A new report out Thursday by government investigators reveals that a lack of oversight at the IRS could lead to political and religious groups being unfairly audited, according to the Associated Press.
The report targets one particular IRS division that has a tendency to target conservative organizations. Although the General Accountability Office (GAO) found that agents did not wrongly audit any groups, the new report states that the risk is certainly increased because of poor oversight. The report argues that the negligence by administrators could lead to agents selecting “tax-exempt groups for audits based on their religious, educational or political views.”
While there are 1.6 million tax-exempt groups in the United States, only about one percent of them are actually audited each year. The reasoning for this is that the process is often time-consuming and expensive.
Originally it was only thought that the IRS was hindering conservatives groups applying for tax-exempt status, but the new report shows that the risk of bias in the auditing sector is very high.
The IRS has responded to the GAO report by saying there is no proof that there has been selection bias. The IRS has also stated that the organizations selected in 2014 were chosen by referral or if an IRS computer detected a potential problem in their annual filings.