IRS Wins, Tea Party Lawsuit Dismissed


A federal judge has thrown out a Tea Party group’s lawsuit against the IRS for unfairly targeting conservative groups. The judge, Reggie B. Walton, explained that the case is now irrelevant because the IRS took corrective actions and eventually approved the allegedly targeted group’s status.

“Unless an actual, ongoing controversy exists in this case, this Court is without power to decide it.”

The group, called the True the Vote, is based in Texas and advocates for stronger measures to combat voter fraud, like voter ID laws. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, the Justice Department has taken extraordinary efforts to fight any restrictions on voting, especially targeting Texas’ laws.

True the Vote claims in their lawsuit that the IRS delayed their non-profit tax status and made “numerous unnecessary, burdensome, and unlawful requests” about their activities, because their application stated they are a Tea Party group. Even though True the Vote eventually got their status approved, they sued the IRS to obtain a permanent order preventing the government agency from putting a conservative group under special scrutiny ever again.

The Tea Party organization argued that the IRS was ultimately pressured into granting their non-profit status, but the discrimination could start up again at any time.

The judge disagreed, saying that the efforts the IRS has made to correct the problem including “remedial steps to address the alleged conduct, coupled with the reduced ‘concern about the recurrence of objectionable behavior’ government actors” were enough to convince the court that a special “voluntary cessation” exception was not applicable.

Originally, the IRS had suspected the Tea Party group of direct political election campaigning because they found attacks on the Democratic Party and a Republican response on their website. Social welfare groups, like the True the Vote, cannot engage in political campaigning of any kind and still receive a tax exemption under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code.

The IRS later stated that they would not screen groups for their apparent political leanings in the future.

That claim isn’t true, according to the plaintiffs attorney Jay Sekulow.

The lawyer says that many of his clients are still being held up; 28 received their status after a long wait, 7 are still pending and 5 withdrew out of frustration.

Future lawsuits?

Although the judge threw out the Texas Tea Party group’s case, there are still a couple of other organizations that could potentially sue. According to USA Today, two Tea Party groups, Patriots Educating Concerned Americans Now and the Cincinnati Liberty Township Tea Party, still have a case because the the IRS failed to make a decision on their status within 270 days.

It isn’t clear yet if more Tea Party groups will bring lawsuits against the IRS.

[Image Credit: Sage Ross/Wikimedia Commons]

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