Yesterday, Progress Texas claimed that they received identical treatment to Tea Party groups when they applied for tax-exempts status; Progress Texas made the following three claims:
Today, Robbie Cooper of Urban Grounds points out that Progress Texas received a standard set of IRS follow-up questions (*), not the detailed inquisitions sent to Tea Party Groups.
- While the IRS was screening Tea Party groups, the agency was headed by Doug Shulman - a George W. Bush appointee
- Many Tea Party groups operate like political PACs or political parties - which is not allowed under law
- It took us at Progress Texas 479 days to have our tax-exempt status approved, and we support the due diligence
You can read the request sent to Progress Texas here.
You can read the request sent to Waco Tea Party here.
Bottom Line: Progress Texas was asked standard follow-up questions by the IRS (*) and had their application approved in a little over a year; Tea Party groups were given a proctology exam and many are still awaiting approval 3+ years later.
* which, in the opinion of Cahnman's Musings, are already waaay too intrusive.
Update: Fox 7 Austin has a great piece on the Waco Tea Party Case here:
Update II: Progress Texas has updated their original post to use the word 'similar' instead of 'the same;' without getting into semantics, a little over a year compared to 3+ years AND the two questionnaires speak for themselves.
Update III: An earlier version of this post contained a link to this account from the American Center for Law and Justice; with Progress Texas playing word games, we recommend you compare those questions with the Progress Texas request linked above and judge for yourself.
