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Congressman Inquires About IRS Scrutiny of Universities and Other Nonprofits

October 11, 2011, 12:34 pm

In a letter sent last week to the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., a Louisiana Republican, said he wanted to know what the IRS had learned in its examination of universities’ executive compensation and unrelated-business income, an inquiry that dates back several years and has produced at least two reports. The letter from Mr. Boustany, chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, inquired into the results of a broader IRS examination of tax-exempt organizations such as hospitals, colleges, and groups like AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons. Mr. Boustany said he wanted a response by October 20.

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  • dank48

    Surely this can’t really qualify as a surprise. It’s hard to keep the rights and privileges of artificial persons straight. As with the recent Supreme Court decision that a group of employees can’t sue Walmart because they haven’t shown they’ve been harmed, and by God they sure won’t now, there’s a new and different way of doing things, and some of us–myself included–have a hard time keeping up.

    The Executive branch of the U.S. government is bought and sold.
    The Legislative branch of the U.S. government is bought and sold.
    The Judicial branch of the U.S. government is bought and sold.
    The United States is the pleasantest police state on earth.
    The United States has the best government money can buy.

    Does this help?

  • trendisnotdestiny

    As prudent as Dank’s post is, we haven’t even mentioned those with real power, still mostly invisible….. Here is an interesting article about the Shape of Things to Come by Charles Hugh Smith http://www.zerohedge.com/print/424146

  • livefreeordie2

    It’s all a conspiracy!  They’re all out to get you!  The truth is, Eric Holder is really Alberto Gonzalez with lots of cosmetic surgery, really big lifts in his shoes, and a frontal lobotomy.  Obama is just a marionette and George Bush is still pulling the strings!  You MUST hide quickly!  Here’s a plan – make a tin foil hat in the shape of a funnel and wear it 24/7!  That way, the evil corporate interests and Trendy’s invisible people can’t read your thoughts!   

  • _perplexed_

    This kind of government collusion in defense of corporate interests is a persuasive argument for ”starve the beast” conservatism.  I don’t need to pay taxes to have the DOJ do nothing– that can be accomplished without them. 

  • http://twitter.com/lexalexander Lex Alexander

    I’ll go along with the idea of citizenship for corporations just as soon as someone can find me a corporation whose ancestors, as did mine, pissed on the corpse of Tory Maj. Patrick Ferguson after the Battle of Kings Mountain. ‘Til then, they need to be regulated all the time (brutally, in the case of financial services) and prosecuted speedily and effectively when they cross the line. With their theft, bribery and environment-soiling, large corporations are treating the American people as the enemy; it’s about time we the people returned the favor.

  • goxewu

    Why can’t the Right do humor? Intentionally, that is.

  • livefreeordie2

    Ah. . . my good friend Gox.  Of course the right does humor intentionally – liberals are just wound too tightly to comprehend.  Or one could say simply that the left is a joke – just not one that is very funny. . .

  • droslovinia

    Well I’m not going along with it until we can piss on the corpses of some of these corporations, too!

  • calgrad

    According to the article, the alleged retrenchment happened “after the Supreme Court overturned a conviction it won against the accounting firm Arthur Andersen”. In other words, the law changed, and the Justice Department adapted to the new law.

    Yet, somehow, even after Citizen’s United happened during the Obama presidency & Eric Holder has been running the Justice Department for years, people here are still finding a way to blame former President Bush.

    Seems a little unbalanced, doesn’t it?

  • 11245928

    I don’t like your ancestors, Lex.  Mine buried their dead, and honor the memories of their opponents in battle.

  • trendisnotdestiny

    Its not like I don’t provide him enough of a target…. 

    There certainly have been times that my backside has been handed to me here on Brainstorm.  (Enough to feed a small army or one very large Denny’s customer).

  • trendisnotdestiny

    Livefree criticizes only that which he can myopically see.  Anything outside of this cycloptic vision is dismissed as conspiracy. 

    As a student of basketball, the cyclops need to see more of the floor than just what is in front of him regardless of size.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that our wealthiest benefactors are not politicians, judges, or government officials in the system. 

    The analogy for baseball may be more apt. The people he is concerned about are the minor leagues servants of the sport. Follow the money!

  • trendisnotdestiny

    Right… when I think of people wound “too tightly”, I think of large groups of monolithic political stereotypes of people whom I have never met nor never will.  One wonders if Jeff Foxworthy might have a joke about this….

    Maybe we should stick to labeling what we know versus what we think we know.  Now, if you were to tell me that our mothers-in-law, ticket writing policeman and father’s yelling at their sons from the stands in little league were ‘tightly wound’, I might agree and talk about it with you over a beer. 

  • coco_rico

    I think it is so funny that Prof. Gitlin keeps framing all of Obama’s misdeeds in the language of “Bush did it.”

    Can we please move on? Obama is a corporate shill in his own right, and not merely as a helpless enabler of the evil Bush administration’s original sins. Eric Holder isn’t continuing Alberto Gonzales’s policies (especially when you remember that Gonzales like Ashcroft was forced out of office over stupid pettiness). Eric Holder is pursuing Eric Holder’s policies, which are corporatist and corrupt.

    The more you dwell on Bush as the ultimate evil, the more you allow Obama and Holder and Company to commit the same rapine and plunder. Go ahead.

