Congressional Hearings on IRS to Begin Tomorrow

Get ready for non-stop hearings on the IRS using selective search criteria to single out Tea Party groups applying for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status. It starts tomorrow when the House Ways and Means Committee hears testimony from freshly-ousted acting commissioner Steven Miller. Then on Tuesday the Senate Finance Committee will hold its first hearing. The next day, according to Jonathan Weisman's story, "I.R.S. Chief Out After Protest Over Scrutiny of Groups," 

the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hear the testimony of Lois Lerner, who heads the I.R.S.'s division on tax-exempt organizations and was aware of the issue nearly from the beginning, in 2010, yet told reporters on Friday that she had learned of it from news reports in 2012. 

“Lois Lerner lied to me,” said Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, who helped initiate the Congressional investigation of the I.R.S.

Republicans are going to turn this into a search for false statements; they'll construct timelines and talk of smoking guns and grand conspiracies. Democrats, if they're smart, will bring it back to the elephant in the room -- abuse of the tax code. The 501(c)(4) classification is sought after because it doesn't require disclosure of donors. Many well-heeled political money-men like to remain in the shadows. The whole thing could be cleared up by Congress requiring any organization engaged in political spending (which would have to be defined legislatively) to file as a 527 group; 527 status is tax exempt but it requires disclosure of contributions.

And possibly, the hope here is with the Senate since this is where Democrats maintain control, the role of the nefarious Koch brothers can be revealed. Check out the last paragraph from Weisman's story:

The I.R.S. released a list of 176 groups that have been granted tax-exempt status through the review process, which centralized operations in Cincinnati in order to deal with a crush of applications that began in 2010 with the Tea Party movement. That list included organizations with names like American Patriots Against Government Excess; Rebellious Truths; the Coalition for a Conservative Majority; and Friends of the Constitution; as well as dozens of Tea Party chapters.

I know from having been a treasurer for a local chapter of a political party in a state and a city with strict disclosure laws that IRS filings can be the trickiest and most confusing. For there to have been a sudden "crush" of groups applying for social welfare tax exemptions as opposed to exemptions as political organizations tells me that some sort of central counsel was being provided. Who was supplying that counsel? This is where Democrats should push back.