Blog from the Capital

The LATimes reports that the California church, recently informed that its tax-exempt status is intact despite an election eve sermon deemed improper, is urging an investigation into the tactics and procedures of the IRS in its aggressive and lengthy inquiry into the church.

All Saints has asked a top Treasury Department official to investigate what the church called a series of procedural and substantive errors in the case, including allegedly inappropriate conversations between IRS and Justice Department officials about the investigation.

Those conversations, documented in e-mails obtained by the church through Freedom of Information Act requests, appear to show that Justice Department officials were involved in the All Saints case before the IRS made any formal referral of it for possible prosecution, an attorney for the church said. The discussions raise concerns that the IRS' investigation was politically motivated, church officials said. One e-mail, for example, appears to show coordination between IRS and Justice Department officials about a request to the church for documents. Others discuss the timing of the request and news coverage about the case.

"In view of the fact that recent congressional inquiries have revealed extensive politicization of [the Department of Justice], my client is very concerned that the close coordination undertaken by the IRS allowed partisan political concerns to direct the course of the All Saints examination," attorney Marcus S. Owens wrote in a letter Friday requesting an investigation.

Owens, a former director of the IRS division that handles tax-exempt organizations, said that although liberal and conservative congregations and other nonprofits had been investigated by the IRS in recent years, its examination of All Saints was "highly unusual" in a number of ways, not only in its seemingly contradictory conclusions.

All of that is very troubling, of course. The IRS should be completely neutral and transparent in its investigatory procedures - from choosing to pursue a case to rendering a decision. I have to disagree with this article and other reactions of "puzzlement" over the conclusion. The sermon was deemed to be improper, but at the same time, after an investigation, determined to be one-time and not indicative of a larger electioneering problem at the church, so they did not levy any sanction, as it wasn't needed. What's the contradiction?

I have the same head-scratching response to those who say that somehow the IRS guidelines aren't clear. They make pretty good thoughtful common sense to me in avoiding attempts to influence an election. If they were any more specific, they'd be: a) fraught with loopholes and b) too restrictive without regard to context. The IRS weighs a variety of factors - the only sensible way to do it - and those factors seem pretty easy to comprehend. Read for yourself the IRS' "key factors" that seem relevant here, on pages 8 and 9 of the guidelines. Of course, the IRS should make very clear their rationale for deeming the sermon improper and their procedures of investigation, which sound troubling in this case. But I think it's difficult to read the factors in that list, and then read the sermon, and claim to have no idea what might be problematic about it.

None of that condones any improprieties by the IRS in establishing and applying procedures fairly and consistently. They should absolutely be open and clear about conclusions. But if anything needs to be explained more clearly, it's those things, not the electioneering guidelines themselves.

Also, while I'm complaining, is it really right to say - as so many headlines I've encountered here have - that the IRS "dropped the case"? Their procedure may have been unusual - even unfair. But it seems like they didn't so much drop the case as conclude it. They concluded that the sermon crossed the line, but that no punitive action was warranted. Don't most IRS investigations into 501(c)(3) electioneering end with that same outcome? A determination that some improper activity took place, but that no punishment or tax is needed?