Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C. The recent IRS scandal the agencys stonewalling and harassment of Tea Party groups that sought tax-exempt status during the run-up to the 2012 elections has evoked righteous indignation across the political spectrum. But one emotion it 
shouldnt elicit is surprise. The Infernal Revenue Service as many detractors call it has long been used as a political weapon.
President Nixon turned the IRS against those on his enemies list" and under President Kennedy the agency investigated right-wing groups via its Ideological Organizations Project.
Even select congressional staffers have benefited from the agency:
- In 1979 Chicagos top taxman prevented an audit of an assistant to then-Congressman Frank Annunzio as Independent Institute Senior Fellow William F. Shughart explains in an op-ed for Investors Business Daily.
Such incidents of political misbehavior are not outliers.
In 2001 Shughart and two colleagues Michael Reksulak and Marilyn Young revealed a disturbing pattern of political activism by the IRS in a peer-reviewed journal article based on data culled from tax returns from all 33 of the agencys geographic districts from 1992 through 1997. Two patterns were particularly pervasive.
Finding #1:
The agency was less likely to audit a return Shughart writes if the taxpayer lived in a district that was politically important to the sitting president or was represented by a member of Congress serving on a committee with IRS oversight responsibility."
Finding #2:Audit rates were substantially lower in so-called battleground states with large numbers of electoral votes where presidential elections have historically been close" Shughart continues such as Ohio Pennsylvania and Wisconsin."
These patterns suggest that the IRS is happy to deploy the carrot" of foregoing an audit when doing so serves its political bosses and friends whether they work on Capitol Hill or at the White House. No one other than the most nave observer of American politics should be shocked to find that the IRS like all bureaucracies is susceptible to political manipulation" Shughart concludes.
Its happened before and will probably happen again."
IRS Scandal Is Nothing NewIts Always Been a Political Weapon by William F. Shughart II (Investors Business Daily 5/23/13)
Taxing Choice: The Predatory Politics of Fiscal Discrimination edited by William F. Shughart II
Taxation Forced Labor and Theft by Edward Feser (The Independent Review Fall 2000)
