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I don't want this article to be perceived as favoring one political party over another. I've created a section for Nixon in the 1960s. Please help me fill it out! Information on other Republican abuses would also be useful. TJIC ( talk) 11:21, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
I see a lot of edits by an anonymous user at IP address 193.239.220.249. Please login and create an account!
I've kept many of these edits but cleaned up or reverted several others.
Thoughts:
Why? Is the IRS investigating Wikipedia? What have they found? Are you spreadinfg rumors or can you provide references? X Ottawahitech ( talk) 19:42, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
Nonsense. The IRS is famous as a tool for political targeting. This is a documented fact [1] [2]. The title of this needs to be changed, or the article needs to be re-written.
The IRS is famous as a tool for political targeting. That's one article. The Tea Party case is an allegation, yet unproven. That's another article. One is a subset of the other.
The U.S. administration can, and will attack individuals with any tool in its arsenal: financial is one of the favorites. It sounds like a red-herring, until it happens to you. 193.239.220.249 ( talk) 08:52, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
References
I don't know why an editor moved the existing separate article over to here without discussion, talk or vote. Reading Wikipedias criteria, the previously existing separate article on the Tea Party IRS auditing objectively and fully met all the criteria for a separate article. Carwon ( talk) 10:52, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Just reading through this, there are issues with poor writing and poor sourcing. The most-cited source is an op-ed piece, rather than a straight news article. It probably shouldn't even be used. It would also be nice to see page numbers for citations to books or other long publications. – ʎɑzy ɗɑƞ 00:16, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
The second sentence of the article is misleading. As noted by Source 4 (Bovard article), after the exposure of Nixon’s IRS abuses during Congressional hearings, “Congress enacted legislation to severely restrict political contacts between the White House and the IRS.”
In the 1930’s section, historians note that Elliott Roosevelt’s recollections have long been suspect and in many cases invented. See Hansen, Chris. Enfant Terrible: The Times and Schemes of General Elliott Roosevelt. Tucson: Able Baker Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0615-66892-5
Source 4 (Bovard) cites no sources itself and its viewpoints betray the strong libertarian bias of the author with no counterpoint.
Source 4 and Source 9 misrepresent the IRS survey responses. See: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-03-22/news/1991081003_1_ethics-internal-revenue-service-irs [1]
Source 2 covers material relevant to Kennedy and Nixon, yet it is only cited wrt Kennedy. The article’s section on Nixon quotes from the Nixon Bill of impeachment, but there is much more on Nixon’s abuses, which an objective analysis would reveal to be the worst abuses of the IRS. This is even cited by Source 4, but ignored in the article.
In general, the article does not provide an unbiased list, but rather, a politically biased interpretation of a selected historical incidents. A quick internet search turned up a particularly well-rounded article entitled, "History of IRS Abuse" at RealClearPolitics.com that covers a longer list of abuses from an objective, “what are the facts” perspective. Here's the url: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/irs-scandal/introduction.html [2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lamb&Biff ( talk • contribs) 05:41, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
That's not a rebuttal, that's a subjective, seat-of-the-pants statement of personal opinion with no apparent tie to empirical fact. And for Pete's sake, look at the sentence right before that one: "The watchdog group cited a finding that about 70 percent of the managers said there was a "lack of honesty" in their workplace as evidence that top IRS officers were dishonest and deceitful. " That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of IRS ethics. Federales ( talk) 20:25, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
References
This article, a list of Internal Revenue Service political profiling controversies, contains a section entitled "IRS Culture." The section has been discussed at length in the article's talk section with no apparent consensus in sight. It lists a series of three statistics portraying the IRS as dishonest, deceitful, and unfair in its handling of complaints.
