By Andy Metzger
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
BOSTON — Decrying the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting for extra review of Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt, non-profit status, demonstrators lined the sidewalk in front of the JFK Federal Building in Government Center Tuesday afternoon.
“I think what the IRS did to the Tea Party groups was just wrong. It’s wrong to single out people for investigation based on what they believe, whether they’re left, right or center,” said Mike Eisenberg, who said he participates with the Greater Boston Tea Party, but is unaware of how it fared with the IRS.
After the scandal broke last week, President Barack Obama pushed out the acting IRS commissioner, and Obama spokesman Jay Carney told reporters the new acting IRS commissioner is instituting a 30-day review of what happened, while the Department of Justice is looking into it as well.
“We’re only seeing the beginning of it,” said Eisenberg, when asked about the administration’s response. “I’d like to see a full disclosure of who was responsible and when, and see those people get appropriate discipline.”
Charged with enforcing tax code compliance and collecting money owed, the IRS soured some who have experienced its scrutiny even before the Tea Party targeting scandal.
“The Congress could write a simplified tax code where a flat tax rate with some exemptions for low-income people. That would definitely help the situation and we would not
need tens of thousands of IRS agents looking at every little thing,” said Dave Gardner, who said he had not been involved in Tea Party organizations but had experienced the arduousness of an IRS audit a decade ago.
“The process was very unpleasant. In my opinion we were treated like common criminals. I had to take vacation time, and I had to appear in court in front of the IRS, tax court in Philadelphia, and at the end of the whole process we were absolved of any wrongdoing,” said Gardner, who said an investment company’s clerical error had caused confusion. “It left a bitter taste in my mouth, so I am just here today to protest the illegal profiling of honest citizens.”
In August 2010, the IRS Determinations Unit in Cincinnati, Ohio, advised employees to look out for Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status as non-profits, according to a May 14 audit from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Non-profits had recently gained the right to engage in limited political activity by the January 2010 Citizens United ruling in the United States Supreme Court. IRS employees searched applications for terms such as “Tea Party” “Patriot” and “9/12.”
Nancy Burstein, who described herself as “apolitical” said she was protesting out of concern that the extra scrutiny the IRS paid to conservative groups could give way to further and more menacing governmental incursions.
“The IRS is the most terrifying branch of the government, and it’s just horrifying to think that it’s being used as a political arm,” said Burstein, who quoted some parts of the poem “First they came…” about apathy around the Nazi’s rise to power in 1930s Germany.
“Who do they think is going to be left to stand up for them?” said Burstein, criticizing the lackluster turnout, as about 30 people stood on Cambridge Street. The protest in Boston was part of a national protest.
The IRS actions have roiled Washington D.C., and Congressman Michael Capuano (D-Somerville) who likened the actions to those of President Richard Nixon and said the inquiry into it would likely last for years.
“The IRS must articulate clear guidance to determine if a group that has filed as a non-profit, social welfare organization is primarily engaged in promoting the common good or in politics. Americans deserve a robust examination of the inappropriate screening over the past few years, and better guidance for the future,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
Obama learned about what was happening in the IRS when the story broke in the news, according to Carney. He said the White House counsel learned of an impending IG report on April 24 and informed some senior White House staff, but not the president. Obama has expressed outrage at the targeting, but Burstein was skeptical, as Obama has railed against the third party spending enabled by Citizens United.
“He never said, ‘Go do it.’ He just said, ‘I wish somebody would,'” said Burstein, using an analogy. She said, “If I were president it would not be okay with me that my lawyer was keeping something of this magnitude from me.” She said, “It sure looks like they wanted to give him deniability.”
Eisenberg had been holding a yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, a Revolutionary War era reproduction popular among the Tea Party, and after Burstein joined him in conversation, Eisenberg handed the flag to her.
“The Tea Party has always been about fighting an overly large, intrusive government, and the IRS is intrusive enough when it follows the law,” said Brad Marston, a Republican activist from Boston.
Marston said he agrees that a simpler tax code is a good solution, saying, “I don’t think anybody can look at a 72,000-page tax code and go, ‘You know, if I was starting from scratch, this is how I’d do it.’ If you want to get the money out of politics, get the politics out of our tax code.”
Others at the protest had more heated rhetoric about the Obama administration’s role in the unfolding scandal.
“If we let this stand, our country’s done,” said Carlos Hernandez, Tea Party Patriots state coordinator for Massachusetts, who said Obama has an “enemies list,” and intoned that more disclosure would be forthcoming.
“Where was the president on the night of Benghazi?” asked Hernandez, referencing the attack against U.S. officials in Libya last fall that killed four, including the ambassador. Saying the information would soon be known, Hernandez said, “We will soon. Because basically things are going to start coming very shortly.”