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发帖数: 901 | 1 As admitted by the IRS, and as detailed in a forthcoming Inspector General
report, the agency targeted conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt
status for issue advocacy, a standard practice for political groups that
aren't mainly about elections.
The IRS sent long questionnaires to the organizations, and documents
obtained by ABC News show that the questions were extensive. The Richmond
Tea Party, for instance, was asked 17 detailed questions in 2010, and 12
more, with lots of bulleted sub-questions, in 2012. Other groups were asked
about 30 questions in one letter, and most of the letters were similar, with
some specific, quirky questions added or subtracted.
The Liberty Township Tea Party in Ohio got it worst, as the IRS asked about
its relationship with a Cincinnati-area tea-party organizer and with a local
group.
"It's just hundreds of hours and plenty of money, and this was not something
any American would want to have to deal with," said Larry Nordvig,
executive director of the Richmond Tea Party, who joined the group earlier
this year after its IRS saga was over.
Here are some of the weirdest and most notable questions and requests that
ABC found in roughly half a dozen IRS questionnaires sent to tea party
groups from 2010 to 2012:
"Provide a list of all issues that are important to your organization.
Indicate your position regarding each issue."
"Please explain in detail the derivation of your organization's name." (in a
letter to the Ohio-based 1851 Center for Constitutional Law)
"Please explain in detail your organization's involvement with the Tea Party
."
"Provide details regarding your relationship with Justin Binik-Thomas." (a
Cincinnati-area Tea-Party activist)
"Provide information regarding the Butler County Teen Age Republicans and
your relationship."
"Submit the following information relating to your past and present
directors, officers, and key employees: a) Provide a resume for each."
"The names of the donors, contributors, and grantors. … The amounts of each
of the donations, contributions, and grants and the dates you received them
."
"The names of persons from your organization and the amount of time they
spent on the event or program." (for events)
"Provide copies of the handbills you distributed at your monthly meetings."
"Fully describe your youth outreach program with the local school."
"Please provide copies of all your current web pages, including your Blog
posts. Please provide copies of all of your newsletters, bulletins, flyers,
newsletters or any other media or literature you have disseminated to your
members or others. Please provide copies of stories and articles that have
been published about you."
"Are you on Facebook or other social networking sites? If yes, provide
copies of these pages."
"Provide copies of the agendas and minutes of your Board meetings and, if
applicable, members ship meetings, including a description of legislative
and electoral issues discussed, and whether candidates for political office
were invited to address the meeting."
"Do your issue-related advocacy communications compare to the positions of
candidates or slates of candidates on these issues with your positions?
Provide copies of these communications. What percentage do these constitute
of your issue-related advocacy communications?"
"Do you have a close relationship with any candidate for political office or
political party? If so describe fully the nature of that relationship."
"Apart from your responses to the preceding, estimate the percentage of your
time and what percentage of your resources you will devote to activities in
the 2012 election cycle, in which you will explicitly or implicitly support
or oppose a candidate, candidates or slates of candidates, for public
office." |
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