How non profits and the governments profit from the poor

IRS Shuts Down Program for the Poor to Fund Well-Heeled Liberal Groups

Cancel a program that provides free help to low-income families and the elderly, and shift the money to well-connected interest groups with a terrible track record for customer service.

It sounds almost like the sort of thing a liberal caricature would acuse a heartless Republican of doing.

But in this case, that's just what the Obama administration has accomplished.

According to the Daily Caller , the administration "quietly" closed IRS walk-in tax preparation centers designed to help low-income and elderly citizens fill out tax forms.

These people are being directed instead to services run by nonprofits that are funded through IRS grants.

But an inspector general report found that these nonprofits are hardly good at their jobs. The audit found that they provided incorrect information 49% of the time.

What's more, the DC's Richard Pollock found that some of the biggest IRS grants have been to "groups that have political ties to the administration."

Among them, Pollock found, were the AARP and the George Soros-founded Financial Network Consortium.

The shift has enraged the IRS's Taxpayer Advocate, which charged in its annual report that the administration "is largely turning its back on a significant number of taxpayers who require face-to-face assistance."

Hurting the poor to help the well-connected is not good public policy, no matter which party is in power.