Obama and the IRS ‘scandal’ you probably haven't heard of

Back in mid-May a story broke in the US that barely made ripples over here. It was soon pasted over by the exploits and revelations of Ed Snowden but it keeps coming back to the front page in the US every so often.

The revelation that broke was that the IRS (Internal Revenue Service, the US tax collectors) had been secretly targeting the tax-exempt status of several right-wing groups. With no evidence that they did the same to liberal groups, many conservative groups had to wait 13 months or more for their tax-exempt papers to be processed.

From March 2010 the IRS had been investigating the tax status of organisations which supported the so-called Tea Party movement, groups which considered themselves 'patriots' and who supported right-wing speakers such as Glenn Beck, a Fox News pundit who likes chalkboards.

Come late-2011 and the rumours about this reached Congress, with a Louisiana Congressman called Boustany asking questions and requesting info from the IRS Commissioner, Douglas Schulman.

By June 2012 various Congressional hearings had taken place where IRS officials denied the agency targeted conservative groups. Meanwhile behind the scenes guidelines were changed to widen the tax brackets under investigation to ease suspicions.

The entire process appears to have begun in Cincinnati in 2010 but become more widespread over the next year, perhaps due to concerns over the groups tax issues (the Democrat argument) or because of fears to do with the challenges these groups posed to Obama and co (the GOP's point of view).

Several other hiccups have sprung up on the way, especially over the issue of how many times the IRS Commissioner visited Obama (the difference between ‘visiting’ and ‘signing in’ became apparent). However most appear satisfied that the delays weren’t politically motivated and so the issue now seems to have gone away. Only Fox News, the bulwark of conservative America, still covers the story to any real extent and in turn fuels GOP attempts to discover something non-existently ominous in the IRS decision.

The issue has now past, and any suggestion that the President ordered a Federal agency to interfere with political opponents seems baseless. Obama must be relieved but still has many other problems to deal with, the major one again being Snowden’s leaks and the effect they are having on the US standing in the world (another blog post on that coming soon).

Imagine though if it had been true. We would be looking at a scandal similar to Watergate going on whilst the President had to deal with national security issues. Whilst not wishing ill-will on anyone, it would have been fascinating to see what would have happened as Obama enters the notorious ‘lame-duck’ period of a two-term Presidency.