Congress finds the following:
(1)
Between March 2010 and May 2012, the Internal Revenue Service (hereafter referred to as the “IRS”) engaged in specific targeting of conservative groups that submitted 501(c)(4) applications.
(2)
IRS employees searched terms such as “patriots” and “tea party” and purposefully singled out these small-government organizations for additional scrutiny and delay.
(3)
The IRS sat on applications from over 75 conservative groups for months, and in some cases, even years while sending them exhaustive questionnaires delaying their approval for as long as possible.
(4)
This blatant breach of the public’s trust and misuse of taxpayer money runs counter to the core function of the IRS to collect taxes from U.S. citizens regardless of their political affiliations.
(5)
The IRS is responsible for implementing the tax increases of Obamacare.
(6)
The IRS will make the final decisions of who is eligible for subsidies after sharing taxpayer information with the Department of Health and Human Services.
(7)
A healthy democracy is one where people feel free to express their views, not one where Federal agencies discriminate based on political beliefs.