IRS and ACORN go their separate ways

WASHINGTON — The IRS announced Wednesday it was severing ties with ACORN, joining a growing list of government agencies to end relationships with the community activist group.

The Internal Revenue Service said it would no longer include ACORN in its volunteer tax assistance program. The program offered free tax advice to about 3 million low- and moderate-income tax filers this spring. ACORN provided help on about 25,000 returns, the IRS said.

ACORN, meanwhile, said it had already suspended its tax program, raising questions about who broke up with whom.

"We had already made that decision to not deliver those services," ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis said. ACORN officials provided reporters with a letter to the IRS, dated Monday, saying the group was suspending all tax services for 2009.

IRS spokesman Terry Lemons had a different take: "We announced last week we were conducting a thorough review and today we terminated the relationship. We stand by our statement that we terminated the relationship."

ACORN, which is short for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has long been a target of conservative activists. A hidden-camera video surfaced earlier this month showing ACORN employees in Brooklyn, N.Y., advising a couple posing as a prostitute and pimp to lie to get housing aid. The video, produced by a conservative activist, shows employees in other cities counseling the pair on tax, banking and immigration issues.

"It is absolutely critical that taxpayers have trust in our Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program partners," the IRS said in a statement. "In light of recent events, the IRS has decided to terminate its relationship with ACORN."

Lewis said the group is working to clean up its problems. The group has selected Scott Harshbarger, a former Massachusetts attorney general, to investigate its housing program and other public service projects.

"We are going to conduct a no holds barred review," Harshbarger said Wednesday.

The House and Senate voted earlier this month to sever federal funding to ACORN. The Census Bureau severed its ties with the group for the 2010 national head-count, and New York Gov. David Paterson has ordered state agencies to examine contracts with ACORN and place holds on them in the meantime.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio praised the IRS decision to cut ties with ACORN and urged President Barack Obama to break all government ties with the group.