[EL] IRS

[Rick Hasen]

<http://electionlawblog.org/>


    IRS Statement: "Mistakes Were Made"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=50128>

Posted on May 10, 2013 10:45 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=50128> by 
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

IRS Statement:

    Between 2010 and 2012, the IRS saw the number of applications for
    section 501(c)(4) status double. As a result, local career employees
    in Cincinnati sought to centralize work and assign cases to
    designated employees in an effort to promote consistency and
    quality. This approach has worked in other areas. However, the IRS
    recognizes we should have done a better job of handling the influx
    of advocacy applications. While centralizing cases for consistency
    made sense, the way we initially centralized them did not. Mistakes
    were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or
    partisan rationale. We fixed the situation last year and have made
    significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our
    system. To date, more than half of the cases have been approved or
    withdrawn. It is important to recognize that all centralized
    applications received the same, even-handed treatment, and the
    majority of cases centralized were not based on a specific name. In
    addition, new procedures also were implemented last year to ensure
    that these mistakes won't be made in the future. The IRS also
    stresses that our employees -- all career civil servants --- will
    continue to be guided by tax law and not partisan issues.

According to tweets from the IRS conference call, one of the IRS 
officials said he or she was "not good at math."  Links to press 
coverage to come.

This is not one of the best days for the IRS. Conservatives are 
absolutely right to call for a congressional investigation of this one, 
even if it turns out to be an isolated problem.

And we should not lose sight of the need for serious disclosure reform, 
to deal fairly and fully with shadow super PACs which have taken the 
501c4 and other forms to avoid constitutional disclosure of large 
amounts of money being used to fund election advertising.

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-- 
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org

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