The IRS Scandal

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling last Monday that may not have garnered a lot of public attention.  Critics of the decision will complain that, like the ongoing Benghazi hearings, the IRS scandal is much ado about nothing.  But like their complaints about the Benghazi situation, these critics refuse to acknowledge that the emperor isn't wearing any clothing.

The decision boils down to one line of the opinion for me:

Section 6103 was enacted to protect taxpayers from the IRS, not the IRS from taxpayers.

At issue is 26 U.S.C. §6103.  That statute governs returns and return information that is to be held confidential.  The historical underpinnings behind that statute are lengthy, but the germane part of that history involves former President Nixon who used tax information against political opponents.  As most people are aware, the present-day IRS scandal involves the IRS putting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status through so many hurdles and hoops so as to discourage them from continuing on with the process, thereby hamstringing them for elections in 2010 and 2012.  The outrages are well known:  onerous demands for documentation, frivolous requests for meaningless information, visits from other governmental agencies based on false complaints, years of non-responsiveness, etc.  The chilling effect of the IRS's actions is overwhelming.  Finally, an outfit called NorCal Tea Party Patriots had enough with the IRS's BOLO program -- Be On the Lookout -- that effectively neutralized conservative political action during midterm and presidential elections during President Obama's first term.

The appeals court wasn't buying what the government was selling:  That the plaintiff's discovery requests were barred by section 6103's requirements of confidentiality.  Any attorney worth his salt could see through the red herring:  Section 6103 deals with returns and return information; the discovery requests had to do with applications, applications that, obviously, were never processed because of the demands from the IRS for a neverending stream of information, most of which had nothing to do with the group or its cause.

The Sixth Circuit was more diplomatic than I would have been.  It ended its opinion thus:

In closing, we echo the district court’s observations about this case. The lawyers in the

Department of Justice have a long and storied tradition of defending the nation’s interests and

enforcing its laws—all of them, not just selective ones—in a manner worthy of the Department’s

name. The conduct of the IRS’s attorneys in the district court falls outside that tradition. We

expect that the IRS will do better going forward. And we order that the IRS comply with the

district court’s discovery orders of April 1 and June 16, 2015—without redactions, and without

further delay.

The petition is denied.
 No matter what good it's done in the past, the IRS is dead wrong in this instance.  Not only was it engaged in political activity but it ignored two federal court orders while it continued to delay and demur.  Even if it ultimately concedes and produces the documentation that will almost certainly prove that it had a political agenda -- why else would it fight so hard to release this information? -- the net effect is to delay the establishment of these organizations long enough so that they aren't able to get donations to allow them to put out their political message, i.e., free speech, in time for the next election.

What's particularly irksome about this is that the IRS is part of the Department of the Treasury which, as a cabinet level position, forms part of the Executive Branch.  That's right.  Mr. Obama, were he so inclined, could order the IRS to release the documents sought by the plaintiffs, but he's already on record as saying that the IRS did nothing wrong.  Having already determined the culpability of the IRS as being non-existent, it's unlikely he will do the right thing and order the IRS to release the documents.

In the meantime, the time the IRS has bought by dragging its heals, filing frivolous appeals and prevaricating has allowed it to cull its files of damaging emails, memoranda and other documents.  Call me cynical, but I don't see how that hasn't happened.  If, on the other hand, I'm wrong and there still remains plenty of damning documents, President Obama's legacy -- already tarnished by so many scandals -- will almost guarantee that he goes down as the worst president in the history of the Republic.

Give Lois Lerner credit for this:  At least she pleaded the Fifth.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles