DENVER—Two more conservative political groups in Colorado say they were targeted by the Internal Revenue Service to make it hard for them to get tax exemptions. The organizations have small budgets and hold picnics and forums to recruit neighbors to hear about conservative ideas.
The Coalition for a Conservative Majority and the Citizen Awareness Project join the Western Slope Conservative Alliance and the Colorado Tea Party Patriots that said they were forced to wait for official permission to operate under the tax code.
University of Denver political science chair Seth Masket said the ongoing scandal casts a pall over the Obama administration.
“All the things that the Tea Party used to claim doesn’t seem as outlandish anymore. People who see this as an evil activity of the federal government may have thought the federal government was evil anyway,” he said.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Inspector General has issued a report that found that for more than 18 months, the IRS specifically targeted conservative groups. The IRS has launched a criminal investigation.
According to the Denver Post ( ), the tiny Colorado organization Coalition for a Conservative Majority raises less than $1,000 a year, mostly in dues from members, and tries to get mostly young people involved in conservative activism.
Donna Aydelott, treasurer of the group’s Denver chapter, said she complied with demands from the Internal Revenue Service’s Cincinnati office to “list persons or entities with which you maintain a close relationship, including but not exclusively public officials, candidates for public offices, political parties.”
Her organization eventually was approved.
Under federal tax rules, those groups cannot collectively promote individual candidates or help political campaigns, but they are able to talk about philosophy and ideas.
Kevin McCarney, who applied for tax-exempt status for the Western Slope Conservative Alliance in April 2010, was asked by the IRS to list all his donors and whether any of those contributors had run for public office. The IRS also asked to see copies of the group’s website that only members can access.
“I grew up in the Watergate era, I was a junior in high school. This is the same thing Richard Nixon did for his political opponents. It’s not the way the country is supposed to work,” McCarney said.
Charlie Smith, chairman of the Citizen Awareness Project, had his application leaked to a news organization before it was approved.
The IRS acknowledged the error and then asked Smith to “provide all copies of transcripts used when communicating to the public via telephone or television.”
Smith’s application is still pending.
“I think it chills free speech. Lots of people are intimidated by the IRS, and when the IRS starts asking you a bunch of questions, you get a little nervous,” he told the Denver Post ( ).
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Information from: The Denver Post,
