My dad once shared an observation revealing one of his concerns: “The only group that ever got Al Capone was the IRS,” he told me in a near whisper.
He grew up in the days of G-men and mob violence. He knew that Capone had skated time after time when he was brought to trial. In the end Capone was imprisoned from 1931 until 1939, including a stint at the new federal prison, Alcatraz.
Capone went to prison for income tax evasion. The IRS finally got him.
The recent flap over the IRS reminds us of the power both of taxation and of enforcement of the tax code.
I watched a little of the bipartisan grilling acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller underwent. Even Charlie Rangel, whose has his own history of tax problems, called the behavior of the IRS an “overreach.”
“I mean, this is wrong to abuse the tax system,” Rangel said.
At issue is a documented paper trail that shows the IRS delayed issuing tax-exempt status to conservative groups, such as the Tea Party. Miller admitted that partisanship has no place in IRS considerations. Miller then said he did not believe partisanship had played a role in the decisions to grant tax-exempt status to certain groups, mostly liberal or progress, while withholding it from other groups, mostly conservative, for nearly three times as long.
Miller told the House Ways and Means Committee that “foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient in their workload selection.” Part of that attempt at efficiency seemed to include using certain key words as a selection criteria for greater scrutiny, words such as “Tea Party,” “patriot,” and “conservative.”
“Foolish mistakes” would seem to imply a few instances in a compact period of time that delayed the approval process.
In fact, when USA Today reviewed data from the IRS, investigators found that while Tea Party groups had been awaiting word on tax-exempt status for 27 months, groups with the words “progress” or “progressive” in their names had applications for non-profit status approved in roughly nine months.
Such a pattern argues against “foolish mistakes.”
Even U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, no friend of conservative groups, called the behavior of the IRS personnel involved “outrageous and unacceptable.” Part of that unacceptable behavior involved posing intrusive questions about associations and even religious matters. Holder has promised to investigate whether IRS personnel committed any crimes.
The hearings around the behavior of some IRS personnel raise two more important questions:
First, why do any groups, either on the right or the left, receive non-profit, tax-exempt status to promote their essentially political messages? Why should taxpayers be forced to subsidize political views? Surely, if I believe in a cause, I do not need a promise that my gifts are potential tax write-offs in order for me to give to that cause.
If the message is importance, I am willing to put my money where that message is.
But even more important is the realization that the IRS will be in charge of administering a large part of the Affordable Health Care Act, aka Obamacare. In fact, Sarah Hall Ingram, who headed the IRS tax-exempt division when this “outrageous and unacceptable” behavior began, is now in charge of the IRS division administering the IRS side of Obamacare.
I shudder to think what the impact of more “foolish mistakes” could have in the healthcare field. Just how much information will Ingram and her associates seek as they make tax determinations under the provisions of Obamacare?
Does anyone else see a problem with involving the IRS in the healthcare field?
I fear even more that congressional “investigators” will spend more time trying to affix blame than fixing the problems. If the high-handed tactics of some of the IRS personnel in the division of tax-exempt status ends up mirrored in the administration of Obamacare, we may end up with a more crippled healthcare system than we believed possible.
Mike Parker is a columnist for The Free Press. You can reach him at mparker16@suddenlink.net or in care of this newspaper.