IRS TARGETS MORE AMERICANS WHEN DEMOCRATS ARE IN CONTROL

Keith Peacock, of Hainesport, holds a sign during a
 tea party rally protesting extra IRS scrutiny of their groups
 in the IRS scandal of 2013. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

By PAUL BEDARD

The Internal Revenue Service has a history of going after more individual Americans and corporations when Democrats control Washington, especially the White House, according to a comprehensive study of the agency going back to 1978.

What's more, when Democrats run the Senate, as they did during the Obama administration's IRS targeting scandal, the agency is typically given more money to hire more auditors who conduct more audits.

"Democratic control of the Senate is correlated with an increased IRS budget and workforce. The president's party has a statistically significant impact on the number of IRS enforcement personnel when both houses of Congress are controlled by Democrats," said the study promoted by Harvard University last week and published in the Journal of Public Policy.

During the heyday of the IRS scandal, when conservative groups critical of President Obama saw their applications for tax exempt status delayed, questioned or killed, Democrats controlled the House and Senate.


Author Sutirtha Bagchi, assistant professor of economics at Villanova University, used IRS budget and personnel figures to determine political influence and found it greater under Democrats.

Bagchi wrote, "Democratic administrations are significantly more likely to audit tax returns compared to Republican administrations."

In its writeup of the report, Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, highlighted these findings:

-- Democratic control of the Senate is correlated with an increased IRS budget and workforce.

-- The president's party has a statistically significant impact on the number of IRS enforcement personnel when both houses of Congress are controlled by Democrats.

-- The president's party has a statistically significant impact on the number of corporate income returns audited by the IRS, with 5 percent more on average performed under Democratic administrations. The party in control of the houses of Congress has no such statistically significant impact.

-- The president's party has a statistically significant impact on the number of individual income returns audited by the IRS, with 4 percent more on average performed under Democratic administrations. The party in control of the houses of Congress has a mixed impact of smaller magnitude.

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