As it hunted down tax scofflaws, the Internal Revenue Service (my em) collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states
"The bottom line is that we have never used this information," said John Lipold, an IRS spokesman. "There are strict laws in place that forbid it."
Yeah, right. We know how much respect this government has for the law. I feel a lot better now.
Murray said she learned about the problem from the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelly. The IRS is part of the Treasury Department.
"This agency should not have that type of information," Murray said in a telephone interview from Seattle. "No one should question whether they are being audited because of party affiliation."
Kelly said Thursday that several IRS employees had complained to the union about the practice. She said IRS officials weren't even aware of it until she wrote them in late December.
"We think Congress should suspend IRS plans to use private collections agencies until these questions have been resolved," she said.
According to Murray's office, the 20 states in which the IRS collected party affiliation information were Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.
I think Bush musta found Nixon's playbook under the stairs. Damn good place to hide booze.
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