1. Is this section warranted or unwarranted? Responding to RFC. In principle the subheading could be justified but the article is presently to brief for such a section to be included, which leads me to conclude that organisational culture should appear as a heading within the main IRS article. However as the issues dealt with and organisation culture are intrinsically linked it does seem appropriate for there to be a sentence to cross reference to the main article for the reader who wishes to delve further. Isthisuseful ( talk) 20:10, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
2. If this section is warranted, does it violate Wikipedia policies (specifically, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV) to remove the claim "[t]hree out of four [IRS executive and manager] respondents [to a survey] felt entitled to deceive or lie when testifying before a congressional committee" when that claim is sourced primarily to a survey that does not contain that statistic and secondarily to an opinion piece? Such matters are in my opinion, as long as they are accurately presented, matters which are completely appropriate. In the UK we are currently having such discussions about our Parliamentarians, our Police, our newspaper journalists and the BBC to name a few. Isthisuseful ( talk) 20:10, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
3. If the claim at issue in #2 is acceptable, should the section also contain other secondarily-sourced statistics from the survey which portray the IRS in a more positive light to avoid cherrypicking? The issue is one of accuracy, not simply a matter of presenting another point of view. Isthisuseful ( talk) 20:10, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
Dyrnych ( talk) 23:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
I've posted the official Wikipedia definition of SYNTH above. Please describe how your accusation fits within that definition, or drop it. Federales ( talk) 06:44, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
I've edited it myself a couple of times, but on further thought there's no real reason to include Paula Jones. Even assuming the worst of Clinton, it's a personal vendetta and not an example of political profiling. This isn't a page for every instance of harassment by the IRS or even every instance of presidentially-directed IRS harassment; it's a page for harassment by the IRS based on political profiling. I'm inclined to remove this section unless there's some justification offered (i.e., which political beliefs/actions of Paula Jones arguably prompted the audit). Dyrnych ( talk) 06:17, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
History is extremely clear on this. Nixon's articles of impeachment were because he tried (unsuccessfully) to use the IRS, not because he succeeded. This is all rather famous actually. Even a cursory google search, or a brief look through WaPo or LA Times [3] archives more than confirms this. The IRS did not engage in political targeting at Nixon's direction. They resisted. Capitalismojo ( talk) 14:08, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
This list could be better and more inclusive if it were renamed "List of incidents of IRS political misuse and attempted misuse" (or similar). There are no refs for "controversy" related to the IRS political misuse from FDR through Nixon yet although they are not "controversies" they are notable and well ref'd historical incidents. (Also the term "profiling" is a relatively recent usage and constrains efforts to find appropriate RS refs.) Capitalismojo ( talk) 04:00, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved to List of incidents of misuse of the Internal Revenue Service. Armbrust The Homunculus 11:20, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
List of Internal Revenue Service political profiling controversies → List of incidents of IRS political misuse and attempted misuse – This list could be better and more inclusive if it were renamed "List of incidents of IRS political misuse and attempted misuse" (or similar). There are no refs for "controversy" related to the IRS political misuse from FDR through Nixon yet although they are not "controversies" they are notable and well ref'd historical incidents. (Also the term "profiling" is a relatively recent usage and constrains efforts to find appropriate RS refs.). --Relisted. Armbrust The Homunculus 00:06, 26 May 2014 (UTC) Capitalismojo ( talk) 04:51, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
n/t Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:21, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
We have now taken this from a summary that notes that the conduct occurred under the Obama administration and gives a neutral synopsis of the situation to one in which we redundantly repeat "conservative" twice in two consecutive sentences (even though the second sentence makes it clear that we're talking about Tea Party and conservative groups) and push the notion that high-level officials or members of the Obama administration may have been involved (despite no evidence of this having occurred). If readers want more than a synopsis, there's an entire article on the matter--an article that itself contains nothing to suggest that high-level officials or members of the Obama administration were involved. There is an investigation, but according to Darrell Issa HIMSELF |"We’ve never looked for the White House, other than the White House is not cooperating and continues to not cooperate." It is both inaccurate and a violation of WP:NPOV and WP:OR to include this last sentence and not an improvement overall to include any of the changes that have been made today and yesterday. Dyrnych ( talk) 19:08, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
I think the word "targeted" is NNPOV. It most definitely is suggestive of vindictiveness, esp. "shooting at." I think it ought to be minimized. Although it is widely used by spinmeisters and headline writers, I think its connotations are improper in an encyclopedia unless used in a cite-able quote by those accused of it. In the case of Nixon, did he say anything such as "go after (them)" or "get (them)? In the Nixon case, John Dean is quoted as saying "This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." In this case "targeted" is milder than "screw." Plus the word "enemies" is used. Short of this type of evidence, I don't like the word "target" bandied about recklessly. Mydogtrouble ( talk) 18:10, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
This article is rated List-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
I don't want this article to be perceived as favoring one political party over another. I've created a section for Nixon in the 1960s. Please help me fill it out! Information on other Republican abuses would also be useful. TJIC ( talk) 11:21, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
I see a lot of edits by an anonymous user at IP address 193.239.220.249. Please login and create an account!
