A federal watchdog investigating whether the Internal Revenue Service unfairly targeted conservative political groups seeking tax-exempt status said that the agency also scrutinized organizations associated with liberal causes from 2004 to 2013.
The findings by the Treasury Department’s inspector general mark the end of a political firestorm that embroiled the I.R.S. in controversy, led to the ouster of its commissioner and prompted accusations the tax collection agency was being used as a political weapon by the Obama administration.
The exhaustive report, which examined nine years worth of applications for tax-exempt status, comes after a similar audit in 2013 found that groups with conservative names like “Tea Party,” “patriot” or “9/12” were unfairly targeted for further review.
The new report found that the I.R.S. was also inappropriately targeting progressive-leaning groups. While the investigation does not specify the political affiliations of the groups, names that were flagged included the words “Progressive,” “Occupy,” “Green Energy,” and Acorn — the acronym for the now defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
A spokeswoman for the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration noted that the report makes no characterization of the political leanings of any of the groups.
To be honest, while I appreciate that this report has come out, we ALREADY knew all of this years ago.
Almost from the second that the conservatives were pissing themselves with outrage that the IRS was "targeting" them, many news sites were publishing information which completely refuted their faux outrage.
And the fact is that the Right Wing media undoubtedly knew that it was all bullshit, but they also knew their audience was made up of drooling slack jawed morons who were never going to look for alternative information sources and would prove easy to manipulate into a frenzy.
What's more is that this report will not change a single mind because the idea that the government was out to quash the conservative movement fees into their confirmation bias, and nothing will rattle that cage.
Source http://ift.tt/2fSvCGf
