By Alan Joel ——Bio and Archives--June 15, 2014
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"[the IRS] sent a database on 501(c)(4) social-welfare groups containing confidential taxpayer information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to documents obtained by a House panel. The information was transmitted in advance of former IRS official Lois Lerner's meeting the same month with Justice Department officials about the possibility of using campaign-finance laws to prosecute certain nonprofit groups. E-mails between Lerner and Richard Pilger, the director of the Justice Department's election-crimes branch, obtained through a subpoena to Attorney General Eric Holder, show Lerner asking about the format in which the FBI preferred the data to be sent".
It also came to light in April that "House Oversight Committee show staff working for Democratic Ranking Member Elijah Cummings communicated with the IRS multiple times between 2012 and 2013 about voter fraud prevention group True the Vote. True the Vote was targeted by the IRS after applying for tax exempt status more than two years ago. Further, information shows the IRS and Cummings' staff asked for nearly identical information from True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht about her organization, indicating coordination and improper sharing of confidential taxpayer information".But we don't know anything about 2009--2011. Except at some point, emails did exist. Flashback: Remember the TIGTA report? You can read the entire Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, (TIGTA) timeline report here. Incredibly, this report, released in May 2013, names "email" as the source for much of their timeline documenting events in 2010 and 2011, but possibly now, those emails are "lost". Sixteen out of the 26 non-redacted events in that timeline refer to "email" as the source. Take a look. And, what was redacted? We don't know. Again, the IRS claims it only "has Lerner emails to and from other IRS employees during this time frame...it cannot produce emails written only to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups, such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices." The ability for an inbox to lose certain emails during the time frame--but not others--is incredible. David Camp hits the nail on the head when he notes that, "because of this loss of documents, we are conveniently left to believe that Lois Lerner acted alone". See how it works? Since the IRS cannot produce any hardcopy evidence of corroboration, the Obama Administration and its agencies are conveniently spared
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Alan Joel has been a practicing CPA in NYC for more than 40 years. He loves liberty and writes on the politics of taxes at his popular blog, AlanJoelNY.com