I've kept many of these edits but cleaned up or reverted several others.
Thoughts:
Why? Is the IRS investigating Wikipedia? What have they found? Are you spreadinfg rumors or can you provide references? X Ottawahitech ( talk) 19:42, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
Nonsense. The IRS is famous as a tool for political targeting. This is a documented fact [1] [2]. The title of this needs to be changed, or the article needs to be re-written.
The IRS is famous as a tool for political targeting. That's one article. The Tea Party case is an allegation, yet unproven. That's another article. One is a subset of the other.
The U.S. administration can, and will attack individuals with any tool in its arsenal: financial is one of the favorites. It sounds like a red-herring, until it happens to you. 193.239.220.249 ( talk) 08:52, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
References
I don't know why an editor moved the existing separate article over to here without discussion, talk or vote. Reading Wikipedias criteria, the previously existing separate article on the Tea Party IRS auditing objectively and fully met all the criteria for a separate article. Carwon ( talk) 10:52, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Just reading through this, there are issues with poor writing and poor sourcing. The most-cited source is an op-ed piece, rather than a straight news article. It probably shouldn't even be used. It would also be nice to see page numbers for citations to books or other long publications. – ʎɑzy ɗɑƞ 00:16, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
The second sentence of the article is misleading. As noted by Source 4 (Bovard article), after the exposure of Nixon’s IRS abuses during Congressional hearings, “Congress enacted legislation to severely restrict political contacts between the White House and the IRS.”
In the 1930’s section, historians note that Elliott Roosevelt’s recollections have long been suspect and in many cases invented. See Hansen, Chris. Enfant Terrible: The Times and Schemes of General Elliott Roosevelt. Tucson: Able Baker Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0615-66892-5
Source 4 (Bovard) cites no sources itself and its viewpoints betray the strong libertarian bias of the author with no counterpoint.
Source 4 and Source 9 misrepresent the IRS survey responses. See: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-03-22/news/1991081003_1_ethics-internal-revenue-service-irs [1]
Source 2 covers material relevant to Kennedy and Nixon, yet it is only cited wrt Kennedy. The article’s section on Nixon quotes from the Nixon Bill of impeachment, but there is much more on Nixon’s abuses, which an objective analysis would reveal to be the worst abuses of the IRS. This is even cited by Source 4, but ignored in the article.
In general, the article does not provide an unbiased list, but rather, a politically biased interpretation of a selected historical incidents. A quick internet search turned up a particularly well-rounded article entitled, "History of IRS Abuse" at RealClearPolitics.com that covers a longer list of abuses from an objective, “what are the facts” perspective. Here's the url: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/irs-scandal/introduction.html [2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lamb&Biff ( talk • contribs) 05:41, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
That's not a rebuttal, that's a subjective, seat-of-the-pants statement of personal opinion with no apparent tie to empirical fact. And for Pete's sake, look at the sentence right before that one: "The watchdog group cited a finding that about 70 percent of the managers said there was a "lack of honesty" in their workplace as evidence that top IRS officers were dishonest and deceitful. " That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of IRS ethics. Federales ( talk) 20:25, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
References
This article, a list of Internal Revenue Service political profiling controversies, contains a section entitled "IRS Culture." The section has been discussed at length in the article's talk section with no apparent consensus in sight. It lists a series of three statistics portraying the IRS as dishonest, deceitful, and unfair in its handling of complaints.
