Rhythmically Challenged IRS

The hits just keep on coming.  So it is with the Internal Revenue Service.  Amid revelations that the IRS intentionally targeted conservative groups, we have learned that some in the agency are quite ethically challenged.  As we further discovered, the IRS not only wanted the targeted conservative groups to provide membership lists, meeting minutes, donor lists and lists of books the groups were reading and discussing, it also wanted to know what their prayers were all about.

After the recent release of the IRS dance video, we now know they are also rhythmically challenged.  Just as we learned that, thanks to Lois Lerner, the ability to do math is no impediment to working for the IRS, neither, it seems, is the ability to dance.  To be fair, I don’t expect the natural career progression to go from back up dancer for Lady Gaga to IRS auditor, but neither do I expect to pay for it to be put display.  I don’t see Dancing with the IRS Auditors as a big network hit.  (Prayer tip: Please, God, no more IRS dance videos.)

Interestingly, not once in all of the pre-sequester fear mongering did we hear anyone in the Obama administration state that IRS video productions would have to be curtailed. And it’s a good thing no Islamic fundamentalists had seen this dance video.  Who knows how many riots that would have caused?  (U.S. taxpayer revolt may be an entirely different matter.)  And there was certainly no previous mention of the $50 million spent on at least 220 IRS conferences from 2010-2012.  Using my own math skills, that works out to about 1.4 conferences per week over that three-year period.  In one Anaheim conference, speakers alone set the taxpayers back $135,000, including one whose topic was “leadership through art.”  Apparently, the art of dance was not covered by that speaker.

Former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, according to the Daily Caller, visited the White House 157 times during the Obama administration, much of this coinciding with the IRS’s admitted targeting of conservative groups.  Some have argued that the number of visits makes perfect sense, given the increased responsibility the IRS will have in administering Obamacare.  First, nothing about Obamacare makes perfect sense.  Second, that doesn’t really explain why Shulman visited the White House three times more often than Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is charged with writing all of the Obamacare regulations (seven feet high and counting).  Heck, I think Shulman was at the White House more often than Michelle Obama.  According to Mr. Shulman’s own testimony, on at least one of those White House visits he attended the Easter Egg role.  It is unclear if he actually got any one on one time with Mr. Obama or Mr. Bunny, however.

It seems that recent congressional appearances by past and present IRS officials may have inadvertently offered tips to United States taxpayers on how to respond should one ever be the target of a future IRS audit.  Following the lead of Douglas Shulman, perhaps one can merely state, “I am not personally responsible for that mileage deduction and I very much regret that it occurred on my watch.” One can further state, “I am both dismayed and saddened” by the previously mentioned deduction.  Since former acting commissioner Steven Miller concurred during his testimony that the United States has a voluntary tax system, one can claim that you just voluntarily withheld certain taxes for that year.  Lastly, one can do as Lois (I can’t do math, but I can plead the 5^th) Lerner did and first state all of your virtues before refusing to answer any further inquiries.  Certainly, any or all of these responses will get you a free pass from any further IRS scrutiny, right?

How high will this IRS scandal go and where will it end?  At this point, no one can say.  But I hope the scandal stays alive at least until we see the song and dance version of Form 1040-A.  We hear it’s quite the production.