IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs IRS Health Care Office

[Geee]

ABC News:

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.

[clearvision]

[Rheo]

Good grief.

[Rheo]

So, Joseph Grant, the second IRS guy to resign today, was her successor. Unflippin believable.

[clearvision]

More on Ingram:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/irs-tax-exemptionobamacare-exec-got-100390-in-bonuses/article/2529899

100K in bonuses the past 4 years.

[Valin]

Well this makes prefect sense, given that the IRS will be running America health care system. Nothing to see here...Move Along Now.

[Geee]

Reality is sometimes crazier than fiction. My initial reaction? You must be joking (via ABC News):

• 
  Unreal: IRS Official Who Oversaw Targeting Scandal Now In Charge of Obamacare DivisionThe Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation. Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today. Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.If you're waiting for a rimshot, give it up. Smell the reality, friends. And In case you were curious, yes of course Ms. Ingram raked in more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded bonuses as she oversaw her office's the abusive targeting scheme. Now she's off to bigger and better things; namely, monitoring and enforcing your healthcare arrangements. Conservatives have already started making the IRS-Obamacare nexus clear -- a killer talking point -- but this new information brings the connection to an entirely new level. The woman who is arguably the individual most directly responsible for the operation of the IRS targeting scandal has been promoted to run Obamacare enforcement. Let that sink in. Obamacare's core individual mandate, which the Supreme Court upheld as a tax in 2012, goes into effect next year, and our trustworthy, apolitical pals at the Internal Revenue Service are in charge of policing it. I'm sure being infected by toxic IRS taint will make Obamacare even more popular than it already is.
  

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/05/16/rimshot-irs-official-who-oversaw-targeting-scandal-now-in-charge-of-obamacare-division-n1599015

[Geee]

IRS tax exemption/Obamacare exec got $103,390 in bonuses

 

 

Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harrassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012.

More recently, Ingram was promoted to serve as director of the tax agency's Obamacare program office, a position that put her in charge of the vast expansion of the IRS' regulatory power and staffing in connection with federal health care, ABC reported earlier today.

Ingram received a $7,000 bonus in 2009, according to data obtained by The Washington Examiner from the IRS, then a $34,440 bonus in 2010, $35,400 in 2011 and $26,550 last year, for a total of $103,390. Her annual salary went from $172,500 to $177,000 during the same period.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/irs-tax-exemptionobamacare-exec-got-100390-in-bonuses/article/2529899

[Valin]

 

H/T Power Line

[Valin]

Next casualty from IRS scandal: Tax reform

KELSEY SNELL

5/16/13

 

There’s a new threat to tax reform: the IRS.

 

The unfolding scandal over the agency improperly targeting conservative groups is forcing the chief tax writers in Congress to shift attention away from the comprehensive tax code overhaul they’ve been aggressively pursuing.

 

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) are both opening investigations into the debacle. Camp will hold a hearing on the matter tomorrow and Baucus will hold one of his own on Tuesday.

Both lawmakers have said they want to move on tax reform this year, a tough challenge even before the IRS developments came to light. But the scandal throws that timeline even further into doubt as precious time — and political capital — that would have been dedicated to seeking reform could now be co-opted by the IRS probe.

 

“There are a lot of distractions in this town and this is another one,” Ohio Rep. Pat Tiberi, a senior Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, told POLITICO. “It takes away from the oxygen of tax reform.”

 

(Snip)

 

 

Could someone please explain this to me. Oh and please use small words.

[Valin]

Lanny Davis: Did WH counsel know IRS was targeting conservatives?

Ed Morrissey

5/17/13

 

If it’s true, it would be the first time anyone has linked the issue in any way to the White House. Lanny Davis writes in The Hill today that he’s heard White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler knew for “several weeks” without informing Barack Obama, and she needs to resign … if his sources are correct.

