Imagine that. The IRS was right, at least sometimes.

After milking the word “scandal” for about as much as it could, one of the Big Media companies sent reporters out to look at what those aggrieved Tea Party groups trying to get tax-exempt status actually did. Surprise! They engaged in politics, not social welfare!

Representatives of these organizations have cried foul in recent weeks about their treatment by the I.R.S., saying they were among dozens of conservative groups unfairly targeted by the agency, harassed with inappropriate questionnaires and put off for months or years as the agency delayed decisions on their applications. But a close examination of these groups and others reveals an array of election activities that tax experts and former I.R.S. officials said would provide a legitimate basis for flagging them for closer review.

Yeah, I’d say. One spent several thousand bucks on radio ads attempting to elect a Republican Congressional candidate. Another sponsored training for a get-out-the-vote initiative dedicated to the “defeat of President Barack Obama.” And a third sent out e-mails to members about Mitt Romney campaign events and organized members to distribute Mr. Romney’s presidential campaign literature. That sure looks like political activity, not social welfare.

Oh look. It happened in Texas too:

A Travis County district court judge ruled this week that a Houston-based tea party group is not a nonprofit corporation as it claims, but an unregistered political action committee that illegally aided the Republican Party through its poll-watching efforts during the 2010 elections.

It would appear there really is some fire underneath all that smoke, after all.

2 Comments

  1. Of course we all suspected this, right?
    Nobody is silly enough to think an organization with the term “tea party” in its name is not political in some way.

    I maintain the problem with this whole issue is that there should’ve been MORE scrutiny of all non-profits, not that there should be little scrutiny on any of them, regardless of the catch phrases in the organization names.

    Everything’s backwards anymore.

  2. Oh, I agree, but the IRS is badly understaffed and has been for years, and just try to get more funding to hire personnel for THAT agency past the budgeteers on the House Republican Ways and Means Committee.

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