How to Get Audited by the IRS

Give money to the Tea Party! House Republicans find 10% of tea party donors audited by IRS

Despite assurances to the contrary, the IRS didn’t destroy all of the donor lists scooped up in its tea party targeting — and a check of those lists reveals that the tax agency audited 10 percent of those donors, much higher than the audit rate for average Americans, House Republicans revealed Wednesday.

Republicans argue that the Internal Revenue Service still hasn’t come clean about the full extent of its targeting, which swept up dozens of conservative groups.

“The committee uncovered new information indicating that after groups provided the information to the IRS, nearly one in 10 donors were subject to audit,” Rep. Charles W. Boustany Jr., Louisiana Republican and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee’s oversight panel, told IRS Commissioner John Koskinen at a hearing Wednesday.
“The abuse of discretion and audit selection must be identified and stopped,” he said.
. . .
Republicans said 24 conservative groups were asked for their donor lists. The IRS initially told Congress that those lists were destroyed, but when they went through their files they discovered three lists that weren’t destroyed.

I'm going to bet that before any originals were destroyed, copies went into file cabinets and hard drives all over the IRS, with a more than a few going to liberal friendly NGOs as well.

Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, asked the IRS to review the names on those lists to see whether any had been audited. The IRS reported back that 10 percent were audited — substantially higher than the average rate of 1 percent of average Americans who are audited each year.

That's quite a coincidence, don't you think? I just can't imagine what Lois Lerner was doing taking the 5th.

And in more good news, the House of Representative joined the rest of us in holding Lois Lerner in contempt. I think they should throw her in the jug like Judith Miller until she's ready to take a deal.

Linked by the DaleyGator in the Weekend Link Fest.