IRS audits 10% of Tea Party donors

American Thinker ^ | 05/08/2014 | Rick Moran

[SeekAndFind]

When the IRS was targeting conservative groups seeking tax exempt status for special scrutiny, they demanded the list of donors supporting those groups in 17 cases. Despite assurances from the agency that the lists had been destroyed, a search requested by Congress revealed that at least 3 lists had survived. And of the donors on those lists, fully 10% of the individuals had been audited.

The rate of audits for ordinary Americans is about 1%.

Now, the House Ways and Means Oversight Committee is demanding that the Government AccoIRS intimidation on a whole other level.untability Office investigate the IRS to see why so many Tea Party donors were audited.

Washington Times:

“The committee uncovered new information indicating that after groups provided the information to the IRS, nearly one in 10 donors were subject to audit,” Rep. Charles W. Boustany Jr., Louisiana Republican and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee’s oversight panel, told IRS Commissioner John Koskinen at a hearing Wednesday.

“The abuse of discretion and audit selection must be identified and stopped,” he said.

[Democrat_media]

It's already been proven that the IRS was harassing those tea party groups in many ways . then the IRS demands a list of members or “donors” of those oppressed groups . then the IRS also audits 10% of those on the lists the IRS obtained.

the IRS is supposed to look at the whole population and then from that determine who to audit . and you say they did that . bs. then by sheer coincidence the audited end up on the same lists the IRS obtained from the tea party groups the IRS was already oppressing . no way that 10% audited from the general population end up on the same small lists of groups the IRS was ALREADY oppressing and harassing with books of questions. and you defend this tyranny. the IRS audited them because they were on those lists of tea party groups

these were 3 small lists . IRS audits 10% on those lists

The only common denominator was they were on those lists. what other criteria can you prove that caused them to be audited . you can't and are just defending tyranny

The IRS harassed these groups for months with unjust interrogations so you want us to believe the IRS wouldn't also audit them. the IRS was already committing a crime , targeting them , harassing them not letting them organize etc.

[Milton Miteybad]

"Defending tyranny?" Please. You're taking yourself and your questionable understanding of the facts far too seriously here.

I'm correctly pointing out, as others have, that some of these people would fall within well-established criteria for audit anyway. Would 10% so qualify under said guidelines? No, and we agree on that. But some of these people are likely to have been audited in any event, although it would probably be 1/4 to 1/3 of the number actually audited.

[Democrat_media]

Based on the IRS audits conducted in 2012, Americans who earned $50,000 to $100,000 faced an audit rate of just 0.64%,

from what i read of these groups that the IRS was already oppressing and from whom they obtained these member lists, their incomes should fall in that range. these people were not rich but middle class Americans wanting to be involved in the political process. the IRS denied them the right to be exempt from taxes and so they couldn't form. if they were so wealthy then they wouldn't need the tax exempt status .

the rate 10% is almost 20 times the regular rate. and coupled with the fact that the audited were on small lists the IRS was already oppressing then it is very likely the IRS audited them to intimidate them not randomly from the whole population

[nitzy]

Do you think it would be a good idea to more regularly audit businesses which owe large payments to the IRS than individuals who earn little income and are receiving a couple hundred dollars in returns? Wouldn't that be better stewardship of the public's money, to target resources on areas where there is more likely to be errors or fraud? If you agree, then you acknowledge that it may be beneficial to not look at all tax filings equally. Some factors are legitimate, some are not. Income, the amount of deductions, whether a business or not, etc...may be legitimate reasons to scrutinize a return. Political donations to tea parties are not a legitimate factor. We need to look at all of the data and determine which factors where being used in this case.

so you want us to believe the IRS wouldn't also audit them

When did I say that? I specifically said that they probably did. With a little more information we can be sure of it.

You are starting your argument by using statistics (10% vs 1% audited). When people on here suggest that we should keep using statistics to a deeper level to really nail down exactly what occurred, you claim there is no reason to do that. You seem to be saying that to look at any other statistics is simply covering for tyranny. We all agree that Obama is a tyrant. You see this 10% vs 1% number and think that you now have black and white clear cut evidence of his tyranny. It may be. But it may not be. For some reason you must be afraid of looking too closely at the data and I can't understand why. Don't you care about being right? Or is it more important to justify your narrative. Some people look at as much evidence as they can and then draw a narrative from it. Other people rely on emotions, intuition and anecdotes to draw a narrative then look for information that backs it up. When they find that information they cling to it tightly and refuse to acknowledge any other information that might contradict it.

I am not claiming your narrative is wrong. I am claiming your methods are.

[Democrat_media]

Based on the IRS audits conducted in 2012, Americans who earned $50,000 to $100,000 faced an audit rate of just 0.64%,

from what i read of these groups that the IRS was already oppressing and from whom they obtained these member lists, their incomes should fall in that range. these people were not rich but middle class Americans wanting to be involved in the political process. the IRS denied them the right to be exempt from taxes and so they couldn't form. if they were so wealthy then they wouldn't need the tax exempt status .

the rate 10% is almost 20 times the regular rate. and coupled with the fact that the audited were on small lists the IRS was already oppressing then it is very likely the IRS audited them to intimidate them not randomly from the whole population .

the IRS denied them the right to have tax exempt status . then the IRS demanded and obtained those lists of tea party members. and from those lists audited them at a rate of close to 20 times that would occur if they had not been on those lists.why would they commit one crime harassment , rejection of status (unjustly) and the so unlikely to not commit another of auditing them?

