Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: truedog who wrote (57342)	7/23/1999 8:37:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 67261

IRS probe began after complaint to White House -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Internal Revenue Service began an investigation of an organization critical of President Clinton after the White House conveyed a Clinton supporter's complaint about the group to the tax agency, a Treasury Department report shows. The document is the first indication that the White House played a role in an IRS decision to aggressively audit the Western Journalism Center, a tax-exempt group in Northern California that has produced critical articles about Mr. Clinton. A lawyer representing Western Journalism said the White House should stop being a conduit for citizen complaints, saying it could be read by the IRS as a signal to do an audit. But the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration cleared the IRS of conducting a politically motivated audit -- as Western Journalism had charged. "There is no indication that WJC was selected for examination other than through normal examination practices," said the IG report. Treasury provided a censored version of its report to Western Journalism in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The same report portrayed the White House referral as routine. "It is common practice for the White House to send bundles of documents to the IRS without a cover sheet," the IG report states, without detailing what the "bundles" contain. "We do get comment from the public and some times the comments we get from public sources are an issue in deciding whether to commence an audit of an exempt organization," said Steve Pyrek, an IRS spokesman. But Larry Klayman, whose Judicial Watch Inc. is conducting investigations into the Clinton administration, said the practice, whether routine or not, should be stopped. "You have tremendous power when you get something from the White House and a bureaucrat has to act on it," said Mr. Klayman, who is representing the Western Journalism Center in a lawsuit against the IRS. "The White House has no business forwarding it. It has a conflict of interest and would inflict undue influence on the IRS. It's like an official stamp to start an audit." The audit of Western Journalism in the mid-1990s came at a time when conservative groups, such as the Heritage Foundation and the National Rifle Association, reported they were under intrusive IRS audits. Their officials expressed suspicions that the Clinton administration was singling them out for costly investigations while sparing liberal advocacy groups who live under the same tax laws. The IRS targets tax-exempt groups, called 501(C)(3)s, to ensure they are not violating rules against these organizations participating in partisan politics. In the journalism center case, a resident of Beverly Hills saw a Western Journalism-sponsored ad in the Los Angeles Times soliciting donations to finance an investigation into the 1993 suicide of Vincent W. Foster Jr., the deputy White House counsel. The citizen believed the group was out to get Mr. Clinton and faxed a letter of complaint in 1994 to the White House, which sent it to the IRS. "The audit originated from a taxpayer who faxed a letter to the White House expressing his concern over a one-page advertisement paid for by WJC that asked for contributions to investigate Foster's death," the Treasury report said. "The fax was forwarded to the [exempt organization] national office and then to the respective key district office for appropriate action." The report quotes the Beverly Hills man as saying he acted on his own. It also quoted IRS district office workers as saying they were not aware of any interest in the case by the IRS commissioner or the White House. The documents state that investigators could not determine how the faxed letter got to the IRS. It said there was no cover letter. Mr. Klayman said the IRS audit cleared Western Journalism of any wrongdoing. The IRS declines to discuss specific audits. Another advocacy group, Landmark Legal Foundation, has been seeking court orders that would force the IRS to disclose how it chooses nonprofit groups for audits. Thursday, Landmark released a copy of a written declaration by Harold Toppall, a senior IRS official, who said that of 1,586 case files sought by Landmark, 114 are missing. "These are files missing from projects branch one during the time period 1992-1994," he said. "Can you imagine filing a tax return with the IRS, which provides 92 percent of the information they require," said Landmark president Mark R. Levin. "Now, wouldn't that raise questions with the IRS? When they tell us that 114 case files are missing, that raises our attention." The IRS has said it relies on media stories in deciding whether to target a tax-exempt group. Conservatives say this puts them at a disadvantage because Washington reporters scrutinize them more closely than left-wing groups. washtimes.com