 

(Snip)

 

The story itself would be huge — making a connection earlier than the IG report’s first leak, which came from Lois Lerner herself at the IRS. Don’t forget that Obama yesterday parsed his response very carefully when it came to knowing about the targeting at the IRS. He would only say that he first became aware of the IG report last Friday; he left open the question of when he first knew about the targeting.

 

If Ruemmler knew about it earlier than that, it becomes a much bigger problem for Obama. First, just as with the IRS chief counsel’s briefing on the matter in August 2011, it’s almost impossible to believe that the lawyers wouldn’t immediately tell their bosses what was going on, unless they had good reason to believe their bosses already knew about it. If Obama found out a few weeks before the IG report came out, why didn’t he act then to clean house at the IRS? And it then also prompts the Watergate-ish question: What did the President know, and when did he know it?

 

For that matter, what did the White House press know, and when did they know it? Davis is wondering about that, too:

(Snip)

 

 

 

_______________________________________________________________

As the old saying goes...Watch This Space.

 

[Valin]

Ousted IRS official to face House panel as GOP bears down

Bernie Becker and Peter Schroeder

05/17/13

 

The official ousted this week as acting chief of the IRS will testify Friday on his former agency’s targeting of conservative groups as Republicans bear down on an issue that is keeping President Obama on his heels.

Steven Miller, forced out by President Obama after a quarter century at the IRS, is scheduled to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee, in the first congressional hearing over actions that claimed the job of a second senior agency official on Thursday.

 

 

Ways and Means members from both sides of the aisle said they had a slew of questions for the IRS, especially after a Treasury audit this week found that the agency asked for donor lists and other unnecessary information from conservative groups, and took months or even years to approve applications for tax-exempt status.

 

 

(Snip)

 

Boustany said that he would like to hear from the former IRS commissioner, Doug Shulman, on the matter, as well as employees from the Cincinnati office at the epicenter of the controversy.

Shulman is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee next week, and Lois Lerner, the agency official who first disclosed the IRS targeting, has been invited to appear before the panel as well. Top Oversight Republicans have said that Lerner misled them about IRS practices when it came to Tea Party groups.

 

Neal and other Democrats stressed that there’s no reason as of yet to think that the congressional investigation into the IRS has to last months, as some Republicans have suggested.

Nor, Democrats say, is there any proof that higher-level employees were involved in the Tea Party targeting.

 

 

 

(Snip)

 

[Valin]

Vid: FOX 19′s Ben Swann names 4 IRS agents that participated in scandal, suggests they could face criminal charges

 

This is a nice recap of events this week that deal with the IRS scandal. Earlier this week, FOX 19 said they had 4 IRS agents who said they were just doing what their superiors told them to do when it came to targeting conservative groups. Now anchor Ben Swann names those employees:

[clearvision]

There is confusion over Ingram's time at IRS. IRS says she was only over the troubled division 6months (end of 2010) (of course that is when this all started).

 

But here is her testimony in 2011....

 

“My name is Sarah Hall Ingram and I’m commissioner of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Operating Division at the Internal Revenue Service. And I also serve as the executive lead for the IRS Operational Planning and Implementation of the Tax Law Provisions of the Affordable Care Act of 2010,” she testified before the House Ways and Means Committee Nov. 15, 2011.

LINK

[Valin]

Maddow: IRS Mistake A Serious Breach Of Trust

 

Rachel Maddow reports on a second IRS scandal in which the agency shared with journalists at ProPublica the non-profit application data of organizations not yet approved - a serious breach, even if accidental. (msnbc.com)

 

 

I still cannot stand that woman!! I mean I really don't like her!

[righteousmomma]

Occurs to me who knows nothing - than what she reads- this is either the most incompetent, inept, downright shallow president and administration in history or 1. the whole template fits the scenario of liberal politics and the O's agenda or 2. the o might be disengaged but he is the one who has appointed all these radical lefties and liberals to run things for him, so regardless whether he is on the golf course or asleep the liberalprogressive living constitutional Marxist agenda is being implemented.

