Internal Revenue Service

MSNBC's Gripe: 'Gay Couples Feel Tax Wrath'
By Ken Shepherd | April 15, 2014 | 6:35 PM EDT

Tax Day, April 15, is a perfect day for a news organization to publish stories about tax reform debates, including the notion that perhaps we should do away with a national income tax and replace it with a national sales tax. Perhaps instead we should have a flat tax with very few, if any, deductions, credits, and all kinds of other exemptions which gum up the tax code.

A sensible news organization would throw open the doors to such a spirited discussion. But the folks at MSNBC? Well, let's just say they found an occasion to promote their desired goal of nationwide state recognition of -- as well as the licensing for -- same-sex marriage.

[Update: September 25] Censored! IRS Scandal Being Buried by Big Three Networks
By Geoffrey Dickens | September 25, 2013 | 12:29 PM EDT

The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks have colluded with the Obama administration to censor the latest IRS scandal news. The latest: On September 17 the Washington Times reported the following: “IRS employees were ‘acutely’ aware in 2010 that President Obama wanted to crack down on conservative organizations and were egged into targeting tea party groups by press reports mocking the emerging movement, according to an interim report being circulated Tuesday by House investigators.”

The report, by staffers for Rep. Darrell E. Issa, California Republican and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, quoted two Internal Revenue Service officials saying the tea party applications were singled out in the targeting program that has the agency under investigation because ‘they were likely to attract media attention.’”

Bozell, Varney Discuss Networks' Nearly 3-Month Blackout of Damning Revelations in IRS Scandal
By Ken Shepherd | September 23, 2013 | 2:50 PM EDT

An incredulous Stuart Varney brought NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell on his Varney & Co. program this morning to discuss how  "[t]he mainstream media [have been] completely ignoring one the the biggest news stories of the year," by devoting zero news stories to the IRS scandal since July.

"Is that accurate, they haven't even mentioned it since those dates we put up on the screen?!" Varney asked Bozell at the segment. "It's fascinating and so troubling" because we have "one of the greatest abuses in my lifetime, the greatest abuse of federal power ever, where you're using the most-feared arm of government  against the people and you're seeing one revelation after another" which the networks simply refuse to cover. The Media Research Center founder and president rattled off just a few [LISTEN to mp3 audio here; WATCH the video below the page break]:

New Obama IRS Rule on Restaurant Tips Hits Waiters' Wallets, Increases Paperwork
By Ken Shepherd | September 6, 2013 | 4:58 PM EDT

In Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, Stephen Moore had an excellent op-ed about how the Obama economy was hurting the president's political base the most.

The next day, Journal reporter Julie Jargon shed light on an IRS rule change which will adversely affect waiters and waitresses throughout America by judging tips earned as a result of an "automatic gratuity" to be a "service charge" that is subject to payroll and income tax withholding, not tips that are cashed out for the waiter's benefit at the end of his or her shift.

Lamar Smith Column: National Media Failing the American People on ObamaCare, IRS Abuse Stories
By Lamar Smith | August 20, 2013 | 1:11 PM EDT

The thought of ObamaCare makes many Americans uneasy. The American people know that this overhaul of the health care system drives up the cost of health care, undermines the doctor-patient relationship and vastly expands the role of the federal government.

The national media’s coverage of the health care reform law has been anything but balanced. From the onset, the media have used emotional, anecdotal stories to help sell Obamacare. Newspapers have buried polls deep within their pages that show a majority of Americans’ favor a repeal of the health care program. And many media outlets have refused to cover the recent setbacks to this major health care overhaul.

Fair NPR Story on IRS Tea Party Targeting Gets Revised (More Tilted) Headline After Airing
By John Williams | August 6, 2013 | 2:21 PM EDT

Taxpayer-subsidized NPR has a headline problem that won’t go away. As biased as much of its reporting is, NPR’s headline writers often appear to think that there is not enough bias. Sometimes they even write headlines that aren’t supported anywhere in the corresponding report. Even though there has been a history of headline problems at NPR recently, it appears that the headlines go out without being first checked by someone else.

On July 30, NPR congressional reporter Tamara Keith did a fair piece on Internal Revenue Service targeting of political groups (see Newsbusters post on it). That piece initially appeared only online with the headline, “Report: IRS Scrutiny Worse For Conservatives." In what looks to be an updated on-air version of the same story the next day , an NPR headline writer changed the initially accurate headline to one unsupported by the piece: “House Republicans Work To Keep IRS Scandal In The Spotlight.”

