The Commissioner overseeing tax exempt organizations for the IRS for the last three years is not only still employed, but heading the much more powerful unit in charge of enforcing Obamacare.
Sarah Hall Ingram spent three years, from 2009 to 2012, as the commissioner of the tax exempt office of the Internal Revenue service. Instead of being asked to resign, getting fired or perhaps indicted, Ms. Ingram has been made the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office.
According to the I.G. report, the tax-exempt unit started targeting conservative groups in 2010, shortly after Sarah Hall Ingram took charge of the office.
The news for the past two days has been about Joseph Grant being asked to tender his resignation because of the abuse of power displayed by the tax exempt unit. Grant had been the commissioner for a grand total of eight days when the scandal broke and is currently the most visible scapegoat.
During the height of the illegal and unfair treatment of conservative groups, Sarah Hall Ingram was in-charge and Mr. Grant served as deputy commissioner. Ms. Ingram will likely be called before Congress to testify and could be investigated by independent council.
Obama on Thursday dismissed the idea of appointing a special counsel to investigate the IRS scandal.
Now that Ms. Ingram is in-charge of enforcing Obamacare, serious questions are being raised about the IRS’ ability to do so fairly.
On Thursday, House Republicans passed a bill to repeal Obamacare in its entirety.
Another bill up for consideration removes the funding that the IRS would have received to enforce several provisions of the troubled health care law.
Sen John Cornyn (R-TX) said “after the events of last week, I cannot support giving the IRS any more responsibility or taxpayer dollars to implement a broken law.”
Obamacare has been losing popularity steadily since its inception and the scandal surrounding the IRS’ director of Obamacare will likely make more Americans leery of coming mandates.
IRS officials are set to testify at House hearings today.
