Tuesday, June 10, 2003 | 8:38 a.m.
I BELIEVE, Mr. Callaway, I believe.
In a classic World War II movie, a prisoner of war, confined for over nine months, was delighted to hear that his wife gave birth to "their" baby. In her letter, she told him that he "wouldn't believe it, but ...' " Desperate to cling to something good and without regard for simple mathematics and the incredulousness of his fellow captives, he stated over and over again, "I believe it, I believe it," the whole time rejoicing in such uplifting news.
I thought of that Stalag setting while reading the newspaper this past weekend in New York. Buried well toward the back was a story on page 37 headlined, "Ruling May Open Finance Loophole." It was about a man named Howard Callaway from Georgia and his quest to overturn an Internal Revenue Service decision that ended his tax exemption for his now defunct Abraham Lincoln Opportunity Foundation.
Very few are likely to remember that Callaway's foundation was the method by which former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich financed part of his GOPAC machinery which, as you will recall, was a major contributor to Newt's efforts to take over the House of Representatives in 1994. Whether you liked that move or not, the method by which it was done, using taxpayer dollars to finance political campaigning, was frowned upon by the law and, therefore, the coveted tax-exempt status of the foundation was revoked. Not long afterward, Newt's charming career in the House was revoked and that short chapter was ended.
Now it may be back.
According to the news story, after bouncing around the courts and into and out of the bowels of the IRS for the past few years, the Abraham Lincoln Opportunity Foundation's death sentence has been commuted, which means the ability to evade the campaign finance laws without regard to the law, public opinion, national intent or most other rules of appropriate conduct, may be back in vogue. That means Newt can't be far behind.
How did it happen? What miracle of IRS miracles happened that did for Mr. Callaway what the IRS has never done for ordinary citizens like the thousands of dealers, waiters and waitresses and other tip earners in Nevada, just for example? To understand the course of these taxing events you have to be a believer.
If you believe Mr. Callaway, the case was won because he had a cause and refused to give up. "I had a grievance and I had a right to have my grievance heard." His victory made him an instant tax hero, and why shouldn't it have? After all, very few people ever beat the IRS.
But, wait a minute, he didn't win this in the courts like most people. In fact the courts turned him down. The first time the tax court told him "no way." The next was an appeal to the United States Court of Appeal for the 11th Circuit. Those folks sent him packing, too. He had a grievance, but nobody thought he was right.
Undaunted, Mr. Callaway pushed on. He also pulled a bit. Like on the strings of some very powerful friends. It seems that our hero was not just some ordinary fellow with a desire to bring opportunity to regular people using the name of Honest Abe. He was a former Georgia congressman and Secretary of the Army for President Gerald Ford. He counted amongst his close friends, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. Did he need more?
He said he never asked his friends for help, but he did enlist the aid of Mac Collins, who just happened to be a fellow Georgian and who just happened to be a congressman and who just happened to be a member of the Ways and Means Committee of Congress, which just happened to have oversight responsibilities for the IRS Mr. Collins went to work.
That's when an organization within the IRS, but apparently rarely ever heard from, called the Office of Independent Review, took up the cause. This past April the OIR sent Mr. Callaway a letter telling him he was right all along and that his foundation could, indeed, provide charitable dollars for political purposes. That isn't exactly what the letter must have said, but the substance is there.
Now, I don't know what, if anything, Mr. Rumsfeld or Mr. Cheney did for their friend. Nor do I know what, if anything, Mr. Collins did for his constituent, colleague and fellow high-ranking and influential Republican. Nor do I have any idea what Congressman Amo Houghton, the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee's oversight group for the IRS did or didn't do. But I do know that the Tax Court said no. And I know that the Court of Appeals said no way. And for almost every other taxpayer in the land, that is usually the last word. But not for Mr. Callaway. He is to be admired for his perseverance and determination. He is also to be envied for his friends in very high places. And, if as a result of this very strange reversal of fortune for the Abraham Lincoln Opportunity Foundation, what I think will happen to the use and abuse of charitable foundations in aid of political purposes does happen, he will be remembered as the man who would be kingmaker.
But this is America. The IRS doesn't cave in because a fellow knows the vice president or the very popular secretary of defense. The IRS doesn't reverse itself just because the people who hold the purse strings for the agency seem overly interested in one particular case. No, the IRS doesn't do for one taxpayer what the tax court of the land refused to do just because he helped Newt Gingrich take the House back and helped the South rise again.
No, all this happened because of one man's perseverance and determination. And in the United States of America, that's all that counts. That's what happened.
I believe it. I believe it. Don't you? Callaway what the IRS has never done for ordinary citizens like the thousands of dealers, waiters and waitresses and other tip earners in Nevada?
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