IRS: Acting commissioner found about Tea Party targeting in May 2012

But the Associated Press is also reporting that Miller did not tell Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) about the targeting in a June 2012 letter. Boustany, the chairman of the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, had questioned whether Tea Party groups were receiving more attention from the IRS than other organizations.

{mosads}Ways and Means is scheduled to hold the first hearing on the IRS situation on Friday, with Miller and Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, Russell George, scheduled to testify.

George’s office is set to release a report this week that says that the IRS began conducting special searches for Tea Party groups around March 2010, and that searches were broader than for just Tea Party groups.

Lerner had said Friday that groups with “patriots” and “Tea Party” in their name had received extra scrutiny, but the audit – parts of which have been circulated by congressional staff – said searches for groups that pushed to “make America a better place to live” also received additional attention. Lerner raised questions about the extra scrutiny when briefed in June 2011, the audit says.