EDITORIAL: IRS targeting makes case for simpler tax code

The White House and the IRS had long asserted that the tax agency’s targeting of tea party groups was the work of rogue, low-level employees from the Cincinnati office. Nothing to see here. Move along, America.

But the Obama administration’s dismissal of the news merely ensured it remained a story. There were simply too many pesky, unanswered questions. And sure enough, emails obtained by Judicial Watch this month show the partisan crackdown was orchestrated by top IRS officials in Washington, D.C., all along.

This is the second bombshell released recently by the conservative watchdog group, which last month obtained 41 State Department documents outlining a coordinated effort by the Obama administration to mislead the public about the September 2012 al-Qaida terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. And, as with the Benghazi documents, Judicial Watch obtained more information on IRS targeting than was released to Congress.

In a July 2012 email obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, a D.C.-based IRS attorney outlined how the agency worked with its Cincinnati office to delay and derail applications for tax-exempt status submitted by the politically conservative organizations.

“We are developing a few applications here in D.C. and providing copies of our development letters with the agent to use as examples in the development of their cases,“ the email stated. This disclosure contradicts President Barack Obama, who told Fox News in February that a few “bone-headed decisions” were to blame and that there wasn’t “even a smidgen of corruption” going on.

A deeper look into this story shows that not only was the Obama administration willing to lie to the American people — yet again — to achieve its political goals, but so were others in our government. In what amounts to a severe abuse of power, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations, wrote letters to the IRS, urging them to investigate, delay and otherwise impede conservative nonprofit groups. Sen. Levin wanted these investigations completed by April 2012 so the groups could be shut down prior to that year’s presidential and congressional elections. Politically sympathetic officials within the IRS were all too eager to agree to the request by subjecting conservative nonprofits to questionnaires and requests for information about their activities.

Sen. Levin’s demands were part of an orchestrated attack campaign against tea party and conservative groups by Democrats, including President Barack Obama, who repeatedly called “shadowy front groups” a “threat to democracy.” So you have a leading Democrat pushing the IRS — the government itself — to crush political enemies engaged in First Amendment expression during an election year. And you have the government deliberately misleading the public and stonewalling inquiries into the matter.

Imagine how deep a real investigation could get. This stuff makes President Richard Nixon’s enemies list look like child’s play.

At the heart of the matter is a tax code that is ridiculously complex and an IRS that is simply too powerful because of it. The agency’s job is to collect tax revenue, not silence political opposition. Citizens who would join a tea party group or donate to conservative organizations will think twice about doing so if they believe there is a good chance they’ll be audited as punishment.

We have a right to speak freely in this country. We can promote the ideas of our choosing, we can criticize our government, and we can band together with other citizens to try to change the composition and direction of our government. But our needlessly confusing tax code infringes on that right. The simpler the code, the freer the people.