The disclosure that the Internal Revenue Service had singled out applications from conservative advocacy groups seeking tax-exempt status for extra scrutiny has raised questions about the agency’s ability to regulate charities. See updated coverage of the controversy and documents that offer context on what it means for nonprofits.
Coverage From The Chronicle
IRS Offers Fast-Track for Advocacy Groups Awaiting Tax Exemptions
June 24, 2013 | Organizations that have waited more than 120 days can be approved quickly if they pledge not to spend more than 40 percent of their work on political activities.
Top IRS Official Defends Actions But Doesn’t Take Questions
May 22, 2013 | Lois Lerner, who oversees applications for tax-exempt status, said she did not hide anything from Congress about the tax agency’s efforts to single out conservative groups for scrutiny.
Lois Lerner, a Top IRS Official, to Plead Fifth-Amendment Right
May 21, 2013 | Ms. Lerner, who oversees monitoring of tax-exempt groups, has been accused of hiding news from Congress about efforts to single out conservative groups for scrutiny.
IRS Official Takes Tough Questions at Contentious Hearing
May 17, 2013 | The four-hour session included a call for another agency official to be let go but also laid bare the confusing rules that nonprofits and the IRS have to contend with.
IRS Rationale for Tea Party Scandal Is Debunked by Data
May 15, 2013 | Applications for tax exemption from advocacy nonprofits had not yet spiked when the Internal Revenue Service began using what it admits was inappropriate scrutiny of conservative groups in 2010.
Groups With Delayed Applications Could Have Sued IRS
May 15, 2013 | Organizations applying for 501(c)(3) status can sue the agency if their applications take longer than 270 days to process, according to a Treasury Department audit released Tuesday.
IRS Tea Party Scandal Could Cause Charity Fallout
May 13, 2013 | The news that conservative groups’ applications were singled out could hurt the agency’s ability to regulate nonprofits and scare nonprofits away from advocacy, say experts.
Coverage From Elsewhere Online
27-Year IRS Veteran to Replace Lois Lerner in Nonprofit Division
May 24, 2013 | Acting Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Danny Werfel tapped Ken Corbin as acting head of the agency’s exempt-organizations division after its embattled leader, Lois Lerner, was placed on leave, the Los Angeles Times writes.
Lois Lerner, Top IRS Charity Official, Placed on Leave
May 23,2013 | Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official who oversees charities and who has been at the center of the scandal over the scrutiny of conservative groups, was placed on administrative leave as of Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Opinion: IRS Official’s Silence Will Harm Search for Truth
May 23, 2013 | Lois Lerner’s decision to plead the Fifth Amendment before a House committee is “a huge loss for anyone who really wanted to know what happened” in the IRS/Tea Party scandal, writes David Firestone in a New York Times commentary.
Nonprofit D.C. Watchdog, Tea Party Groups Sue IRS
May 22, 2013 | A government watchdog group and Tea Party organizations are taking the Internal Revenue Service to court in separate suits related to the tax agency’s handling of 501(c)(4) nonprofits, according to Politico and the National Review Online.
Democrats Use IRS Hearing to Call for 501(c)(4) Oversight
May 22, 2013 | Senate Democrats used a Finance Committee hearing to call for greater controls on political activity by nonprofits, Reuters reports, and the inspector general for tax matters said his office will investigate the issue, according to Politico.
White House Says Obama Kept Out of Loop on IRS Inquiry
May 21, 2013 | Ranking White House officials were notified in late April about an inquiry into Internal Revenue Service scrutiny of conservative organizations but elected not to inform President Obama because the review was not yet finished, The Washington Post and The New York Times report.
Opinion: IRS Slow to Approve on Nonprofit Journalism Groups, Too
May 21, 2013 | Leaders of a transparency watchdog group and a nonprofit investigative-reporting organization assert in a Washington Post opinion piece that the “real scandal at the Internal Revenue Service” is not about targeting conservative political groups but about stifling journalism outfits.
Top White House Lawyer Learned of IRS Inquiry in April
May 20, 2013 | White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler was told last month that a Treasury Department inspector general had concluded an audit on the Internal Revenue Service’s screening of conservative organizations, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal write.
IRS Commissioner for Tax-Exempt Groups to Retire
May 17, 2013 | The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday that Joseph H. Grant, acting commissioner of the tax exempt and government entities division, will step down in June, according to The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Acting IRS Chief Ousted Over Scrutiny of Conservative Groups
May 16, 2013 | Steven T. Miller resigned Wednesday at the demand of President Obama as the administration took steps to quell the furor over the tax agency’s screening of conservative organizations seeking nonprofit status, The Washington Post writes.
FBI Opens Criminal Probe of IRS Screening Procedures
May 15, 2013 | U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that he has ordered the FBI to investigate whether the Internal Revenue Service’s heightened scrutiny of conservative organizations applying for nonprofit status broke any laws, Reuters and The Washington Post report.
Opinion: Politicization of Nonprofits the Real IRS Scandal
May 15, 2013 | The “faux controversy” over Internal Revenue Service scrutiny of conservative groups masks the “genuine scandals” in the tax agency’s lax oversight of politically oriented social-welfare organizations, a Los Angeles Times columnist writes.
IRS Officials Knew of Scrutiny of Tea Party Groups, Documents Suggest
May 14, 2013 | Heightened scrutiny of conservative groups seeking nonprofit status went beyond the Cincinnati office initially blamed for the scandal, and top two IRS officials knew about the actions a year ago, according to The Washington Post.
IRS Agents Expanded Scrutiny Beyond ‘Tea Party’ Groups
May 13, 2013 | Internal Revenue Service agents who singled out for extra scrutiny 501(c)(4) applications from groups with “Tea Party” in their name also screened organizations that criticized government spending and tax policy or said they were devoted to making “America a better place to live,” Reuters and The Wall Street Journal write.
IRS and GOP Tussle Over Scrutiny of Conservative Nonprofits
May 10, 2013 | An official at the Internal Revenue Service said the agency inappropriately screened some conservative groups seeking 501(c)(4) status more carefully than others based in part on their names, says The Wall Street Journal.
Opinion and Commentary
IRS Should Allow Social-Welfare Groups Unlimited Advocacy
May 16, 2013 | The inspector general’s report on the Tea Party scandal teaches an important lesson about the inherent difficulty of trying to regulate an activity that is impossible to define.
Scandal Should Prompt IRS to Clarify Rules
May 15, 2013 | To protect the integrity of groups pursuing nonpartisan activities, it’s important for the tax agency to be clearer about just what kinds of politicking social-welfare groups can pursue.
Data
How Many Groups Applied for Nonprofit Status, 2009 to 2012
May 20, 2013 | Applications and approvals for advocacy groups and charities hadn’t yet started to rise when the Internal Revenue Service began giving extra scrutiny to certain groups.
Documents and Multimedia
May 17, 2013 | Watch the recent House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the IRS controversy
Listen to Lois Lerner, head of the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt division, discuss the agency’s audits during a meeting of the American Bar Association in Washington.
See examples of questionnaires sent by the IRS to conservative advocacy groups seeking tax-exempt status:
A January, 2012 letter from the IRS to an unnamed organization.
A February, 2012 letter from the IRS to a conservative group in Oklahoma
An April, 2010 letter from the IRS to the Albuquerque Tea Party
A February 2012 letter from the IRS to a Tea Party group in Alabama
In his May 15, 2013, letter of resignation as acting IRS commissioner, Steven Miller cites a “strong and immediate need” to restore trust in the IRS.
Read an audit by the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration.
