At the Core of the IRS Saga: Tax Collectors as Political Hitmen

It’s all good fun to mock the Internal Revenue
Service’s plausibility-challenged explanations for just how
potentially embarrassing (to the IRS)  emails were
lost and why they can’t be recovered, but let’s not forget
what’s at the core of the story: the tax collection agency’s

long and storied history as a political hitman. IRS audits have
been targeted at political opponents of incumbent presidents, tax
information has been leaked about enemies of powerful members of
Congress, and the agency’s own employees have abused their power
for
personal reasons.

We got a reminder of the IRS’s history earier this week when the
National Organization for Marriage, a socially conservative group,
announced the settlement of its lawsuit against the tax agency for
leaking information about donors, including 2012 Republican
presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

On Tuesday, the group announced:

In response to a lawsuit brought by the National Organization
for Marriage (NOM), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has admitted
wrongdoing in releasing the organization’s confidential tax return
and donor list which was obtained by the Human Rights Campaign
(HRC), NOM’s chief political rival. The IRS has agreed to pay NOM
$50,000 to settle the lawsuit.

Specifically, NOM’s 2008 tax return and donor list was turned
over to activist Matthew Meisel, who then gave it to the Human
Rights Campaign which distributed it to the media.

Not surprisingly, since the leaked information was used against
their last presidential candidate, Republicans on the House Ways
and Means Committee took an interest in the case. Congressional
pressure may well have induced the IRS to surrender, admit error,
and turn over a little cash it mugged from other taxpayers to make
nice with NOM, but it couldn’t get the Department of Justice to
take an interest in the case. Shocker.

“The DOJ’s refusal to take any action to protect taxpayers
demonstrates why this Committee, and the American people, cannot
trust their supposed investigation into the IRS targeting, let
alone the protection of the constitutional rights of
conservatives,”
complained House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Dave Camp
(R-Mich.) the day the settlement was announced.

Well, same as it ever was. The IRS has never been a safe tool in
any administration’s hands. It never will be, so long as it remains
such a tempting weapon for whoever wields its excessive power.

Camp wants a special prosecutor to look into the IRS’s behavior.
But that behavior is inevitable, so long as anything as dangerous
as the IRS is allowed to exist.