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First Posted: 5/10/2013 WASHINGTON &#8212; The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.
Organizations were singled out because they included the words &#8220;tea party&#8221; or &#8220;patriot&#8221; in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.
In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.
&#8220;That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That&#8217;s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,&#8221; Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.
&#8220;The IRS would like to apologize for that,&#8221; she added.
Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high-level IRS officials knew about the practice.
Agency officials found out about the practice last year and moved to correct it, the IRS said in a statement. 
About 75 groups were inappropriately targeted. None had their tax-exempt status revoked, Lerner said.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called on the White House to investigate.

Conservative groups tagged by IRS in ’12