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Top IRS official didn’t reveal tea party targeting
Acting Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Steven T. Miller repeatedly failed to tell Congress that tea party groups were being inappropriately targeted, even after he had been briefed on the matter. The IRS said Monday that Miller was first informed on May, 3, 2012, that applications for tax-exempt status by tea party groups were inappropriately singled out for extra, sometimes burdensome scrutiny. At least twice after the briefing, Miller wrote letters to members of Congress to explain the process of reviewing applications for tax-exempt status without revealing that tea party groups had been targeted. On July 25, 2012, Miller testified before the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee but again was not forthcoming on the issue — despite being asked about it. At the hearing, Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, told Miller that some politically active tax-exempt groups in his district had complained about being harassed. Marchant did not explicitly ask if tea party groups were being targeted. But he did ask how applications were handled. Miller responded, “We did group those organizations together to ensure consistency, to ensure quality. We continue to work those cases,” according to a transcript on the committee’s website. He added, “It is my hope that some [...]
Leaked Data Could Result in Biggest Tax Evasion Investigation Into Offshore Accounts in History
The investigation into 400 gigabytes of leaked data will be carried out by officials in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. The leaked inside information including records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists expose individuals behind covert companies and private trusts in the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands, Singapore and other offshore hideaways. It is believed to be the largest stockpile of secret tax information (400 Gigabytes) ever gathered by media organizations in history. Secrecy for Sale: Inside the Global Offshore Money Maze But the British tax authority claims it has even more data. The total size of the ICIJ files, measured in gigabytes, is more than 160 times larger than the leak of U.S. State Department documents by Wikileaks in 2010. A statement from the British tax office puts the size of the data obtained by the three tax authorities at 400 gigabytes, compared to the 260 gigabytes gathered by the ICIJ. “The 400 gigabytes of data is still being analyzed but early results show the use of companies and trusts in a number of territories around the world including Singapore, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and the Cook Islands,” the British tax office statement [...]
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