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Bill to Curb IRS Abuse Passes House

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed legislation that seeks to limit the Internal Revenue Service from ever again being used as a partisan political tool, a practice that the Obama Administration has used to a degree never before experienced in American politics.

The weaponization of the IRS, which came to light in 2013, took two major forms. First, attempts to form tax exempt organizations by groups opposed to Mr. Obama’s agenda were road-blocked. Between 2009 and 2012, only a single conservative oriented organization was granted tax exempt status.

Lois Lerner, who served as the director of the Exempt Organization Unit of the IRS, was the central figure in the scandal.  Lerner is an unindicted serial abuser of political rights who used her positions both in the Federal Election Commission and later the Internal Revenue Service to illicitly employ the machinery and assets of the federal government against those with differing views.  An equally unscrupulous Justice Department allowed her to avoid criminal prosecution.

The second form consists of attempts to force tax exempt organizations to disclose donor lists.  This information would allow the White House to use federal agencies to intimidate those that oppose it.

The legislation, which must still be approved by the Senate, is HR5053, (and sent to the White House, where approval is, at best, questionable) the “Preventing IRS Abuse and Protecting Free Speech Act.” It was introduced by Rep. Peter J. Roskam (R-Illinois.) The measure would amend the Internal Revenue Code to prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from requiring a tax-exempt organization to include in annual returns the name, address, or other identifying information of any contributor. The bill includes exceptions for: (1) required disclosures regarding prohibited tax shelter transactions; and (2) contributions by the organization’s officers, directors, or five highest compensated employees (including compensation paid by related organizations).U

Under current law, tax-exempt groups and organizations don’t have to reveal their donors to the public, but they do have to reveal any donors giving more than $5,000 to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Under H5053, those groups would no longer even have to reveal their donors to the IRS. Without the list, it would be difficult for the IRS to find opponents of the Obama Administration to intimidate.

The legislation, introduced on April 26, passed the House Ways and Means Committee on a 25–13 party line vote on April 28. It has progressed in extremely rapid fashion, a response to the anger still felt as a result of the IRS’s misdeeds.

The Legislations’ supporters stress that the bill is in keeping with the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, which includes anonymous speech.

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“Passage of this bill by the House is an important step in opposing political intimidation from the IRS. This powerful and corrupt tax agency should not be in a position to leak donor names to try to chill free speech. The Senate should take up this legislation immediately to help protect a healthy public policy discourse and rein in the IRS.”

The IRS continues to abuse its power. A U.S. Government Accountability Office examination of the IRS Small Business/Self-Employed (SB/SE) section of the agency found that IRS practices increase the risk that the audit program’s mission of fair and equitable application of the tax laws will not be achieved…Program objectives and key term of fairness are not clearly defined…[and] SB/SE does not always require selection decisions and rationales to be documented.”  This means that businesses owned by individuals opposing the President can still be effectively targeted.

Rep. Roskam has proposed seven reforms to end IRS abuse:

  1. Force the IRS to Implement the Taxpayer Bill of Rights;
    2. Prevent the IRS from Targeting Donors to Non-Profits;
    3. Prohibit IRS Employees from Using their Personal Email Accounts
    4. Stop IRS Abuse of Taxpayer Privacy Protections
    5. Allow Social Welfare Groups to Self-Declare their Tax-Exempt Status
    6. Permit Organizations to Appeal Denied Requests for Tax-Exempt Status
    7. Fire Employees Found Guilty of Targeting Americans for Political Purposes.

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Free speech under assault on multiple fronts

For what may be the first time in modern U.S. history, there is a serious question about the survival of the First Amendment. From college campuses to federal agencies, the once universally accepted support for unfettered free speech (with the usual exceptions of calls for immediate violence, or creating a presently hazardous situation) is being questioned. Opposition political organizations, writers and commentators are feeling the chill.

One example: Campus Reform  Recently described a disturbing incident at Wesleyan college, where the Student Assembly voted unanimously to cut funding for Argus, the student newspaper, following its printing of an article critical of the radical Black Lives Matter organization.

The problem is not confined to academia.  Indeed, far more serious are the actions of the White House, which has sought to place Federal Communications Commission regulators in newsrooms, and has used the Internal Revenue Service to attack organizations opposed to the President.

Presidential contender Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) believes that even greater threats both to free speech and entrepreneurship are in the offing, thanks to attempts to regulate the internet. In a Washington Post op-ed, Cruz stated that  “the threats from Washington to stifle freedom, entrepreneurship and creativity online have never been greater. Washington politicians want … more and more control over our speech.”

In a statement reported in the Blaze, Cruz worried that “the threats to free speech, under big government statists, have never been greater … I think we cannot overstate these threats.”

Civil libertarians are worried that the President’s move to transfer control of the internet to an international organization influenced by Russia, China and other totalitarian states will lead to censorship. In May, outgoing House Speaker John Boehner, quoted in Newsmax, stated “Overzealous government bureaucrats should keep their hands off the Internet… three [commissioners] appointed by President Obama approved a secret plan to put the federal government in control of the Internet.”

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Legislators have enacted legislation reforming the practice, according to Madison.com. The reform law limits use of the process “to the most severe felonies and some violent crimes, meaning campaign finance and ethics violations could no longer be subject to a John Doe. Prosecutors have used John Doe provisions to investigate Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign twice.”  Despite intensive investigations, no serious violations have been found in Walkers’ campaigns, leading to the well-founded belief that the process was used solely to intimidate the Governor’s supporters.

A further incursion into the extent of free speech protections comes from the growing support for laws that would prohibit so-called “Hate Speech.” A Yougov.com   study notes that “ research shows that many Americans support making it a criminal offense to make public statements which would stir up hatred against particular groups of people. Americans narrowly support (41%) rather than oppose (37%) criminalizing hate speech.”

The problem, of course, is in defining what hate speech is.  Is a statement, such as that in the student newspaper Argus, criticizing the radical Black Lives Matter organization, hate speech? Would a statement opposed to allowing large numbers of essentially un-vetted Syrian refugees into the U.S. be hate speech? Experience with this type of legislation in other nations has proven to result in serious infringements on free speech.

Mark Steyn, a Canadian who has been critical of Islamic extremists, has been subjected to three complaints of “hate speech” in his country.  In a National Review  article he wrote: “the Canadian establishment seems to think it entirely natural that the Canadian state should be in the business of lifetime publication bans, just as the Dutch establishment thinks it entirely natural that the Dutch state should put elected leaders of parliamentary opposition parties on trial for their political platforms, and the French establishment thinks it appropriate for the French state to put novelists on trial for sentiments expressed by fictional characters. Across almost all the Western world apart from America, the state grows ever more comfortable with micro-regulating public discourse—and, in fact, not-so-public discourse: Lars Hedegaard, head of the Danish Free Press Society, has been tried, been acquitted, had his acquittal overruled, and been convicted of ‘racism’ for some remarks about Islam’s treatment of women made (so he thought) in private but taped and released to the world… Note that legal concept: not ‘illegal’ or ‘hateful,’ but merely ‘disparaging.’

Taken individually, any of these areas, FCC overreach, internet regulation, academic suppression of student speech, IRS intimidation, or the banning of undefined hate speech, presents a worrisome threat to free speech.  Taken as a whole, it must be seen as a wholescale assault on the most basic of American, indeed, human rights, that must be taken very seriously.