IRS Scandal and the Future of America's Least Favorite Institution

After the recent breaking news that the Internal Revenue Service was giving additional scrutiny to the tax exempt status of Tea Party Groups based on having words such as "Patriot" or "Tea Party" in their name, there was massive political outcry on both sides of the aisle, most of which was well warranted.  Groups should not be targeted purely based on the name of their group.  But to make the assumption that the IRS was completely uncalled for in it's extra scrutiny and purely based on targeting conservative groups is not.

According to a recent NPR report, many liberal groups with had missions or names having to do with "progressive" tendencies  were also targeted to a significant extent by this IRS oversight.  This means that the IRS blanket of these groups is not a mechanism of the party in the White House trying to delegitimize groups that should have non profit status.

IRS Building in Washington (Washington Post)

But the larger issue that this scandal raises is the fallout and effect on the IRS's future policy.  The political posturing that is taking place in Washington takes away from the fact that investigation and scrutiny is what the IRS was set up to provide.  Rhetoric like that of John Boehner, who insisted that he was concerned with "who was going to jail" rather than who would resign in the wake of the scandal makes the situation even worse.

The result of this controversy will unfortunately make the IRS less likely to provide scrutiny where there should be, instead making them gun shy of political backlash. This spells bad news for rooting out organizations that really should have a little extra scrutiny in order to get non-profit status.  The IRS clearly states that in order for organizations to receive a 501(c)4 charitable tax exemption, they need to have their activities be focused "exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes." (irs.gov) This means that in order for a group to get such an exemption, they cannot be focused primarily on political actions. Instead of giving these groups a rubber stamp, the IRS should be providing extra scrutiny to groups that have dubious charitable actions.