaay to the right. Appropriately, Michele wound things up.
According to the Southern Pverty Law Center, there were about 149 “patriotic” groups in 2008. Then a black man up and got himself elected president. The 2010 number of racists ‘er patriot groups skyrocketed to 1,274. Don’t know the latest numbers, but Obama is still in office so I’m betting they’re higher yet. As for tea party organizations, they number about 600-700 at latest count. Combined, you’ve got about 2,000 of these right-wing propaganda centers.
In light of what you’ve just read, please recall the core imperative for claiming a tax-exemption. No, it’s not the fact the 501 (c) (3) is engaging in political activity. It’s the imperative that “politics cannot be the primary mission.” For (c) (4’s) the requirements are a little more stringetn. So, if you’re nothing but a right-wing political mouthpiece; if that’s all you do all day, every day, the IRS is going to deny your application as a non-profit. Even if the Kochs stuff your pockets with money and Glenn Beck sings your praises. That’s why you’ve drawn special attention and asked to provide more info. Yes, you’re being rightfully “targeting” by the IRS.
In addition to “targeting”, the IRS was also accused of causing long delays because of their questions and record-producing demands of the applicants. Isn’t it just possible that the tea party or patriot organizations themselves took the extra time, hiding, changing and camouflaging certain requested information and stretching out the process themselves for PR purposes? Yes, it’s very possible!
Even though not a single application has been denied to this point, the tea party and patriot organizations have been taken down a peg. They thought their ‘Koch and friends’ Money Monkeys had insulated them against irritants like abiding by IRS regulations. Interesting the pressure would come from Cincinnati, not exactly the epicenter of progressive thought.
Consider your bluff called T’publicans. When all’s said and done and you continue to flaunt the rules, you’d better keep looking over your shoulders. The latest polls show the public is not much invested in your latest nonsense.
Raised rural & small town, then lived in N.Y., Chicago & LA. Widely traveled. Returned from world wandering to pursue media life of anchorman/reporter and major, medium and small market talk radio. Highly active in politics. Once worked as orderly & security in Mens Lock Ward for the Criminally Insane at a state institution. Much more rational population than current Teapublicans. Great concern for country run by and for the extreme wealthy. The inhumane current running through this country has no precedent in modern history.
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