Video: NB's Bozell, Tea Party Leader Jenny Beth Martin Discuss Media Censorship of IRS Scandal
By NB Staff | July 31, 2013 | 6:43 PM EDT

"It took the networks 13 days to run a single story" on the fact that Obama-appointed IRS chief counsel William Wilkins was "getting direct reports" on the IRS's review of conservative/Tea Party applications for 501(c)(3) status, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) founder Brent Bozell told Blaze TV's Andrew Wilkow on the Tuesday edition of his Wilkow! program. Likewise, it took 15 days for the mainstream media to get around to covering the Obama/Holder Justice Department was "refusing to investigate any government employees who were improperly accessing tax records."

"This goes on and on and on. These are all breaking news stories that are leading to one of the largest scandals in modern American history where the most feared arm of government is completely abusing its rights, and it looks like it's coming from the Obama administration, and there's no coverage," Bozell concluded. [watch the full segment below the page break]

Networks That Yawn Over IRS Scandal Find Time for 50-Year-Old JFK Vacation Video
By Scott Whitlock | July 29, 2013 | 5:34 PM EDT

The same networks that have been minimizing and ignoring the growing scandal at the Internal Revenue Service all found time to fawn over 50-year-old footage of President Kennedy vacationing with family. A World News graphic on Sunday night thrilled, "Return to Camelot."

Anchor David Muir breathlessly narrated the video to cloying, emotional music provided by ABC: "President Kennedy teeing off. The 46-year-old President putting and, well, missing the shot. The camera trained on him though for the entire round of golf and with the next putt there is more success." Muir gushed over footage of a young Caroline Kennedy on "the lap of her father as they finished their sun-splashed weekend fifty years ago tonight." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Rush Limbaugh, NB Publisher Bozell Slam Corrupt Liberal Media's Censorship of IRS Scandal
By NB Staff | July 25, 2013 | 1:53 PM EDT

"The liberal media’s refusal to cover the IRS scandal – more than the NSA scandal, more than DOJ’s surveillance of journalists, more even than the tragic loss of life in Benghazi – cuts to the very heart of their corruption," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell charged in a statement released this afternoon with radio host Rush Limbaugh and three other leaders of the conservative movement.

"No fair, objective journalist can look at the facts of this flagrant abuse of power and not conclude that it is a massive political scandal deserving of constant, merciless scrutiny," they concluded, arguing that "Any ‘so-called’ journalist who says otherwise is at best an ethically bankrupt shill for the administration and at worst thinks conservatives should be persecuted by the government for their beliefs." You can read the full Media Research Center (MRC) press release below the page break:

ICYMI: MRC's Bozell on FBN's Varney & Co. Discussing Media Censorship of IRS Malfeasance
By NB Staff | June 21, 2013 | 7:47 PM EDT

"The national news media are aiding and abetting a censorship campaign," regarding the "cascading" IRS scandal, Media Research Center founder and president Brent Bozell argued on the June 21 edition of Fox Business Network's Varney & Co. 

Bozell noted, for example, that only CBS's This Morning covered the fact that IRS officials received $70 million in employee bonuses this year, despite a White House order freezing such bonuses during the sequester cutbacks. [MP3 audio here; Watch the video of the segment following the page break]

Coulter Column: Free PR Advice for Conservatives on IRS Scandal Story
By Ann Coulter | June 5, 2013 | 6:19 PM EDT

Instead of showing endless loops of IRS employees wasting taxpayer dollars line-dancing -- Breaking news: Government employees waste millions of your dollars every single day! -- I think it would be more useful for the public to hear a few crucial facts about the exploding scandal at the Internal Revenue Service.

At Tuesday's congressional hearings on the IRS, witnesses provided shocking details about the agency's abuse of conservative groups.

PBS's Gwen Ifill Defends Eric Holder, IRS Despite Online Backlash
By Randy Hall | June 4, 2013 | 1:57 PM EDT

Here's an interesting example of your tax dollars at work: Gwen Ifill, a newscaster for the Public Broadcasting System, uses her television programs to staunchly defend Eric Holder, the scandal-ridden U.S. attorney general, and the Internal Revenue System, which has been accused of targeting conservative organizations that apply for a tax-exempt status.

Not content with using her roles as managing editor and moderator of the “Washington Week” program and as a senior correspondent for the “PBS NewsHour,” Ifill took her crusade online on Sunday, when she posted on Twitter that it's “Fun to see the same (named & unnamed) folks calling for Holder resignation who always have” and asserted that “people don't want to know the details back and forth” of the IRS targeting.