This week, Lois Lerner, an official from the Internal Revenue Service bureau that oversees tax-exempt political groups, made a stunning admission during a conference in Washington: In the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, the government agency inappropriately targeted conservative organizations for additional audits. This politicization, which has been argued but never proven in a court of law, demonstrates how elements of the Obama administration were utilized to shape the outcome of the November vote.
Accusing "low-level workers" of the behavior, Lerner acknowledged that a number of additional and unnecessary requests were made to associations that were affiliated with the Tea Party or other libertarian-minded ideologies. Conservative news outlet The Blaze began investigating this issue in earlier 2012, drawing from testimonials from some of the organizations that received IRS scrutiny.
In an interview with the source, Tom Zawistowski of the Ohio Liberty Council Corp, a conservative-leaning group, said that he has received mixed signals and strange deadlines from the tax-collecting agency.
"My own Portage County TEA Party has been waiting for over a year just to get a response from the IRS so we can file our 2010 tax return! In the attached PDF I share with you, the 'Additional Information Requested' of the Ohio Liberty Council from our June 30th, 2010 application which we just received on January 30, 2012. Yes, they took a year and a half to respond to our application and they are giving us two weeks to respond back. As you will see, this is no simple request," Zawistowski wrote in an email.
These developments highlight the opaque and occasionally illegal activities that government elements may engage in. It demonstrates how people need to pursue economic independence in order to protect themselves, including careful and comprehensive retirement planning. To learn more, download our "Free Game Plan Report" today.