{"id":214,"date":"2013-05-17T17:36:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-17T17:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/05\/17\/turn-up-the-heat-but-do-it-evenly-and-fairly"},"modified":"2013-05-17T17:36:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-17T17:36:00","slug":"turn-up-the-heat-but-do-it-evenly-and-fairly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=214","title":{"rendered":"Turn up the heat, but do it evenly and fairly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

The Internal Revenue Service boss believes his agency didn\u2019t do anything illegal when it targeted conservative groups\u2019 seeking tax-exempt status.<\/p>\n

He did, though, say the behavior was \u201cobnoxious.\u201d <\/p>\n

http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/on-the-money\/domestic-taxes\/300447-irs-chief-defends-targeting-of-groups-as-obnoxious-not-illegal<\/a><\/p>\n

This story continues to swirl. It involves the IRS giving extra scrutiny to tea party-type groups seeking exemptions from paying taxes. They seek non-profit status. The IRS has rules about that, saying that political groups don\u2019t qualify. I happen to question whether tea party patriots, such as they are, qualify as non-profits organizations the way, say, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army do.<\/p>\n

Of course the revelation of the hassling of these groups has drawn the ire of conservatives all across the country. President Obama called it \u201coutrageous.\u201d The interim IRS boss has resigned and the president vows to work \u201chand in hand\u201d with Congress to ensure fair treatment all across the board.<\/p>\n

And right there is the answer.<\/p>\n

The IRS must follow the law in vetting these groups. It must do so without bias or prejudice. Is this the first time the IRS has gone after political groups? Well, no. During the Bush administration, the IRS reportedly hassled liberal<\/em> political action groups seeking the same status as the tea party folks. The alleged motive at the time was because of their opposition to our war effort in Iraq. The IRS probe of these groups raised a bit of a ruckus at the time, but nothing like what has occurred in recent days. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m guessing conservatives are better at roiling the waters than liberals, given that the IRS matter plays right into the right-wing\u2019s wheelhouse of distrust of The Taxman.<\/p>\n

The IRS matter isn\u2019t likely to be settled soon. It will fester likely for the remainder of the president\u2019s term in office. If we take the long view, the matter should result in tough \u2013 but fair \u2013 treatment for all<\/em> those groups on both ends of the spectrum who think they should be taken off the tax rolls.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Internal Revenue Service boss believes his agency didn\u2019t do anything illegal when it targeted conservative groups\u2019 seeking tax-exempt status. He did, though, say the behavior was \u201cobnoxious.\u201d http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/on-the-money\/domestic-taxes\/300447-irs-chief-defends-targeting-of-groups-as-obnoxious-not-illegal This story continues to swirl. It involves the IRS giving extra scrutiny to tea party-type groups seeking exemptions from paying taxes. They seek non-profit status. The … Continue reading Turn up the heat, but do it evenly and fairly<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}