2013 to 2019
The disclosures
The Snowden documents, the Senate torture report, Flint, Ferguson, and the 2018 bank rollback.
Key facts
- On June 5, 2013 the Guardian published a secret court order for every Verizon call record.
- The Senate found the CIA's interrogations brutal and ineffective, and the CIA admitted searching the committee's computers.
- The Justice Department found Ferguson's policing was driven by revenue.
Timeline
9 events in Taxes & Government Spending, oldest first
- 2013May 14, 2013Taxes & Government Spending
Treasury inspector general: the IRS flagged Tea Party and other applications by name and viewpoint
298 applications set aside; some held more than three years; donor lists requested and later destroyed.
- May 22, 2013Taxes & Government Spending
Lois Lerner invokes the Fifth Amendment before the House after saying she broke no laws
The House votes her in contempt a year later, 231 to 187.
- 2013Taxes & Government Spending
Ferguson court issues over 9,000 warrants in a city of 21,000
Most from minor violations.
- 2015March 4, 2015Taxes & Government Spending
Justice Department: Ferguson's policing shaped by revenue, not public safety
First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment violations found.
- August 5, 2015Taxes & Government Spending
Bipartisan Senate report: gross mismanagement, no evidence of political interference
422 backup tapes believed to hold Lerner's emails were erased in March 2014.
- October 23, 2015Taxes & Government Spending
Justice Department closes the IRS case: mismanagement, but poor management is not a crime
No evidence any official acted from a political motive; no charges.
- 2017September 28, 2017Taxes & Government Spending
Inspector general: the IRS also flagged names like Progressive, Occupy, and ACORN Successors
61 cases pulled under the Progressive criterion.
- October 26, 2017Taxes & Government Spending
The IRS apologizes and settles; a class of more than 400 groups is paid $3.5 million
Its treatment was wrong and should never have occurred.
- December 22, 2017Taxes & Government Spending
Corporate tax rate cut from 35 to 21 percent, permanently
Large profitable corporations paid 9 percent the next year.
Stories (3)
- 2010 to 2015Ferguson, Missouri: How a City Funded Its Budget Through Police Ticket Quotas and Municipal Arrest WarrantsIn March 2015 the Justice Department published what it had found in Ferguson, Missouri, a city of about 21,000 people. The city's finance director had written in 2010 that unless ticket writing ramps up significantly the city would not make its collections, and the police and the municipal court had complied: fines and fees went from $1.38 million of the city's revenue in 2010 to a budgeted $3.09 million in 2015. In 2013 the court issued more than 9,000 arrest warrants, most of them for minor violations. Black residents were 67 percent of the population and 85 percent of the stops, 90 percent of the citations, 93 percent of the arrests, 95 percent of the charges for the manner of walking in the roadway, and nearly 90 percent of the people the police used force on. The department found a pattern of conduct that violated the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments.Taxes & Government Spending
- 2010 to 2018How the IRS Targeted Tea Party, Patriot, and Occupy Groups Applying for Tax-Exempt StatusBetween 2010 and 2013 the Internal Revenue Service pulled aside applications for tax-exempt status using the words in the group's name and the positions it took. A 2013 report by the Treasury's own inspector general found the agency flagged applications with Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names, held 160 of them open from 206 to 1,138 days, and asked 27 groups for their donor lists it later agreed it should not have requested. A 2017 report found the agency had also flagged names like Progressive, Occupy, and ACORN Successors. A bipartisan Senate report and the Justice Department both concluded the delays were mismanagement, and the department found no evidence that any official acted from a political motive that would support a prosecution. No one was charged. The IRS apologized and paid $3.5 million to settle one class action.Taxes & Government Spending
- 1952 to 2025How the Corporate Share of Federal Taxes Fell from 32% to 8.6%In 1952 the corporate income tax supplied 32.1 percent of federal revenue. In fiscal 2025 it supplied $452 billion of $5,235 billion, 8.6 percent, while individuals paid $2,656 billion in income tax and $1,748 billion in payroll tax. The Government Accountability Office found that in 2018, the first year of the 21 percent rate, large profitable corporations paid an average of 9 percent and a quarter of them paid nothing. Over the five years after the cut, 342 of the largest profitable companies paid 14.1 percent, and 23 paid nothing at all. Companies in the S&P 500 spent $942.5 billion buying their own shares in 2024.Taxes & Government Spending