1. Is this section warranted or unwarranted? Responding to RFC. In principle the subheading could be justified but the article is presently to brief for such a section to be included, which leads me to conclude that organisational culture should appear as a heading within the main IRS article. However as the issues dealt with and organisation culture are intrinsically linked it does seem appropriate for there to be a sentence to cross reference to the main article for the reader who wishes to delve further. Isthisuseful ( talk) 20:10, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
2. If this section is warranted, does it violate Wikipedia policies (specifically, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV) to remove the claim "[t]hree out of four [IRS executive and manager] respondents [to a survey] felt entitled to deceive or lie when testifying before a congressional committee" when that claim is sourced primarily to a survey that does not contain that statistic and secondarily to an opinion piece? Such matters are in my opinion, as long as they are accurately presented, matters which are completely appropriate. In the UK we are currently having such discussions about our Parliamentarians, our Police, our newspaper journalists and the BBC to name a few. Isthisuseful ( talk) 20:10, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
3. If the claim at issue in #2 is acceptable, should the section also contain other secondarily-sourced statistics from the survey which portray the IRS in a more positive light to avoid cherrypicking? The issue is one of accuracy, not simply a matter of presenting another point of view. Isthisuseful ( talk) 20:10, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
Dyrnych ( talk) 23:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
I've posted the official Wikipedia definition of SYNTH above. Please describe how your accusation fits within that definition, or drop it. Federales ( talk) 06:44, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
I've edited it myself a couple of times, but on further thought there's no real reason to include Paula Jones. Even assuming the worst of Clinton, it's a personal vendetta and not an example of political profiling. This isn't a page for every instance of harassment by the IRS or even every instance of presidentially-directed IRS harassment; it's a page for harassment by the IRS based on political profiling. I'm inclined to remove this section unless there's some justification offered (i.e., which political beliefs/actions of Paula Jones arguably prompted the audit). Dyrnych ( talk) 06:17, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
History is extremely clear on this. Nixon's articles of impeachment were because he tried (unsuccessfully) to use the IRS, not because he succeeded. This is all rather famous actually. Even a cursory google search, or a brief look through WaPo or LA Times [3] archives more than confirms this. The IRS did not engage in political targeting at Nixon's direction. They resisted. Capitalismojo ( talk) 14:08, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
This list could be better and more inclusive if it were renamed "List of incidents of IRS political misuse and attempted misuse" (or similar). There are no refs for "controversy" related to the IRS political misuse from FDR through Nixon yet although they are not "controversies" they are notable and well ref'd historical incidents. (Also the term "profiling" is a relatively recent usage and constrains efforts to find appropriate RS refs.) Capitalismojo ( talk) 04:00, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved to List of incidents of misuse of the Internal Revenue Service. Armbrust The Homunculus 11:20, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
List of Internal Revenue Service political profiling controversies → List of incidents of IRS political misuse and attempted misuse – This list could be better and more inclusive if it were renamed "List of incidents of IRS political misuse and attempted misuse" (or similar). There are no refs for "controversy" related to the IRS political misuse from FDR through Nixon yet although they are not "controversies" they are notable and well ref'd historical incidents. (Also the term "profiling" is a relatively recent usage and constrains efforts to find appropriate RS refs.). --Relisted. Armbrust The Homunculus 00:06, 26 May 2014 (UTC) Capitalismojo ( talk) 04:51, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
n/t Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:21, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
We have now taken this from a summary that notes that the conduct occurred under the Obama administration and gives a neutral synopsis of the situation to one in which we redundantly repeat "conservative" twice in two consecutive sentences (even though the second sentence makes it clear that we're talking about Tea Party and conservative groups) and push the notion that high-level officials or members of the Obama administration may have been involved (despite no evidence of this having occurred). If readers want more than a synopsis, there's an entire article on the matter--an article that itself contains nothing to suggest that high-level officials or members of the Obama administration were involved. There is an investigation, but according to Darrell Issa HIMSELF |"We’ve never looked for the White House, other than the White House is not cooperating and continues to not cooperate." It is both inaccurate and a violation of WP:NPOV and WP:OR to include this last sentence and not an improvement overall to include any of the changes that have been made today and yesterday. Dyrnych ( talk) 19:08, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
I think the word "targeted" is NNPOV. It most definitely is suggestive of vindictiveness, esp. "shooting at." I think it ought to be minimized. Although it is widely used by spinmeisters and headline writers, I think its connotations are improper in an encyclopedia unless used in a cite-able quote by those accused of it. In the case of Nixon, did he say anything such as "go after (them)" or "get (them)? In the Nixon case, John Dean is quoted as saying "This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." In this case "targeted" is milder than "screw." Plus the word "enemies" is used. Short of this type of evidence, I don't like the word "target" bandied about recklessly. Mydogtrouble ( talk) 18:10, 28 December 2014 (UTC)