Trump action, or inaction, on IRS will tell us much

Robert Pratt photo Copyright Pratt on Texas

Robert Pratt

Under the “It hasn’t changed yet!” folder: “IRS denies tea party groups after long wait for decision on tax-exempt status,” read the headline in The Washington Times.

The story reported: “The IRS, which declined to comment on the new decisions, admitted in court that it did subject the tea party groups to intrusive scrutiny, singling them out because of their political viewpoints and forcing them to go through hurdles that other groups didn’t face.

“IRS officials over the summer promised both the courts and Congress that the agency would begin to process all outstanding applications after years of delay that it blamed on a “litigation hold” policy.

One group’s application was approved, a group out of Michigan that applied over six years ago. The “Albuquerque Tea Party and Tri Cities Tea Party from Washington state were notified of proposed denials,” the Times reported. “Still to come is a decision on Texas Patriots Tea Party, a group that is part of a separate class-action lawsuit out of Ohio. A judge in that case ruled late last month that the IRS was likely violating the group’s First Amendment rights by delaying its application and ordered the tax agency to process and decide on the application.”

In a court filing this weekend Jay Sekulow, chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice, asked a federal judge in DC to officially declare that the IRS violated groups’ First Amendment rights.

Our friend Bob Zimmerman, about this, wrote: “In fact, this one issue will tell us more about Trump’s real goals than practically anything. If he doesn’t fire the entire management at the IRS, we will know that nothing is really going to change in Washington.”

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