Just in case you get in an argument with your crazy uncle this weekend, here are some breaking facts to educate him.
All of the following quotes and excerpts are from this article: http://news.yahoo.com/...
1. Somewhat lost in the furor over the disclosure is that very few liberal organizations appear to have been approved either.
2. There is no evidence that groups with words like "progressive" or "Democratic" were targeted.
3. The numbers do suggest that the universe of nonprofit political organizations is small, and that liberal groups were not approved in droves while conservative ones were subject to endless bureaucratic rigmarole.
4. "According to the IRS database, there were 1,017 "social welfare organizations" approved for tax-exempt status in 2012. In IRS-speak, that's a 501c(4) organization of classification type 3. Donations to such groups are not tax-deductable, and they are often not required to disclose donors.
Of those, 28 have the words "tea party" or "patriots" in their name. Only seven have the word "progress"
Even by this more permissive metric, progressive organizations did not appear to receive special treatment compared to conservative ones, judging only by the numbers of organizations that were approved. That does not absolve the IRS from clearly inappropriate behavior. Nor does it suggest that the other side of the aisle had a massive advantage due to the violation.
There's no there, there in this IRS situation.