AP:
The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.
Organizations were singled out because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.
In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.
The IRS says the reviews took place in Cincinnati and covered 75 tea party groups. They also say that none of the groups had their status revoked, but that some withdrew their applications. According to the IRS, high-ranking officials were not aware of the targeting. The IRS Commissioner at the time was Douglas Shulman, who had been appointed by President George W. Bush.
As Greg Sargent notes, conservatives are calling for an investigation of the IRS—and as he says, they should get it, wherever it might lead. No group entitled to non-profit status should be targeted for political reasons, regardless of ideology. And at the same time, no scam artists should be allowed to rip off the public by posing as nonprofits when they are actually nothing but political grifters. So let's investigate and get to the bottom of this.
1:27 PM PT:
Tea party 501(c)4s should take comfort in the IRS's utter incompetence when it comes to enforcing tax exempt laws:
http://t.co/...
— @kenvogel via web
As I said, investigate!