IRS Abuses Make Tea Party Scandal Look Insignificant

The Real IRS Scandal: The Tea Party Is Small Potatoes

June 5, 2013 by Michael Minns 

(Posted with permission from US~Observer – http://www.usobserver.com)

The IRS/Tea Party Scandal doesn’t hold a candle to the size and scope of IRS abuses… So, it sheds no light on anything.

Let’s boil this scandal down to simple words; words like “Tea Party” and “Patriot” and “Constitutional”; words that when used in paperwork to become tax exempt organizations, keep the people filing from being treated fairly. And, before I get to the point… understand… everyone should be treated fairly… and with a 1st Amendment Right to speak and write and congregate… what we say or write should have no bearing on whether or not we are treated equally. Who disagrees with that?

Credit: UPI

Something is wrong if some words (speech) are tax deductible and some words aren’t. Something is wrong if the government gets to decide which ones are deductible and which ones are not. It’s a heinous encroachment on the 1st Amendment.

But really, why is it such a big deal if a powerful political group is not cheated fairly (I said “cheated” but I meant “treated”), especially when thousands without power and political clout are not treated fairly? It seems that’s no big deal at all, at least to the mainstream media and public — but not to those whose lives are ruined.

The real problem is having such a powerful and largely unaccountable agency whose job is to tax work — something that shouldn’t be taxed anyway — while also wielding carte blanche powers to ruin lives.

Shining A Light On The Real Scandals: The Ruining Of Lives

I handled the remnants and ashes of a case in Walnut Ridge, Ark., where Gordon Kahl, a tax protestor, was assassinated by Sheriff Gene Matthews in 1983. Then Matthews was killed by “friendly fire” as he left the scene of his violence and was mistaken for the tax protestor. Then gasoline was poured onto the building to destroy the evidence… and the place lit on fire. The IRS, U.S. Marshals, FBI, and local Arkansas sheriffs arrested Norma Ginter, a housewife, brutalized her and charged her with harboring Gordon Kahl and murdering Sheriff Gene Matthews. Norma was eventually found not guilty on the trumped-up murder case — I was her attorney. If you read the old papers back in 1983, Norma looked like Ma Barker … except Ma Barker was guilty and Norma was a sweet heart housewife guilty of nothing.

And, I was there after the trauma in West Virginia when IRS motivated SWAT teams threatened to kill a family dog, and a little 7-year-old girl hurled her body in front of the red dot from the sniper gun to protect her dog. Terrorized, handcuffed and restrained parents wondered if their daughter would be killed. Home not burned — just wrecked.

A teenager forced from a shower at gun point, so the IRS could “check out” her parents’ home.

A short, round-faced tax preparer attacked by an IRS SWAT team. The kind little man standing back while his secretary messed on herself out of fear, staring into the barrel of IRS guns.

Photographs of a grandmother in her nightie taken by IRS undercover spies, trying to prove God only knows what.

A business man arrested at his golf course… and shackled and chained… by a half dozen armed IRS special agents with guns drawn.

A family’s house foreclosed on because all of their money was seized, by mistake, a mistake not corrected for another five years… and all their checks bounced.

A public company with a factory and workers, chained closed by the IRS because of a mistake on payroll deductions.

Taking a little girl’s tap dance shoes because the IRS claims her parents owe taxes, macing the parents and falsely charging one of them with assault.

Threatening to seize the wheelchair of a quadriplegic.

Committing a fraud against 1,300 war veterans and pilots tying them up for 30 years in Tax Court… then after getting caught, and admitting wrong-doing, fighting them four more years.

Convicting two outstanding senior citizens from Colorado on 64 Federal felony criminal charges, then confiscating their home and their vehicle – Jim and Pamela Moran’s false and malicious convictions were overturned and they were acquitted of all charges. Read the story, “64 Felony Charges Beaten.” We subsequently got their home and their jeep returned to them.

I’ve seen some really bad stuff.

So now, the “acting” commissioner of Internal Revenue Service (the real commissioner already left in November) resigns in disgrace because some bullies way under him are being very unfair to the Tea Party.

And, he is replaced by another “acting” commissioner. Maybe we should get someone who isn’t acting? Or maybe we should just quit trying to make an evil organization legitimate… admit we can’t, close it and move on.

Do I defend the improper government administrative actions against groups who don’t like the IRS as part of their political agenda? No. I don’t need to help the Tea Party out either. There are apparently thousands of people on both the left and the right, the media, the Congress and the administration clearly willing and able to do that.

I just have to wonder out loud when they are doing so much that is so much worse against so many who have no power… Is this the nastiest thing the politicians can find? Is this the most important human rights violations by the IRS that our media can point to?

Not even close.

That’s the real scandal.

– Michael Minns, lawyer