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IRS and Obama State Department conferred about ways to deny tax-exempt status to pro-Israel groups

Jul 29, 2014 12:03 pm By Robert Spencer

IRSObama ought to be impeached for this alone. He has turned the United States government into an instrument to punish his political enemies, and shows in this particular incident how deeply he hates Israel and how ardently he supports the “Palestinian” jihad. Obama and the Left seem bent on destroying what was one of the great achievements of the United States: the continued existence of a loyal political opposition that was not subject to violence or oppression, but allowed to operate freely and accorded respect, as it accorded the same respect to the majority. Those days are over. There is a single perspective that is allowed in the mainstream media, the educational system, and the entertainment industry, and now Obama has gone one step beyond that and endeavored to make a group’s legal privileges subject to its submission to his political line. Dark days, indeed.

“The IRS’s Foreign Policy,” Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2014:

The IRS has stuck by its story that tax-exempt applications by conservatives got slow-rolled because of bureaucratic bungling not because the groups opposed President Obama’s policies. Now the slow drip of email evidence to congressional investigators is casting further doubt on that tale.

In 2009 the Pennsylvania group Z Street applied for tax-exempt status for its mission of educating people about Israel-related issues. In 2010 an IRS agent told Z Street that its application was delayed because the tax agency’s Washington, D.C. office was giving special scrutiny to groups whose missions might conflict with Administration policies. The IRS’s “Be On the Lookout” list that November also included red flags for groups referring to “disputed territories.”

Z Street sued in August 2010 for viewpoint discrimination and its case is headed for discovery in federal court. Emails uncovered by the House Ways and Means Committee show that the IRS and State Department were conferring in 2009 about pro-Israel groups like Z Street and considering arguments to deny their tax-exempt applications.

In an April 16, 2009 email, Treasury attache to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem Katherine Bauer sent IRS and Treasury colleagues a 1997 JTA News article sent to her by State Department foreign service officer Breeann McCusker. The subject was whether 501(c) groups buying land in Israel’s disputed territories were engaged in “possible violations of U.S. tax laws.” The article chronicles the controversy and whether “ideological activity” can “legally be financed with the help of U.S. [tax] dollars.”

“Thought you might find the below article of interest—looks like we’ve been down this road before,” Ms. Bauer wrote. “Although I believe you’ve said you can’t speak to on-going investigations, I thought it was worth flagging the 1997 investigation mentioned below for you if it can be of any use internally when looking for precedence [sic] for the current cases.” A Treasury spokesman declined comment on Ms. Bauer’s behalf.

The “current cases” would have been applications like Z Street’s in which Israel-related activity was apparently being scrutinized for its ideological and policy content. The government says Z Street got special scrutiny because it was focused in a region with a higher risk of terrorism, which is hard to believe and in any case doesn’t explain all of the IRS’s behavior.

It doesn’t cover, for instance, why one questionnaire we’ve seen from the IRS to another Jewish group applying for tax-exempt status asked, “Does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel?” and “Describe your organization’s religious belief system toward the land of Israel.” No matter the answers, they should not affect the processing of an application for 501(c) status. The State-IRS emails reveal a political motivation for IRS scrutiny that gives Z Street powerful evidence for its suit charging IRS bias….

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Filed Under: Barack Obama Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Richie says

    Jul 29, 2014 at 12:17 pm

    His list of crimes seems endless!

    Im surprised he doesn’t demand a jizya tax from all non Muslims in America, so Muslims can live on the dole

  2. Beagle says

    Jul 29, 2014 at 12:27 pm

    Obama weaponized the federal government against his political opposition and capitulated to political Islam. That’s his legacy.

    • Juan Eduardos says

      Jul 29, 2014 at 1:50 pm

      I’ve always been confused why the American people made the decision to elect a Muslim president, when they know that radical Islam is more dangerous to the world than Adolf Hitler ever was.

  3. Daniel Triplett says

    Jul 29, 2014 at 12:53 pm

    If this doesn’t qualify as a “high crime or misdemeanor,” I don’t know what does.

    One more reason we should eliminate the IRS and income tax, switching to a Fair Tax (National Sales Tax). This way the IRS and the tax system can never be used as a political weapon/tool again.

    • Lawrence says

      Jul 29, 2014 at 2:35 pm

      Whatever anyone’s problem with specific fair tax proposals, I agree they all pale beside the use of the tax code as we now see it. I say use of the tax code and not abuse of the tax code because there is no abuse.

      Its the tax code that is an abuse. There actually is nothing out of scope for the IRS to deny tax exempt status for pro Israel or anti Left groups. The tax exemptions were created solely to fund the Left and the tax code never had any different purpose.

      The idea that there is a way to impartially implement the tax code without bias is a dream. Lets look at where the power lies. The tax laws that exempt certain organization from paying income tax is wholly insignificant. If they had to pay income tax, the amounts would be negligible.

      What is important in these tax codes are the contributions that come off of taxable income of the contributor. Conservatives have not learned that they cannot compete tax-wise with the Left because the tax legislation was passed by the Left for the Left.

      Better to eliminate the whole 501 status and restrict tax deductible contributions to true and actual charities, established religious institutions, and true educational institutions. All with a limit to endowment size as a percent of total ongoing expense and which point contributions are not tax deductible.

      Also if someone works in a true charity their income should be exempt from taxes as well – after all if their organization is tax exempt because they are truly a charity, and the organization’s employees are doing the charitable work, then they should be tax exempt for the same reason.

  4. Rocky Lore says

    Jul 29, 2014 at 6:12 pm

    Now we know what Hamas-linked CAIR was never targeted.

  5. pdxnag says

    Jul 30, 2014 at 1:20 pm

    It is Islam and all Islam-based entities and organizations that must be denied recognition as lawful or entitled to favorable tax treatment, if for no other reason than the Islamic penalty of death for apostasy from Islam. This is sufficient in and of itself. A predicate to recognition is that their founding documents prescribe lawful activities, which must also mean that they do not contain commands to kill, e.g., apostates from Islam.

    The contrary proposition would hold that the Democratic Party could contain a provision mandating that a member who switches to unaffiliated or Libertarian or Republican must be killed, and nevertheless remain recognized as a lawful and tax-favored entity.

  6. william Hausman says

    Jul 30, 2014 at 6:31 pm

    Whatever could be expected from that man who spent 20 years hearing anti-Semitic rant from that “minister”; and who had visit him in the White House that Minister of The Nation of Islam 27 times! (Visiters to the White House have to sign a register upon entering—so it’s public information.)

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