Should the IRS Never Target Taxpayers? An Examination of the IRS Tea Party Affair

This article is part of a symposium held at Valparaiso University Law School entitled Money in Politics: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. In 2013, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration faulted the Internal Revenue Service for the appearance of impartiality because it used names and policy positions such as “Tea Party” and conservative ideology to pick applications for tax-exempt status for greater scrutiny. The Inspector General\u27s review came after members of Congress accused the Service of targeting conservative organizations. This Article finds the Inspector General\u27s claim lacks a firm foundation. The use of names to select organizations for closer review fits well within the discretionary space that both Congress and courts provide to the Service to collect revenue. However, a narrower legal and ethical claim is supportable: where an enforcement choice impinges on a fundamental constitutional right the Service should exercise a higher degree of care to ensure that its screening choices do not appear biased in an unconstitutional manner. Thus, this review finds the Inspector General\u27s primary claim regarding it being inappropriate to use names to screen applications to be incorrect. However, it finds that the Service violated an ethical norm because it failed to bring a high level of care to a matter that at least impinged on a fundamental Constitutional right. The Article recommends that the Service continue using names to screen applications for tax-exempt status. However, the Article suggests the Service implement procedures to document an unbiased process when evaluating applications that raise questions of a fundamental Constitutional nature

Homology operations and cosimplicial iterated loop spaces

If X is a cosimplical $E_{n+1}$ space then Tot(X) is an $E_{n+1}$ space and its mod 2 homology $H_*(Tot(X))$ has Dyer-Lashof and Browder operations. It's natural to ask if the spectral sequence converging to $H_*(Tot(X))$ admits compatible operations. In this paper I give a positive answer to this question

Rapid manufacturing- state of the art, analysis and future perspectives

Layer based manufacturing system often referred to as Rapid Prototyping (RP) have been in existence for 22 years, in the past 5 years Rapid Manufacturing (RM) has emerged from these RP systems to produce functional and structural customer focused end use components and products. This keynote paper will review the current range of technologies for metallic systems, it will also evaluate the operating principles, features, potential and limitations of current commercially available systems. Rapid Manufacture is increasingly being used for high value difficult to manufacture components with a new set of design rules required to fully exploit the RM systems inherent characteristics. A case studies approach will be used to show the benefits and pitfalls this new design freedom can provide designers

Machining of wood using a Rip Tooth: effects of work-piece variations on cutting mechanics

Genetics and environmental conditions during the growth of wood are known to affect the intrinsic characteristics influencing cutting mechanics. To evaluate this, a full factorial experiment has been performed investigating the effects of three significant factors involved in wood machining; wood species, moisture content and grain direction. A variety of woods were evaluated (five softwood and three hardwood species) at four moisture levels. As all woods are heterogeneous, anisotropic materials, machining was performed parallel and perpendicular to the grain direction. A three axis CNC router was used to drive a tool resembling a rip tooth, at low velocity, through each of the sixty-four wooden work-piece variations at three different depths of cut. To collect quantitative data, a piezoelectric dynamometer was used with a data acquisition system to measure and record the cutting and thrust force components acting on the tool. Chip formation and work-piece deformation was observed using images taken from an optical microscope. In this paper the results from the rip tooth experiment are compared to published results [1-7] in for planing operations from fundamental literature

Determination of wood strength properties through standard test procedures

In this study a review of existing recognised standards for wood mechanical testing was conducted. This review considers tensile, compressive, bending and shear test methodologies from a range of sources. In addition, values for wood mechanical properties were obtained through controlled experimentation using a universal material testing machine. Selected standard procedures were used to obtain wood strength properties both along and across the grain. These consist of a three point bending procedure used to evaluate the wood strength across the grain and a longitudinal shear procedure used to evaluate the wood strength along the grain. Strength properties obtained through controlled experimentation are compared to values available in existing literature with little discrepancy