IRS Balks at Investigating Tax-Exempt Organizations Accused of Violating Tax Laws

Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Complaints about tax-exempt groups, which have become a mainstay of federal elections, are not being managed or processed efficiently by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), according to a new report.
 
The Department of the Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration found that the IRS’ exempt organizations (EO) function needs to do a better job of reviewing 501(c)4 organizations to determine if they are violating federal law.
 
Prominent examples of 501(c)(4)’s include the Republican-friendly Crossroads GPS and the pro-Obama Priorities USA, as well as churches that support political candidates.
 
501(c)(4) is reserved for organizations involved in social welfare pursuits. Because this tax-exempt status has been used by groups involved in partisan politics, liberal and conservative opponents have filed requests with the IRS to see if the organizations should lose their standing.
 
But in order to do this, the IRS has to first find the complaints. The inspector general randomly selected a list of referrals about tax-exempt groups and discovered that 25% of them couldn’t be located by the agency.
 
The IRS also does not monitor all referrals after receiving them and relies on a database “rife with inaccuracies and omissions,” according to The Hill.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
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Comments

Pierre 11 years ago
What people do not undrtseand is that if/when a property is foreclosed on the borrower does not simply walk away with a FC on their credit. At the beginning of the following year they get a 1099 and have to claim the banks loss as an income and then pay taxes on it. The IRS billing them is undrtseandable, especially if they had unpaid taxes and the IRS placed a 2nd lien against the property.The other thing that people forget is that the borrower may ask banks for help, but they have to qualify for it. Investors are not handing' the bank to people because they need help they have to qualify by showing they can afford a lower payment/interest rate. If they do not qualify this way, or if there are 2nd liens on the property often the banks hands are tied because the collateral can be FC on by the other lien holder(s) and the risk of loss all the way around is to great. You have a couple of choices here;1) If your parents haven't been evicted yet and if you're in a Redemption State you might be able to redeem the property by making a years worth of interest payments. You'll want to contact the FC attorney assigned by the investor to get answers to those questions or look it up on the internet.2) Again, if your parents are still on the property they still might be able to sell it, possibly even a Short Sale which would mean getting an offer for close to Fair Market Value. You can contact the REO of your parents loan servicer to inquire about this possible option.3) Move forward. The FC is done. I would inquire (if you haven't already) with that BK attorney to see if they do anything to reduce the debt owed to the IRS.Good Luck.

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