Politics

IRS Will Be Audited Yet Again

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Lois Lerner may be pleading the Fifth to avoid providing Congressional testimony about the targeting of conservative and Tea Party nonprofits by the IRS, but the Treasury Department's inspector general will be following up his previous audit with another review. Politico reports:

The IRS inspector general is wading into the central question posed by the agency's descent into scandal: How closely should political activities at nonprofit groups be scrutinized?

The evolving debacle gripping the agency — which centers on IRS employees unfairly targeting conservative groups seeking nonprofit status — has clouded that question. But Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George told a Senate panel today it's an issue he plans to dive into.

The inspector general's office "will be conducting a review of the IRS's oversight of the level of campaign intervention by 501(c)(4)s shortly," George told the Senate Finance Committee.

Democratic senators still argue that the problem is the difference between whether the groups are "primarily" engaging in charitable or informational activities versus "exclusively" engaging in them.

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