Arizona congressman Paul Gosar said Tuesday he’s the latest victim of “big government incompetence,” as he finally got an answer from the IRS about the tax-exempt status of a group he started, nearly eight years after he asked about it.
“You can now officially add my name to the endless list of Americans who have fallen victim to big government incompetence,” the Republican wrote in a press release Tuesday.
Gosar, previously a dentist before winning a seat in Congress in 2011, explained how he and and a group of people had opened the Alaska Dental Outreach Consortium in 2008 to provide oral healthcare for residents in rural parts of that state. On July 2 of that year, they filed for tax exempt status.
But Gosar never heard back from the Internal Revenue Service that year or even in 2009. It was not until Feb. 8, 2016, that the congressman received a letter from the IRS that said the group had been granted 501(c)(3) status.
“In what world is it acceptable for a government agency to take seven years, seven months and six days to respond to a simple request?” Gosar wrote.
The bigger problem for Gosar and his business partners was that the dental group is no longer in existence. Gosar said because they never received nonprofit status, they were unable to make it and had to shut down the organization.
Gosar said the incident is indicative of a systemic problem in government, which continues to increase in size despite a reduced level of effectiveness.
“The unstoppable growth of our federal government is sinking us from within and inflicting irreparable harm on our citizens. Look no further than the [Department of Veterans Affairs], where unaccountable senior employees covered up a broken system by erasing patient wait times contributing to the deaths of countless veterans. Yet somehow, we have Democrats running for president who promote nationalizing our entire healthcare system?” Gosar wrote.
