{"id":2859,"date":"2010-09-12T00:27:42","date_gmt":"2010-09-12T07:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=2859"},"modified":"2010-09-12T00:27:42","modified_gmt":"2010-09-12T07:27:42","slug":"tax-fraud-us-chamber-of-commerce-busted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/12\/tax-fraud-us-chamber-of-commerce-busted\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax Fraud: US Chamber of Commerce Busted!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We all know that SCOTUS, denying the Constitution by letting corporations trump people and money trump speech, made it possible for the US Chamber of Commerce to buy politicians in ways they had never hoped until now.  But even with all that leeway, it seems that in their zeal to empower Republicans, they forgot to keep it legal.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"12IRS\" With a war chest rivaling that of the Republican Party itself, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has emerged in the last year as perhaps the Obama administration\u2019s most-well-financed rival on signature policy debates like health care and financial regulation. <\/p>\n

Critics on the left have long complained about the chamber\u2019s outsize influence. But now they are taking on the business association directly, charging in a complaint filed Friday with the Internal Revenue Service that it violated tax codes by laundering millions of dollars meant for charitable work from a group with ties to the insurance giant A.I.G.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

The complaint was brought by a group called U.S. Chamber Watch<\/a>, which was created four months ago \u2014 with the strong financial backing of labor unions \u2014 to scrutinize the Chamber of Commerce\u2019s growing influence and provide a counterbalance. <\/p>\n

But chamber officials said they had complied with all tax laws and dismissed the complaint as a political ploy<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

A chamber spokeswoman, Tita Freeman, said its opponents \u201care desperately looking for opportunities to undermine the chamber\u2019s efforts to promote free markets and economic growth.\u201d <\/p>\n

The I.R.S. refused to comment on the complaint, citing the confidentiality of taxpayer records. <\/p>\n

I.R.S. regulators have often been wary of wading into political grievances, particularly after evidence emerged during the Watergate scandal that the Nixon White House had sought to use the agency for political purposes<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

I know they are innocent until proven guilty, but how do I know the Chamber is lying?  It\u2019s crystal clear, because the Obama administration has been so spineless about exposing and prosecuting Republican crimes that they wouldn\u2019t have the nerve to do this unless it was an open and shut case.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all know that SCOTUS, denying the Constitution by letting corporations trump people and money trump speech, made it possible for the US Chamber of Commerce to buy politicians in ways they had never hoped until now.  But even with all that leeway, it seems that in their zeal to empower Republicans, they forgot to […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}