IRS Loses in Court Against Tea Party Group

Posted on November 21, 2016

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you are aware of the IRS scandal in which it delayed the processing of certain applications for tax-exempt status filed by organizations with conservative-sounding names or giving their applications extra, unnecessary scrutiny.

The IRS has publicly stated that it has stopped its allegedly discriminatory treatment of conservative organizations. However, in the case NorCal Tea Party Patriots v. IRS in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, a motion for a preliminary injunction was brought by the Texas Patriots Tea Party.

The Texas Patriots Tea Party filed an application for tax-exempt status with the IRS in 2012. However, because the IRS had not yet acted on the Texas Patriots Tea Party’s application for tax-exempt status, NorCal brought suit against the IRS and asked the court to order the IRS to process the Texas Patriots Tea Party’s application for tax-exempt status.

The IRS argued that the request for a preliminary injunction was unnecessary because the IRS has stopped discriminating against organizations with conservative-sounding names.

In ruling against the IRS, the Court held that there is strong evidence that the IRS delayed the processing of the application, especially because the application has been pending for over three years. Politics aside, we agree that the IRS should timely rule on all requests for tax-exempt status and that the IRS has dragged its feet long enough, especially in this case. What do you think?