[nitzy]

from what i read of these groups that the IRS was already oppressing and from whom they obtained these member lists, their incomes should fall in that range. these people were not rich but middle class Americans wanting to be involved in the political process

Are you saying that all of the people who donated to these 3 tea party groups (the people who were audited at 10%) had incomes in the $50-$100 range, were not business owners, didn't claim a large number of exemptions, etc...? Where did you read this? We don't even know how many people were on the lists. For all we know, it could be 10 people and only one of them was audited. It could be 9 people who earned in the $50-$100K range that you mention and none of them were audited and one who was a business owner with $1,000,000 dollars in write offs who was audited. The point is that we don't know. If we investigate further we should find out.

...ts.why would they commit one crime harassment , rejection of status (unjustly) and the so unlikely to not commit another of auditing them?

I have said twice that there is a good chance they did. It is simply ignorant to state something as fact before seeing all of the data when there is data available to determine the ultimate truth.

[Huskrrrr]

LOL!

[Democrat_media]

you liberal you have no proof that their incomes were that high

rate of audit is .64% for up to $100,000 /year incomes.
IRS audited tea party groups at 10% almost 20 times the
rate of audit,. rate of audit was 20 times what it should be for these average Americans . very unlikely these tea party people were rich as you say or even over $100,000k per year as you say you lying liberal

[Rockitz]

From http://www.cnbc.com/id/101580865/

“10.9 percent of people making $1 million or more were audited.”

In other words, it’s probably not 11 to 1 (10/0.9) over auditing of Tea Party DONORS, but something significantly less.

[nitzy]

O.K. I am not sure if you are just messing with me, you have a very loose grip on the English language, your reading comprehension is terrible or if you are just flat out stupid.

The phrase in the English language "For all we know...." means "it is not yet known but it is possible". When I say "For all we know there could be 10 people and they make $XXX per year..." I am saying that it is possible. I am not claiming their incomes were actually that high. Only an idiot of incredible magnitude would claim as absolute fact a statistic about a group of unknown people with no evidence what so ever to back up their claim.

What I meant is that without a deeper understanding of the exact metrics we can't tell.

There may have only been 10 people who donated to those 3 groups and one got audited. In this case, it would be very stupid for conservatives to point to this case as an example of the evil of Obama. There are many better examples out there.
There may be a lot more than 10 people and a large group of middle income people got audited. In this case we need to look at other aspects of the numbers which may provide an explanation. If all other aspects of the statistics are analyzed and there is still no obvious reason for the higher number of audits then it would be right to say that the Obama administration targeted these people because they were on the lists.

Without more information, a person would be very stupid to make definitive, objective statements in regard to the audits.

If you copy and paste the .64% audit rate....20 times as high..blah blah blah..information again I will know once and for all that you are just messing with me. No one could actually operate a computer while being that stupid.

[Democrat_media]

you have no proof that their incomes were that high. i read about these people . they were average middle class Americans who were just trying to form tax exempt groups to engage in the political process. if they were so wealthy then they could have still participated instead of disbanding after the IRS rejected their tax exempt status. they were not wealthy. The IRS tyrannically rejected their applications (crime 1) , crime 2: endlessly harassed and interrogated these groups , crime 3 kept their “donor” or member lists illegally, , crime 4 audited the members on this list because they called themselves tea party groups

rate of audit is .64% for up to $100,000 /year incomes.
IRS audited tea party groups at 10% almost 20 times the
rate of audit,. rate of audit was 20 times what it should be for these average Americans . very unlikely these tea party people were rich as you say or even over $100,000k per year as you say you.

plus all of these people audited were from lists the IRS demanded of the already oppressed tea party groups. yeah sure the IRS would already commit one crime denying them their tax exempt status , then harassing them and then they become saints and don’t also audit them.bs. just them having that donor list is illegal much less auditing the members on that list as the IRS did for political reasons which is tyranny

doing a lot of spinning and covering up for Obama and the IRS aren’t you

[nitzy]

HAHAHAHAH. OK. You got me. Good one.

You really had me going for a while there.

[Democrat_media]

these tea party people the IRS audited were average Americans not millionaires. as you can see from this graph the IRS audited tea partiers at a rate close to millionaires. you keep posting lies on here that 10% is not too high . it is much to high and shows tyranny by the IRS and Obama. Even at $100,000 to $200,000 per year the audit rate is only 1%. your IRS you keep defending audited the people trying to form grass roots tea party groups at 10% , 10 times that rate . you are a liberal liar

[HiTech RedNeck]

nitzy = voice of presumption.

[Democrat_media]

nitzy is a democrat obama shill and has been spamming this board like a madman ,saying the IRS did nothing wrong etc. that 10% was not too high , that they were so rich. they were not rich but average Americans. please help reporting him to moderators

we must have hit on something as we can see the ferocity these shills for Obama are defending the IRS

[HiTech RedNeck]

Lists that turned up at random then were reviewed by Congress.

The GOP is not yet drama queeny like the Democrats are. I’d not expect the GOP to holler “Ten Percent!” based on a list of ten people. They are too sensible.

[Democrat_media]

good point, report nitzy to the moderators for repeatedly spamming this site defending the IRS tyranny of auditin tea party people at 10% , saying nothing to see here

[Democrat_media]

why would anyone defend the IRS and this IRS tyranny so savagely on a conservative site? obviously this nitzy and a few others here are leftist moles and leftist shills

[HiTech RedNeck]

One can always imagine anything, but folks like Darrell Issa are not known for making up fluff.

Sure let’s find out what we can if we can, but the GOP isn’t going to embarrass itself doing something as stupid as what nitzy thinks, especially since a lot of the GOP hates the tea partiers anyhow.