While Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., said he was "deeply troubled" to learn of the IRS targeting conservatives groups, he suggested that Congress should also investigate the issue of organizations seeking non-profit status and then engaging in political activity
Rockefeller's remarks came as the Senate Finance Committee began a hearing on allegations that IRS personnel improperly targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
"Like all of my colleagues here today, I was deeply troubled to learn about decisions at the Cincinnati office being made that had the effect of targeting groups of one political persuasion disproportionately," Rockefeller said.
"There is a lot of blame to go around here. Impermissible criteria were used that could have the effect of unfairly targeting groups of one particular viewpoint," he added. "That is not the whole story though."
Rockefeller noted that the IRS' Cincinnati office was facing a significant increase in applications in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision and suggested that Congress had not provided the agency with the funding necessary to keep up with the increased workload.
He also argued that Section 501(c) of the Tax Code does not go far enough to delineate when a group is engaging in permissible political activity and when a group crosses the line into impermissible campaign intervention.
"To go through this inquiry without taking a hard look at the very real problem of campaign intervention by groups that claim to be non-profits would be a missed opportunity," Rockefeller said.
"Make no mistake, when groups that engage in partisan activity receive non-profit status, taxpayers end up subsidizing political campaigns," he added. "That's a result we should all be able to agree is completely unacceptable."
Earlier this year, Rockefeller announced that he will not run for re-election in 2014, calling it the right moment to find new ways to fight for the causes he believes in and to spend more time with his family.
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