Author Topic: Lerner, IRS Caught Colluding with DOJ and FBI, Providing Illegal Taxpayer Data  (Read 388 times)

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Lerner, IRS Caught Colluding with DOJ and FBI, Providing Illegal Taxpayer Data



It now appears that the IRS was not only engaged in an illegal witch hunt of conservatives applying for tax-exempt status, but that it was actively pushing criminal investigation of already approved groups.

The latest revelations from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s investigation of the IRS are that Lois Lerner sent the Obama Administration’s FBI a 1.1 million document file of then-current 501(c)(4) organizations.  This file, given to the FBI just weeks before the 2010 elections, contains legally protected, private taxpayer information.  In other words, Lerner and the IRS may have violated federal law by turning over the information to the FBI.

Recently, Lois Lerner emails revealed that she was involved in apparent talks with the Obama Justice Department about pursuing criminal prosecutions of tax-exempt organizations.

In fact, both of these instances revolve around communications between Lerner and Richard Pilger, Director of the DOJ Elections Crimes Branch.  It shows an ongoing collusion between the IRS, through Lerner, and the Obama DOJ to criminally prosecute the same types of groups that the IRS was targeting, while the IRS was targeting them.

The fact that the IRS withheld this information from Congress is just further evidence that the Obama Administration’s IRS is stonewalling the truth and is institutionally incapable of investigating itself.

more at:   http://www.redstate.com/diary/matthewclark/2014/06/09/lerner-caught-colluding-doj-fbi-providing-illegal-taxpayer-data/
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Oceander

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The IRS has express statutory permission to provide taxpayer information to the FBI for the purposes of "tax administration" (which is a very broad term).  The statutory provision in question is section 6103 of the IRC.  Section 6103(h)(2) provides:
Quote
(h) Disclosure to certain Federal officers and employees for purposes of tax administration, etc.

*  *  *
(2) Department of Justice

In a matter involving tax administration, a return or return information shall be open to inspection by or disclosure to officers and employees of the Department of Justice (including United States attorneys) personally and directly engaged in, and solely for their use in, any proceeding before a Federal grand jury or preparation for any proceeding (or investigation which may result in such a proceeding) before a Federal grand jury or any Federal or State court, but only if—

(A) the taxpayer is or may be a party to the proceeding, or the proceeding arose out of, or in connection with, determining the taxpayer’s civil or criminal liability, or the collection of such civil liability in respect of any tax imposed under this title;

(B) the treatment of an item reflected on such return is or may be related to the resolution of an issue in the proceeding or investigation; or

(C) such return or return information relates or may relate to a transactional relationship between a person who is or may be a party to the proceeding and the taxpayer which affects, or may affect, the resolution of an issue in such proceeding or investigation.

Section 6103(h)(3) allows the IRS to disclose such information on its own initiative if it's already referred the case to the DOJ.

Section 6103(b)(4) defines "tax administration" in very broad terms:
Quote
(4) Tax administration

The term “tax administration”—

(A) means—

(i) the administration, management, conduct, direction, and supervision of the execution and application of the internal revenue laws or related statutes (or equivalent laws and statutes of a State) and tax conventions to which the United States is a party, and

(ii) the development and formulation of Federal tax policy relating to existing or proposed internal revenue laws, related statutes, and tax conventions, and

(B) includes assessment, collection, enforcement, litigation, publication, and statistical gathering functions under such laws, statutes, or conventions.


The FBI is part of the Department of Justice.  If the materials provided to the FBI consisted of "return information" - generally speaking, information reported on a return - and the disclosure could further an investigation that might result in the preparation for a proceeding before a federal grand jury, then that disclosure was legal.