***Hearing on IRS Targeting tomorrow at 11 AM***
?
New testimony from career IRS officials in Washington, D.C. reveal that the Director of the IRS Exempt Organizations division Lois Lerner overruled the judgment of a career Washington, D.C. IRS lawyer and ordered Tea Party cases to go through a multi-layer review that included her senior advisor and the IRS Chief Counsel?s office.? The IRS Chief Counsel?s office is led by William Wilkins, one of two Obama Administration political appointees at the IRS.
?The chief counsel?s office for the Internal Revenue Service, headed by a political appointee of President Obama, helped develop the agency?s problematic guidelines for reviewing ?tea party? cases, according to a top IRS attorney.? In interviews with congressional investigators, IRS lawyer Carter Hull said his superiors told him that the chief counsel?s office, led by William Wilkins, would need to review applications that the agency had screened for additional scrutiny because of potential political activity.
?
Bloomberg News:? IRS?s Lerner Slowed Tea Party Review, Republican say
Lois Lerner, who oversaw tax-exempt organizations at the Internal Revenue Service, slowed the consideration of Tea Party groups? applications, House Republicans said in a letter today.? The Republicans, who are seeking more information from the agency, cited statements made to congressional investigators by IRS employees.? Carter Hull, a recently retired IRS lawyer based inWashington, told investigators that Lerner?s office made an unusual request to delay decisions on applications when he thought he had enough information to decide whether the groups were impermissibly involved in political activities. Instead, Hull said, the IRS chief counsel?s office wanted to gather more information on what the groups did in the 2010 election cycle.The chief counsel office?s ?involvement and demands for information about political activity during the 2010 election cycle appears to have caused systematic delays in the processing of Tea Party applications,? said the letter, whose signers include Representative Darrell Issa of California, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Dave Camp ofMichigan, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.? Hull, who worked at the IRS for 48 years, will testify tomorrow at a hearing before the oversight panel as part of the congressional inquiries into the IRS?s scrutiny of Tea Party organizations and other small-government groups.
?
USA Today:? Top IRS lawyers had role in targeting, GOP says
Congressional Republicans say they have evidence that the office of the Internal Revenue Service chief counsel was directly involved in seeking more information about the political activities of Tea Party groups leading up to 2010 elections.? The IRS chief counsel, William Wilkins, is one of only two IRS officials appointed by the president?The instruction to send Tea Party applications to the chief counsel?s office came through Lois Lerner, the former head of the IRS?s exempt organizations office, according to excerpts of closed-door testimony of Michael Seto. He was in charge of a unit that advised front-line agents on processing applications for tax exemptions?Seto said Lerner ? who has refused to testify before Congress ? sent him an e-mail in 2010 saying certain Tea Party cases had to ?go through multi-tier review and they will eventually have to go ? to the chief counsel?s office.?
The cases were sent to the chief counsel?s office, which ? after months of delay ? sent them back seeking more information.? ?I was taken aback,? said Carter Hull, a now-retired lawyer in Seto?s unit, according to a partial transcript of his interview with the Oversight Committee. ?I hadn?t had the case for a while. I couldn?t ask if I didn?t have the case.?
?
The Hill:? GOP says IRS chief cousnel?s office had role in Tea Party delays
House Republicans charged Tuesday that the IRS chief counsel?s office played a role in the delay of Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status.? In a letter, four leading GOP lawmakers said that the office of the IRS?s top lawyer took unique interest in Tea Party cases, reviewing applications even after a veteran specialist said there was enough information to make a decision.
Lois Lerner, an IRS official at the center of the controversy, made the request to send tax-exemption applications to the chief counsel?s office, according to an agency official. Carter Hull, a Washington-based tax law specialist charged with reviewing the tax-exemption forms, told investigators he was asked to send an application to a senior adviser to Lerner, something that had never before happened in his 48-year career. That claim had not been revealed publicly before Wednesday?The IRS said in May, just days after the controversy broke, that its chief counsel, William Wilkins, didn?t learn about the targeting until this year, and that the chief counsel?s office has some 1,600 attorneys. Wilkins, the IRS added, had no role in overseeing applications for tax-exempt 501(c)(4) status.
In their letter, Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) press Danny Werfel, the interim IRS chief, to speed up delivery of already requested documents on the chief counsel?s conversations with Treasury?s general counsel and the White House.? ?As a part of this ongoing investigation, the committees have learned that the IRS chief counsel?s office in Washington, D.C. has been closely involved in some of the applications,? the four Republicans wrote to Werfel.? ?Its involvement and demands for information about political activity during the 2010 election cycle appears to have caused systematic delays in the processing of Tea Party applications.?
2013.07.17-DEI-Jordan-Camp-Boustany-to-Werfel-REDACTED
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TMRNetwork/~3/6fqX9WOXrAA/
jason smith jon corzine austin rivers austin rivers sweet home alabama etch a sketch the host
No comments:
Post a Comment