House Panel to Grill Ousted IRS Chief  05/17 07:17

   Lawmakers are ready to question the ousted head of the Internal Revenue 
Service as Congress holds its first hearing on the tougher scrutiny the IRS 
gave tea party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lawmakers are ready to question the ousted head of the 
Internal Revenue Service as Congress holds its first hearing on the tougher 
scrutiny the IRS gave tea party and other conservative groups that applied for 
tax-exempt status.

   With the scandal joining the parade of political headaches buffeting 
President Barack Obama, the Republican-run House Ways and Means Committee 
planned to question the agency's ousted chief, Steven Miller, on Friday.

   Miller, acting director until he resigned Wednesday, seems sure to get a 
hostile reception from the committee. Members of both parties have spent the 
past week bitterly chastising the agency for abandoning its charge of making 
nonpolitical decisions about which groups should qualify for tax-exempt status, 
which makes it easier for them to collect contributions from donors.

   Lawmakers also have said that despite asking the IRS repeatedly about 
complaints from conservative groups that their applications were being treated 
unfairly, the agency --- including Miller --- never told them the groups were 
being targeted, even after May 2012, when the agency said Miller was briefed on 
the practice. Miller was previously a deputy commissioner whose portfolio 
included the unit that made decisions about tax-exempt status.

   Also testifying Friday was J. Russell George, the Treasury Department's 
inspector general for tax administration.

   A report George issued this week concluded that the IRS office in 
Cincinnati, which screened applications for the tax exemptions, improperly 
singled out tea party and other conservative groups for tougher treatment. The 
report says the practice began in March 2010 and lasted more than 18 months.

   Republicans have spent the past few days trying to link the IRS' improper 
scrutiny of conservatives to Obama. The president has said he didn't know about 
the targeting until last Friday, when Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division 
that oversees tax-exempt groups, acknowledged at a legal conference that 
conservative groups had been singled out. She said it was wrong and apologized.

   "I promise you this, that the minute I found out about it, then my main 
focus was making sure that we get the thing fixed," Obama said Thursday.

   Even so, less than four months into his second term, the president has been 
on the defensive for the IRS controversy, along with questions about last 
September's attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and 
three other Americans, and the government's seizure of The Associated Press' 
telephone records as part of a leaks investigation.

   In one of the latest GOP attacks, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, wrote Obama on 
Thursday asking whether the White House or Treasury Department pressured the 
IRS on the treatment of conservative groups. In the letter, Portman accused the 
administration of "policies that threaten to chill disfavored political speech."

   The inspector general's report said all IRS officials questioned said their 
actions "were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS."

   The report blamed "ineffective management" for letting IRS officials craft 
"inappropriate criteria" to review applications from tea party and other 
conservative groups, based on their names or political views. It found that the 
IRS took no action on many of the conservative groups' applications for 
tax-exempt status for long periods of time, hindering their fundraising for the 
2010 and 2012 elections.

   Many of the groups were applying for tax-exempt status as social welfare 
organizations, which are allowed to participate in campaign activity if that is 
not their primary activity. The IRS judges whether that imprecise standard is 
met.

   Friday's hearing was just the start of Congress' probe of the IRS' actions, 
with the Senate Finance and House Oversight committees planning hearings next 
week.

   In addition, Attorney General Eric Holder has said the FBI was investigating 
whether the IRS may have violated applicants' civil rights.

   Obama has rejected the idea of naming a special prosecutor to investigate 
the episode, saying Thursday that the probes by Congress and the Justice 
Department would get to the bottom of who was responsible.

   Obama has named Daniel Werfel, a top White House budget officer, to replace 
Miller.

   Also Thursday, Joseph Grant, one of Miller's top deputies, announced plans 
to retire June 3, according to an internal IRS memo. Grant is commissioner of 
the agency's tax exempt and government entities division, which includes the 
agents that targeted tea party groups for additional scrutiny.

   Grant joined the IRS in 2005 and took over as acting commissioner of the tax 
exempt and government entities division in December 2010. He was just named the 
permanent commissioner May 8.

   When asked whether Grant was pressured to leave, IRS spokeswoman Michelle 
Eldridge said Grant had more than 31 years of federal service and it was his 
personal decision to leave.

   Before he joined the IRS, Grant was a top official at the Pension Benefit 
Guaranty Corporation.

   Grant's predecessor at the IRS was Sarah Hall Ingram, who is now director of 
the agency's Affordable Care Act Office. Ingram was in charge of the tax exempt 
division when IRS agents first started targeting conservative groups.

   The IRS said Ingram was assigned to help the agency implement the health 
care law in December 2010, about six months before the Treasury inspector 
general's report said her subordinate, the director of exempt organizations, 
learned about the targeting.


(KA)