In the past year, the Tax Exempt and Government Entities
Division ("TE/GE") of the Internal Revenue Service
("IRS") has been engulfed in controversy, resulting in
sweeping changes in both its personnel and operations. The
controversy began in May 2013, when Lois Lerner, at the time the
Commissioner of TE/GE, revealed at an American Bar Association
("ABA") Tax Section conference that the IRS had used
inappropriate criteria to identify and scrutinize exemption
applications from organizations with certain words in their names,
such as "Tea Party" and "patriot."
Since then, Congressional Republicans have initiated several
investigations into the IRS's operations, and all of the top
personnel at TE/GE have left the IRS. Ms. Lerner resigned in
September of last year, and Steven Miller, the IRS Deputy
Commissioner, Joe Grant, the Commissioner of TE/GE, and Holly Paz,
the Director of the Rulings and Agreements Office in the Exempt
Organizations Division, have all been
