Since the post-Nixon era, the Internal Revenue Service has had a degree of independence from the White House. President Trump is seeking to change that.
If the IRS does not serve the will of the president, then whose will does it serve? To whom is the IRS accountable? If the IRS revokes your tax exempt status, to whom can you appeal? Are you seriously telling me that the IRS hasn’t been weaponized since Nixon?
On yesterday’s show at the 42 minute mark, Commentary magazine Editor John Podhoretz relates how Barack Obama’s IRS tried to revoke the magazine’s tax exempt status because Joe Lieberman at a Commentary magazine event endorsed John McCain for president.
John: “Because Commentary is a is a nonprofit institution and in 2010 or 2011 like other conservative institutions we got a letter from the IRS claiming that we had
violated our tax exemption and that we needed to prove that we had not done so or it would be removed. I called our lawyer called a lawyer looking into what to do about this. The reason that we were so accused is that Joe Lieberman had come to give a speech at a Commentary event in 2008 and in the course of this speech, the text of which we published on our website, he endorsed John McCain for president. Commentary is a 501c3 nonprofit and cannot endorse candidates. Commentary did not endorse John McCain. I called the lawyer and said ‘Well obviously this is a first amendment like they can’t take away our tax exempt status because of publish one thing.” And our lawyer said “No actually they they can they have almost unlimited discretion to revoke tax exempt status.” The head of the IRS has unlimited discretion. In no way shape or form do you have a right to a tax exemption. They can pull your tax exemption and you have no recourse. There is no finding of law that says that you are granted a tax exemption. It is a gift of the federal government.”
