A few weeks ago a Senate subcommittee brought Apple executives before the senators in order criticize them for not paying more in taxes. Senator Rand Paul disagreed and said he was “offended by the tone and tenor of this hearing.”

In order to sort this out, let’s put some facts on the table. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook pointed out that the company is the largest corporate income tax payer in America. They pay $6 billion to the U.S. Treasury. That works out to $16 million per day. It also employs plenty of Americans: 50,000 of Apple’s 75,000 employees are in the U.S.

Contrast this with those companies who paid no corporate income tax last year. Contrast Apple with companies that have shipped most of their jobs overseas. You have to wonder why Apple executives were the ones sitting in front of the senators.

It is also true that Apple has done what it can to minimize the taxes it has to pay. That only makes sense since Apple’s profits in the U.S. are subject to a combined federal and state tax rate of 39.1%. That is the highest in the world. The editors at the Wall Street Journal ran the numbers for one of Apple’s chief competitors. South Korea’s Samsung has an overall effective tax rate of 14%.

The current U.S. corporate tax rate essentially guarantees that Apple (and many other companies) will keep their foreign income abroad. Senators want Apple to pay more tax on their foreign cash, but Senator Paul suggested a different idea.

He said, “I think Congress should be on trial here for creating a bizarre and byzantine tax code that runs into the tens of thousands of pages, for creating a tax code that simply doesn’t compete with the rest of the world.” Instead of calling the Apple executives before the committee, he suggested they bring in a giant mirror. “If you want to assign blame, the committee needs to look in this mirror and see who created the mess.”

Senator Paul is right. It’s time for Congress to look in the mirror.

The outgoing commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service chalked up the current scandal as “horrible customer service.” He (and others in the government agency) would have us believe that IRS actions were not politically motivated.

As I have said frequently on radio, it would be easier to defend such a position if the IRS could find at least one progressive group that was subjected to the same kind of scrutiny that conservative groups experienced. We now know that groups that had words like “tea party” or “patriot” were targeted. So were groups who identified themselves and pro-life or pro-Second Amendment.

Does the IRS scandal goes to the top? Charles Krauthammer argues in a recent column that he doubts that a memo was sent to the IRS from anyone working in this administration. Instead, he says, we had a political climate that made the targeting of these groups inevitable.

The president denounced the Supreme Court decision that allowed for more 501 (c)(4) groups to be formed. He even did this in a State of the Union speech with many of the Supreme Court Justices sitting in front of him. During the election he called the “special interest groups” that were running ads to help Republicans “not just a threat to Democrats” but “a threat to our democracy.” Add to this the letters from Democratic Senators to the IRS demanding intense scrutiny of 501(c)(4) applications. All of this created a climate that encouraged the targeting of these groups.

None of the actions by these politicians is illegal. But creating such a climate of intolerance is shameful and most likely the reason that many of these groups never received their tax exempt status in time to make a difference in the 2012 election. And I might mention that some of these groups are still waiting for their tax-exempt status.

The IRS actions were more that just examples of “bad customer service.” They took their cues from people above them who wanted them to target conservative groups with bureaucratic investigations designed to delay and deny. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

As the IRS scandal unfolds we are beginning to hear stories of how people were affected. It has put a “human face” on how the government has

disrupted the lives of those who wanted to be good citizens and influence the political process.

One story comes from Catherine Engelbrecht, who lives in Richmond, Texas and became interested in public policy and concerned about reports of

voter fraud. She founded the groups King Street Patriots and True the Vote. In July 2010, she sent applications to the IRS for tax-exempt status. It is bad

enough that she did not receive that status. What is worse were the years of harassment. Here’s a brief history of what happened to her.

In December 2010, the FBI asked her about a person who attended a King Street Patriots function. In January 2011, the FBI came back with more

questions. That same month, the IRS audited her business tax returns. In May 2011, the FBI called again about the King Street Patriots. In June 2011, her

personal tax returns were audited and the FBI called again. The next month, the FBI had more questions. The same month the ATF did an unscheduled audit

of her business. In July 2012, OSHA did an unscheduled audit. In November 2012, there were more questions, this time on True the Vote. In April 2012, there

was a second ATF audit.

As far as anyone can tell these actions were triggered because she founded a conservative group that registers voters and works to prevent voter

fraud. If you have heard my previous commentaries, you might remember that her groups found hundreds of people illegally on the voter rolls (registered to

non-existence addresses, etc).

Oh, and I might mention that she is still waiting on the IRS for a tax-exemption for her groups. This apparently is what the government does to groups

founded to investigate “voter registration irregularities.” I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.