Monday morning at 10 AM, we have oral argument on Motions to Dismiss filed by the IRS, Lois Lerner, Holly Paz, Douglas Schulman and the rest of the rogue’s gallery of characters in the IRS scandal in front of U.S. District Court Judge Susan Dlott on one of the several suits that have been filed against the IRS over its targeting of pro-Israel and Tea Party groups seeking tax treatment under IRC 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4). Our case is captioned NorCal Tea Party v. IRS, was the first suit filed, and is here because the scandal initially arose from actions of Cincinnati IRS agents.
The oral argument is on the IRS position that “it can do whatever it wants” and that no actions it takes, regardless of how outrageous, how targeted and how discriminatory, are subject to a suit under statute or the Constitution. That seems pretty incredible, huh?
It does, but the IRS fears mightily the case proceeding beyond a Motion to Dismiss, because at that stage private litigants can proceed with documentary discovery and depositions, allowing the actions and motivations of the IRS to be thoroughly explored, all the way up to White House involvement.
So, a lot is at stake before Judge Dlott, starting with the oral argument at 10 AM tomorrow.
By the way, I ran across this June 13 blog entry from the “Cincinnati Tax Guy,” Steve Hamilton, that pretty accurately covers the legal issues in the “Z Street case,” which overlap the Cincinnati NorCal case pretty well.
