Domestic Taxes

Senate Republicans are demanding that President Obama be “fully forthcoming” during congressional investigations into the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups.

All 45 GOP senators, in a Wednesday letter to Obama, said they were “deeply disturbed” by the findings of a Treasury inspector general’s report that found that ineffective management had led to the extra scrutiny of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

“This type of purely political scrutiny being conducted by an Executive Branch Agency is yet another completely inexcusable attempt to chill the speech of political opponents and those who would question their government, consistent with a broader pattern of intimidation by arms of your administration to silence political dissent,” the senators wrote in the letter organized by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah), the ranking Republican at the Finance Committee.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has joined the growing call for resignations at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the targeting of Tea Party groups.

In a statement Wednesday, Thune said acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller should step down immediately. Any official that knew of the activity should be fired as well, he said, while suggesting there may have been criminal activity at the tax collector.

"The report indicates that the abuse of power in targeting certain Americans went on for at least an 18-month period, and any IRS official who knew about this misconduct but remained silent should be fired immediately," Thune said. "This sort of breach of public trust is at best the result of incompetence and at worst the result of potentially illegal and malicious conduct."

Issa said he would seek assurances that IRS documents about Tea Party donors were destroyed.

Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) said Steven Miller and Lois Lerner should both step down.

IRS scandal increases the pressure on Jack Lew.  Read more...

Senior agency officials ineffectively managed the situation, according to a federal watchdog report.

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) sat down Tuesday with the acting IRS commissioner, Steven Miller, as the heat over the agency's scrutiny of Tea Party groups intensified.

A Baucus spokesman said the Finance chairman "didn't pull any punches" in the meeting with Miller. "It was a tough talk," the spokesman, Sean Neary, said in a statement.

The meeting came shortly before an awaited Treasury audit of the IRS's singling out of conservative groups began circulating, which found "ineffective management" at the agency and said the IRS would need to do more to regain the public's trust. Read more...

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) announced Tuesday that it planned to sue the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), accusing it of leaking confidential tax documents to a political rival.

The group, which opposes same-sex marriage, said it was yet another victim of the IRS's targeting of conservative groups, accusing the agency of leaking confidential tax documents to the same-sex marriage advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

"Not only has the IRS retaliated against conservative, small-government and tea party groups as they apply for recognition of tax exemption AND lied about it, but it has criminally released our confidential tax return including the identity of dozens of major donors to a political enemy,” said Brian Brown, NOM’s president. “In addition to being our principal combatant in the war on traditional marriage, the HRC’s president at the time was serving as a Co-Chair of President Obama’s reelection campaign. This is a chilling set of circumstances that should ring alarm bells across the nation.”

The top two lawmakers on the House's powerful tax-writing committee are requesting all documents from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) related to the agency singling out groups based on their politics. 

House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and panel ranking member Sander Levin (D-Mich.) sent a letter to the IRS on Tuesday calling on acting Commissioner Steve Miller to turn over any documents that details their targeting of Tea Party and any other groups they might have looked at more closely. 

“I am astounded and appalled that the IRS targeted organizations based on their political beliefs," Camp said.

"The IRS’s repeated failure to be truthful is completely unethical and an embarrassment to this government," he said. 

Probe will look into whether the IRS broke laws by targeting conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.