  • philosophy

    “toothless government agencies” – yes, because of Bush appointments to key positions in the agencies, and those appointees hired the like-minded for lower positions, and many of them are still there. Similar to those who warned that the biggest threat of the Bush admin was youngish  VERY conservative Supreme Court appointees. Spot on!

  • goxewu

    See what I mean?

  • toddgitlin

    “Citizen’s United happened during the Obama presidency”–which was not responsible for the Republican Supreme Court that issued the decision.  Or has the president begun appointing the Supreme Court that preexisted him?  Nice trick.  As for Holder, the article pointed the finger at him, and I criticized him too.  Not balanced enough for you?  

  • livefreeordie2

    If you mean that Trendy would be a great guy with whom to share a beer and conversation, then I see what you mean.  Otherwise, well. . . no.  Why don’t you tell us what you mean?

  • livefreeordie2

    Trendy. . .all this discussion of having only one eye or your suggestion that I’m shortsighted is quite odd.  I’m still searching for those invisible people with all the real power that you talked about with Dank.  I mean, if they’re invisible, you could have a dozen eyes and you still won’t see them, right?  

  • trendisnotdestiny

    Wealth buys invisibility and mobility livefree; and I would not call you “short-sighted”, more like near-sighted

  • goxewu

    I meant, as before: “Why can’t the Right do humor? Intentionally, that is”

    While appreciate dielive2orfree’s continuing to offer examples, I don’t think we need any more proof.

  • mbelvadi

    What will it take before the “best and the brightest”, the kinds of people who read the CHE, realize that it’s time to abandon the sinking ship called the US? Does a country this corrupt really deserve to profit (taxes and intangibles) from your talents?  There are many other wonderful places to live in the world, places even where English is the primary language, places where one major health crisis won’t bankrupt you, places where democracy still functions most of the time, places that maybe deserve you better than the US does.  Think about it.

  • livefreeordie2

    Geez, Gox. . . you answered that question?  With a straight answer?  Really?  Really?? 

    And btw, making fun of the dyslexic is definitely not funny. . .

  • goxewu

    A pre-emptive strike:

    Unless the the fill-in-the-blank country, “My parents/grandparents/great-grandparents came over here from [name of country] to have a better life” was a lethal dictatorship, experiencing a civil war, or wracked by famine,” those people came to the U.S. for a better economic deal and quality of life. And we don’t think of them as traitors or unpatriotic regarding their countries of origin. In fact, we regard them as hardy, adventurous and if they’ve got kids, good parents. We especially welcome immigrants from a “brain drain” in other countries.

    So please, no accusations regarding the patriotism or gratitude of some citizen of the U.S. deciding he or she can get a better deal elsewhere and moving.

     

  • old nassau’67

    “It goes to the functional collusion of a corporate-friendly Supreme Court and toothless government agencies. It goes to the big, big story about America today—in a word, plutocracy.”
    1. If the SCOTUS makes a decision you don’t like, just label the decision “collusion”. For example, colluding with defendants in custody (Miranda), colluding with African-Americans (Brown). Any decision has to “collude” with one party.
    2. “plutocracy”: aka “Republican Party”.

  • fizmath

    If a corporation is legally a person then can it be drafted, serve on a jury or sentenced to prison?

  • goxewu

    With apologies to Donovan:

    First it is a person, then it is no person, then it is.
     

  • livefreeordie2

    mbelvadi – You are absolutely right!  It’s time for all good liberals to pack it in and head for those English speaking lands of milk and honey where you can let your socialist light shine!  Free healthcare for all!  Retire at 35!  Payday every day and no work on payday!  Hip Hip, Hooray!  And make no mistake!  I agree with goxewu that it is absolutely the patriotic thing to do!  Not only will you be leaving this sinking ship called the US, you will undoubtedly be doing your former country a great service!  There’s no doubt in my mind that if we could get all the liberals to take your advice, the country would be saved!

  • jambro

    Where is the surprise news? Lawyers are a profession with organizations and networks embedded into the entire social fabric, from local to federal government, small business to MNCs as well as throughout the financial services sectors. While investigative journalism and public interest lawyers can often open up cans of worms in practices across sectors, they face a battery of experienced defense lawyers, often bankrolled by the potential offenders, who can usually bring out heavier guns to research and fight their cases, and in the process reaping mega rewards in fees. 

    Same as it ever was when lawyers were commonly known as “ambulance chasers”  but the US system of stratified government sectors and multiple laws at as many levels of state and local laws have produced an estate far beyond any other sector of America’s political economy. Thus all legislatures and local commissions have the greatest proportion of wealthy lawyers among their peers and will almost always favor their own class and its interests.   

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Antsy-Kuhnwisse/100002159499682 Antsy Kuhnwisse

    It is so tempting to do just that.  But for some reason I really love this country and still hope that it will recover its sanity before it’s too late.

  • livefreeordie2

    Me, too, Antsy. . . Me too.

  • http://twitter.com/lexalexander Lex Alexander

    Well, you had to have been there. These were a bunch of backwoods farmers in the wilderness of upstate South Carolina, minding their own business until the Tories showed up and tried to make them choose a side … and not by logical persuasion.

    Don’t romanticize war, please. Romanticizing it is part of the reason we have so many.

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