Report: IRS Abuse Involved at Least Six Agents; 'Red Flags' Routed to One Supervisor

Cincinnati’s Fox 19 TV has identified six IRS workers that worked on the stymied Tea Party group applications. According to the report, as the tax-exempt cases were delayed, they would have generated thousands of red flags within the system.

When an application for tax exempt status comes into the IRS, agents have 270 days to work through that application.  If the application is not processed within those 270 days it automatically triggers flags in the system.  When that happens, individual agents are required to input a status update on that individual case once a month, every month until the case is resolved.

Keep in mind, at least 300 groups were targeted out of Cincinnati alone.  Those applications spent anywhere from 18 months to nearly 3 years in the system and some still don’t have their non-profit status.  300 groups multiplied by at least 18 months for each group, means thousands of red flags would have been generated in the system.

So who in the chain of command would have received all these flags?  The answer, according to the IRS directory,  one woman in Cincinnati, Cindy Thomas, the Program Manager of the Tax Exempt Division.  Because all six of our IRS workers have different individual and territory managers, Cindy Thomas is one manager they all have common.

It turns out Cindy Thomas’ name is one we have heard before.  The independent journalism group ProPublica says in November of 2012 they had requested information on conservatives groups that had received non-profit status.  Along with that information, the IRS released private information on nine conservative groups that had not yet been approved and personal information had not been redacted.  The person who signed off on that release, Cindy Thomas.

According to the report, Thomas is the highest ranking IRS official outside Washington who was involved in the determinations office and abuse of hundreds of groups across the country. She has not been subpoenaed, yet.

Fox 19’s report identifies at least six agents who were involved in the targeting. They all work for different supervisors. So as the story’s lead says, the agency’s story that the abuse was conducted by two rogue agents in Cincinnati has fallen completely apart. One of the people who proffered that story is expected to plead the Fifth Amendment in House testimony today.