[Rheo]

Occurs to me who knows nothing - than what she reads- this is either the most incompetent, inept, downright shallow president and administration in history or 1. the whole template fits the scenario of liberal politics and the O's agenda or 2. the o might be disengaged but he is the one who has appointed all these radical lefties and liberals to run things for him, so regardless whether he is on the golf course or asleep the liberalprogressive living constitutional Marxist agenda is being implemented.

Yes.

[Valin]

Occurs to me who knows nothing - than what she reads- this is either the most incompetent, inept, downright shallow president and administration in history or 1. the whole template fits the scenario of liberal politics and the O's agenda or 2. the o might be disengaged but he is the one who has appointed all these radical lefties and liberals to run things for him, so regardless whether he is on the golf course or asleep the liberalprogressive living constitutional Marxist agenda is being implemented.

Yes.

 

RACISM!!!

[SrWoodchuck]

 

Both via iOTW

 

[Valin]

Darrell Issa calls top Treasury official to testify on IRS

LAUREN FRENCH

5/17/13

 

The Obama administration will face more questions over its role in the IRS scandal next week when a top Treasury Department official will testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin will appear at a panel hearing on Wednesday, a committee aide tells POLITICO. He’ll testify alongside J. Russell George, the IRS inspector general who released a damaging report this week that slammed lax management at the agency.

 

IRS commissioners technically report to the deputy Treasury secretary so Wolin’s testimony will provide important insight into what the administration knew about the agency’s practice of subjecting conservative groups to extra scrutiny as they applied for a tax exemption.

In the first congressional hearing on the debacle this morning, acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller reiterated earlier agency statements that there wasn’t any communication with the White House about the program.

 

(Snip)

 

Wolin will be the first administration official to testify before Congress on the scandal, which has cost two IRS officials their jobs this week. Wolin worked closely with former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and speculation has swirled that he plans to soon leave the administration.

Lois Lerner, the embattled director of the IRS tax-exempt division, will also testify at the hearing. A spokesperson for the panel told POLITICO that her attorney says she is in Montreal, Canada, but will return in time for the Wednesday hearing.

Former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, who left the agency in November, will also testify.

 

(Snip)

 

 

 

 

[nickydog]

Maddow: IRS Mistake A Serious Breach Of Trust

 

Rachel Maddow reports on a second IRS scandal in which the agency shared with journalists at ProPublica the non-profit application data of organizations not yet approved - a serious breach, even if accidental. (msnbc.com)

 

 

I still cannot stand that woman!! I mean I really don't like her!

 

Ditto!!

[Pepper]

@Valin

 

from Politico article "Wolin will be the first administration official to testify before Congress on the scandal, which has cost two IRS officials their jobs this week."

 

Not quite true, Politico, Miller was temporary and was going to leave in June or so.

[Valin]

@Valin

 

from Politico article "Wolin will be the first administration official to testify before Congress on the scandal, which has cost two IRS officials their jobs this week."

 

Not quite true, Politico, Miller was temporary and was going to leave in June or so.

 

I would point out that Politico has gatekeepers and factchecker...so obviously you are wrong.

[Geee]

@Valin

 

from Politico article "Wolin will be the first administration official to testify before Congress on the scandal, which has cost two IRS officials their jobs this week."

 

Not quite true, Politico, Miller was temporary and was going to leave in June or so.

 

I would point out that Politico has gatekeepers and factchecker...so obviously you are wrong.

 

that's a hoot.

[Valin]

@Valin

 

from Politico article "Wolin will be the first administration official to testify before Congress on the scandal, which has cost two IRS officials their jobs this week."

 

Not quite true, Politico, Miller was temporary and was going to leave in June or so.

 

I would point out that Politico has gatekeepers and factchecker...so obviously you are wrong.

 

that's a hoot.

 

I wake up to Bill Bennett, and listening to him and his callers...there are a lot of really smart people out there...and some of them are not even Journalists.