More than two years after initiating a much-ballyhooed congressional
investigation into suspicious IRS audits of many non-profit groups
critical of the Clinton administration, some of the audited groups are
outraged by the probe’s apparent evaporation without any conclusion,
while other groups say they don’t really care.
“They have a big hearing and lots of noise, and then nothing,” says
Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Foundation, about the
House Joint Committee on Taxation’s supposed investigation. His
organization is the educational arm of the American Policy Center, which
was audited in 1997 after the group put out a direct mail piece calling
for the firing of then-Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders.
“That is the typical move,” says DeWeese. “They have no ‘killer’
instinct. They have an opportunity to make something happen, and all
they seem to be interested in is the headlines. Once the headlines fade
and it’s time to do the real work and make something last out of it, it
doesn’t happen. That’s been my frustration.”
Recalling the events leading up to the audit, DeWeese notes he
received a certified letter from an individual who was outraged by the
direct mail piece and threatened to report the group to the Internal
Revenue Service. Three months later the audit began, concluding only
after the agents in charge of the audit were shown the “offending” piece
of direct mail.
DeWeese is upset by the apparent void in investigative efforts by the
committee, and has decided he and his organization would just move on
since his group didn’t suffer any repercussion from the audit.
“They (the joint committee) won’t ask the people who were harmed,”
complained
DeWeese. “But they ask the agency, ‘Did you do this?'”
Another group, the National Center for Public Policy Research, a
non-profit organization that did much work critical of the Clinton
health care plan in 1993, was audited for the 1993 tax year back in
1995. Puzzled by the audit, Amy Ridenour, the organization’s president,
said her group asked the IRS agent in charge what the audit was about.
The agent responded saying he assumed somebody didn’t like what they
were doing, Ridenour said. The agent also said it was his belief the
audit was political, according to Ridenour.
Not optimistic about the joint committee’s investigation, led by Rep.
Bill Archer, R-Texas, Ridenour said, “The administration will be out of
office before we know anything. I guess I was never optimistic that
Congress was going to find much out because of this administration’s
history of stonewalling so successfully.”
“My hope is that should the next administration be Republican —
regardless of who it is — that they will be very interested in finding
out what went on, and assuming that there hasn’t been widespread
shredding of documents over at the IRS around the time of the
inauguration, that we might find something out at that time,” Ridenour
added.
Joseph Farah, editor of WorldNetDaily.com and founder of the
non-profit Western Journalism Center pointed out the audit of WJC
contained elements of both APC’s and NCPPR’s audit. In 1996, the center
was audited after a letter from a concerned citizen was forwarded from
the White House to the IRS. The letter questioned the investigative
activities of the center in 1994. During the investigation, Thomas
Cederquist, the IRS agent in charge of the audit said the audit was a
“political case” and that “the decision is going to be made at the
national level.”
Although many organizations not favorable to Clinton’s policies have
been
targeted by the IRS,
it would appear a good many of them are just relieved the audit
experience is over. Both the National Rifle Association and Concerned
Women for America wished not to comment at all on their audits, and
Marion Edwin Harrison, general counsel for American Life League, said he
wasn’t even interested or concerned about the joint committee’s
investigation. When WorldNetDaily.com pressed Harrison as to why he
wasn’t concerned, he responded by saying it was because American Life
League doesn’t have any problems.
“The mere fact that it (ALL) was audited doesn’t prove anything, and
so, I don’t know that there’s any basis to have any concern to what the
report says,” said Harrison. “It may be in the scheme of things for all
the years it’s been in existence, it’s lucky to only have been audited
once.”
“We don’t invite the IRS to come in and conduct another audit, but on
the other hand, the IRS has a duty occasionally to audit a tax-exempt
organization,” Harrison added.
Although the Heritage Foundation is still undergoing an audit, John
Von Kannon, the organization’s vice president and treasurer, expressed
an opinion similar to Harrison’s: Although audits of non-profit groups
need to take place from time to time, he doesn’t invite it.
“We had two previous audits,” Von Kannon said matter-of-factly.
“That’s part of life.”
Although some of the audited groups aren’t concerned anymore with the
congressional investigation, others would still like to see the probe
come to a conclusion.
“I think the more light we shed on this and the more we find out, the
better, because we do need to send a message to all future
administrations that the IRS shouldn’t be used for partisan political
purposes,” Ridenour said.
Farah said he was shocked at the attitude of the victims of the IRS
audits.
“Whether these people know it or not, they are inviting this kind of
abuse in the future — perhaps not against their own groups, but against
others,” Farah said. “The NRA and the Heritage Foundation deserve what
they get from government when they lay down like this and take the rape
without protest, without speaking out, without demanding accountability
for those who abuse the law and the public trust. If no other individual
or group is courageous enough to stand up, I promise you I will.”
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