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Groups tell Ohio legislators how they were targeted by IRS

The Ohio General Assembly's House Policy and Legislative Oversight Committee met in Cincinnati Thursday to hear from people who claim they were targeted for extra scrutiny by the IRS.

Those who spoke, talked about how they had to answer pages of confusing questions that, at times, sounded like political research on their groups.

Timothy Savaglio is a member of the Liberty Township Tea Party. He says filling out the IRS's many and pointed questionnaires became like a full-time job.

"It impacts every board meeting that you have and every single plan that you make," he says. "You have to look over your shoulder and determine whether or not the IRS is going to view whatever action you take in a way that's going to come back to haunt you in another set of questions or another letter."

Savaglio says its been three years and the IRS has still not rejected or approved his group.

Thursday's testimony will be combined with House Concurrent Resolution 27 encouraging the IRS to take immediate action on the scrutiny issue.

If it legally can, chairman Rep. Mike Dovilla, R-Berea, says the Policy and Legislative Oversight Committee may subpoena Cincinnati-based IRS workers to testify as well.

"It's important for this level of government to engage when the residents of this state have been targeted in this manner," says Dovilla.

Two Tea Party groups, the Ohio Christian Alliance, and an man personally named by the IRS in questions to at least one Tea Party group testified at the hearing.
 

Senior Editor and reporter at WVXU with more than 20 years experience in public radio; formerly news and public affairs producer with WMUB. Would really like to meet your dog.