Megalextoria

Even as the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reports the discovery of thousands (!) of Lois Lerner lost-in-action emails, we’re told the IRS “has taken significant actions” to avoid the sort of politicized shenanigans that got the former tax-administering bureaucrat in such hot water to begin with. Only time will tell whether the recovered missives reveal deliberate targeting of conservative tax-exempt organizations as part of an effort to hobble critics of the administration, but Inspector General Russell George and company have already concluded that right-leaning groups received inappropriate scrutiny—and say that the tax agency is taking steps to make sure that this particular transgression isn’t repeated. For what that’s worth.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration notes:

The report is a follow-up to a May 2013 TIGTA report, which found that ineffective IRS management resulted in: 1) the use of inappropriate criteria to identify for review organizations applying for tax-exempt status based on names and policy positions instead of indications of political campaign intervention; 2) substantially delayed processing of certain applications, and, 3) the issuance of unnecessary information requests.

And before we even get into it, the IG told inquiring members of Congress two years ago that conservative groups did indeed receive special attention not given to those leaning to the left. “Our audit did not find evidence that the IRS used the ‘progressives’ identifier as selection criteria for potential political cases between May 2010 and May 2012,” he wrote to Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.). All of the groups with “Tea Party,” “patriots” and “9/12” in their name got the treatment, compared to 30 percent of the groups with “progress” or “progressive” in their names.

via The IRS Was Very Naughty, But It’s Sorry, Says Inspector General.

Last October, after The New York Times started asking questions about the Internal Revenue Service’s practice of taking legally earned money from innocent people based on allegations that they tried to evade bank reporting requirements, the IRS said it “will no longer pursue the seizure and forfeiture of funds associated solely with ‘legal source’ structuring cases unless there are exceptional circumstances.” A case highlighted by ABC News, involving money snatched from an Iowa widow, suggests how big that “exceptional circumstances” loophole might be.

In 2011 an IRS agent named Jeff McGuire paid a visit to Ronald Malone, an Iowa publishing executive who at the time was dying from cancer. McGuire told Malone that bank deposits he had made looked fishy: They totaled $35,000, but each was less than $10,000, the threshold for transactions that banks must report to the Treasury Department. Deliberate evasion of that requirement is a federal crime, even when the money comes from legitimate sources, as Malone’s did. McGuire explained that to Malone, who signed a form acknowledging the explanation. The IRS did not seize the money, and no charges were filed.

After Malone died, his widow, Janet, deposited another $19,000 of his savings in amounts below $10,000. This time the IRS seized the money and referred the case to the Justice Department for prosecution. The agency’s attitude: We warned you once.

According to an affidavit quoted by ABC News, Malone conceded that she was home during McGuire’s visit but noted that she did not sign the form and said she did not remember the details of the meeting because “she was in a state of despair over her husband’s health.” She predicted that “you won’t prosecute a widow.” They showed her.

Under an agreement with the government, Malone will give up the money and plead guilty to a misdemeanor that is punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $250,000. “This is shocking,” Institute for Justice attorney Larry Salzman told ABC News, “because it demonstrates that prosecutors are not taking seriously the IRS’s alleged policy change not to prosecute legal source structuring.” I.J. has represented several business owners whose money the government seized based on suspicion of structuring but returned after I.J. challenged the forfeitures.

According to an I.J. report published last week, the IRS seized $242 million based on suspected structuring in more than 2,500 cases from 2005 to 2012. In at least a third of those cases, there were no allegations of criminal conduct aside from the purported structuring itself.

Full article: http://reason.com/bl … ney-because-her-depo