Two key employees at the IRS spoke today to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. They confirmed what the Committee hinted at yesterday. The Office of the Chief Counsel if the IRS had a hand in the IRS scandal. Those in that office did not merely receive information from the Cincinnati Office on Tea Party, Patriot, and other groups. They asked for it.


IRS scandal: the scapegoats


The two key witnesses at today’s IRS scandal hearings were:


  • Carter Hull, a senior Tax Law Specialist with 48 years of service.
  • Elizabeth Hofacre, who worked in the Cincinnati Office.

The Oversight Committee took evidence from Mr. Hull and Ms. Hofacre yesterday, before they testified in public. The Committee sent this letter to Acting Commissioner Daniel Werfel yesterday. (See also this piece by Jerome R. Corsi at WND.)


The trouble began in the winter of 2010-2011, after the realigning election that gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives. By then, the IRS Tax-Exempts Division had several Forms 1024 (Application for Recognition of Exemption under Section 501(c)(4)) from “Tea Party” and similar groups. Mr. Hull at first handled those applications as he always had. He sent “development letters,” asking for more information. He got it. He was all set to send “determination letters,” which:


  • Recognize the exemption.
  • Assign an identifying number to each group.
  • Instruct them, from then on, to file Form 990, the “information only” return from tax-exempt groups.

 


The IRS scandal gained a new face - in Congress.

New York office of the IRS. Photo: Matthew G. Bisanz, CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported License.



 


But this did not happen. Instead, Lois Lerner, the head of the division, said all such applications needed a “multi-level review.” (This same Lois Lerner tried to “take the Fifth,” and bungled it.) And so those applications ended up going to the Chief Counsel’s office.


Mr. Hull never saw anything like this in his 48 years of working in and for the IRS. The applications went to the Chief Counsel’s office. And there they sat.

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  • July 19, 2013
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