Republicans See a Political Motive in IRS Audits

With growing scrutiny of the role of tax-exempt groups in political campaigns, Congressional Republicans are pushing back against Democrats by warning about the possible misuse of the Internal Revenue Service to audit conservative groups.

Leading Republicans are suggesting that a senior official in the Obama administration may have improperly accessed the tax records of Koch Industries, an oil company whose owners are major conservative donors. And the Republicans are also upset about an IRS review requested by Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who leads the Finance Committee, into the political activities of tax-exempt groups. Such a review threatens to "chill the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights," wrote Sens Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) in a letter sent to the IRS. Democrats dismissed the Republicans' complaints as groundless, but the accusations have already gained some traction with Republican lawmakers.