House Panel Charges AARP Asks for IRS Probe
Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C. The powerful House Ways & Means Committee has asked the Internal Revenue Service to conduct a probe of the AARP one of the nations largest and most powerful membership organizations. The committee released a new report Behind the Veil: The AARP America Doesnt Know" that charges the AARP with a conflict of interest between the interests of its members its massive insurance business and its tax exempt status.
The committee report says that the AARP stands to make as much as $1 billion over the next decade because of the new health care law it helped push through Congress. The AARP spent $22 million lobbying Congress during the year-long health care fight.
The full report is available
at the committee website.
Committee to Report on AARP
The Hill newspaper is reporting that the House Ways and Means Committee will release an investigative report on whether the AARP has a conflict of interest in lobbying on health care and the nearly $1 billion it
receives from the insurance industry. Commentators on the right and left are criticizing the AARP.
The New Republic calls it a political development that will shock nobody" while
The American Spectator says AARP stands for American Association for Retiree Plunder."
Congress to Investigate AARP
The powerful House Ways and Means Committee is set to investigate one of the countrys most largest and most powerful membership organizations the AARP.
The committee will hold hearings beginning next month to investigate if the AARPs giant financial services pose a conflict with its mission to serve its 40 million members
National Journal reports quoting the committee chairman Republican Rep. Wally Herger as saying
This hearing is about getting to the bottom of how AARPs financial interests affect their self-stated mission of enhancing seniors quality of life. It is important to better understand how AARPs insurance business overlaps with its advocacy efforts and whether such overlap is appropriate."
The AARP makes nearly $1 billion in insurance revenues though it also enjoys the tax status of a non-profit. The group spent $20 million lobbying Congress last year in favor of President Obamas landmark and controversial health care law.
