A series of new revelations Wednesday and Thursday put the Internal Revenue Service back under fire for its alleged efforts to curtail the power of conservative nonprofits.
First, the Government Accountability Office uncovered evidence that holes in the tax agency's procedure for selecting nonprofit groups to be audited could allow bias to seep into the process.
Then, during a heated House Ways and Means Committee hearing Thursday morning, lawmakers exposed the lack of safeguards that could prevent IRS officials from going after groups with which they disagreed.
Meanwhile, the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch released documents Wednesday that suggested the IRS targeted the donors of certain tax-exempt organizations.
The controversies focused renewed scrutiny on the embattled agency, which has been fending off allegations of discrimination against conservatives since 2013.
"The burden of proof is on the IRS to show they are not targeting organizations," said Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., during the hearing Thursday.
She noted "up to 34 percent of cases selected for audit were dismissed without documentation," suggesting IRS officials could have given certain groups "preferential treatment" by declining to audit them.
"How do we know that those decisions weren't biased?" Noem asked the IRS commissioner, John Koskinen.
Rep. Peter Roskam, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee's oversight subcommittee, highlighted a finding in the GAO report that indicated one in four audits that were touched off by a complaint had no record of the original allegation on file.
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