Over the last two years, government watchdog groups filed more than a dozen complaints with the Internal Revenue Service seeking inquiries into whether large nonprofit organizations like those founded by the Republican political operative Karl Rove and former Obama administration aides had violated their tax-exempt status by spending tens of millions of dollars on political advertising. 
 
 The I.R.S. never responded. 
 
 During the same period, the agency singled out dozens of Tea Party-inspired groups that had applied for I.R.S. recognition, officials acknowledged on Friday, subjecting them to rounds of detailed questioning about their political activities. None of those groups were big spenders on political advertising; most were local Tea Party organizations with shoestring budgets. 
 
 For the I.R.S.’s bipartisan legion of critics, the agency’s record has underscored its contradictory and seemingly confused response to the fastest-growing corner in the world of unlimited political spending: tax-exempt groups that have paid for at least half a billion dollars in campaign ads during the last two election cycles. 
 
 The I.R.S. has done little to regulate a flood of political spending by larger groups — like Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, co-founded by Mr. Rove, and Priorities USA, with close ties to President Obama — as well as Republican leaders in Congress and other elected officials. And an agency that is supposed to stay as far away from partisan politics as possible has been left in charge — almost by accident — of regulating a huge amount of election spending. 
 
 “We’ve complained about a few big fish and we’ve heard nothing from the I.R.S.,” said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, which filed many of the complaints with the agency. “We would far rather see scrutiny of these big fish — the groups that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to influence elections — than to see the resources spent on hundreds of small groups that appeared to spend very little on elections.” 
 
 Almost all of the groups in question are organized under 501(c)(4) of the tax code, which regulates nonprofit groups engaged in promoting “social welfare.” At least 16 such organizations spent a million dollars or more on campaign advertising in the 2012 elections. (Crossroads GPS and Priorities USA also run “super PACs” with similar names that spent millions more.) 
 
 But because they purport to be engaged primarily in issue advocacy, not election advocacy, tax-exempt groups are not closely regulated by the Federal Election Commission. That task falls, instead, to the I.R.S., which can take years to investigate problems and is required to do so in strict secrecy. 
 
 Some groups, like Crossroads, filed applications for I.R.S. tax-exempt status, claiming that they would be engaged primarily on research and educational activities but spending the bulk of their money on what appears to be political advertising. Others, like the American Tradition Partnership, operate for years at a stretch without filing federal tax returns, in seeming violation of the law. Many boast of their impact on political campaigns. 
 
 But while a few of the big groups have faced delays in having their tax exemptions recognized by the I.R.S., none appear to have received the intense scrutiny given the Tea Party groups, which were asked dozens of questions about spending on political advertising and other election activities. Of 15 such groups represented by Jay Sekulow, a lawyer with the American Center for Law and Justice, none spent a dollar on broadcast advertising from 2009 through 2012, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group. 
 
 I.R.S. officials said they had also submitted as many as 200 other groups’ applications to closer examination, but have declined to characterize those groups’ political affiliation. 
 
 Chris Ashby, a lawyer who advises conservative groups, said the I.R.S. might have focused on smaller groups because they seemed less likely to contest the reviews. “The big groups are generally well-advised, lawyered up. Their tax forms are artfully drawn,” Mr. Ashby said. Smaller groups, he suggested, made a better target for the I.R.S. 
 
 “Many of them don’t have counsel,” he said. “They probably aren’t well advised.” 
 
 Unlike candidates and super PACs, which must register quickly with the Federal Election Commission and regularly file financial disclosures, 501(c)(4) groups can operate for years while waiting for the I.R.S. to recognize their tax status. Nor are they required to disclose their donors — one reason they appear to be the preferred vehicle for large, publicly traded corporations that seek to influence elections without identifying themselves. ||||| In a press conference Monday, President Obama addressed the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of groups critical of government, and said, “I’ve got no patience with it. I will not tolerate it.” (The Washington Post) 
 
 In a press conference Monday, President Obama addressed the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of groups critical of government, and said, “I’ve got no patience with it. I will not tolerate it.” (The Washington Post) 
 
 Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. 
 
 IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea-party-affiliated groups, the documents show. 
 
 IRS employees in Cincinnati told conservatives seeking the status of “social welfare” groups that a task force in Washington was overseeing their applications, according to interviews with the activists. 
 
 Lois G. Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the IRS, told reporters Friday that the “absolutely inappropriate” actions were undertaken by “front-line people” working in Cincinnati to target groups with “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their names. 
 
 In one instance, however, Ron Bell, an IRS employee, informed a lawyer representing a conservative group focused on voter fraud that the application was under review in Washington. On several other occasions, IRS officials in Washington and California sent conservative groups detailed questionnaires about their voter outreach and other activities, according to the documents. 
 
 View Graphic A report due this week says the IRS targeted groups with names containing “tea party” and “patriot.” 
 
 “For the IRS to say it was some low-level group in Cincinnati is simply false,” said Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the law firm Foley & Lardner who sought to communicate with IRS headquarters about the delay in granting tax-exempt status to True the Vote. 
 
 Moreover, details of the IRS’s efforts to target conservative groups reached the highest levels of the agency in May 2012, far earlier than has been disclosed, according to Republican congressional aides briefed by the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration ­(TIGTA) on the details of their reviews. 
 
 Then-Commissioner Douglas Shulman, a George W. Bush appointee who stepped down in November, received a briefing from the TIGTA about what was happening in the Cincinnati office in May 2012, the aides said. His deputy and the agency’s current acting commissioner, Steven T. Miller, also learned about the matter that month, the aides said. 
 
 The officials did not share details with Republican lawmakers who had been demanding to know whether the IRS was targeting conservative groups, Republicans said. 
 
 “I wrote to the IRS three times last year after hearing concerns that conservative groups were being targeted,” Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Monday. “In response to the first letter I sent with some of my colleagues, Steven Miller, the current Acting IRS Commissioner, responded that these groups weren’t being targeted.” 
 
 “Knowing what we know now,” he added, “the IRS was at best being far from forth coming, or at worst, being deliberately dishonest with Congress.” 
 
 As new details emerged Monday, Democrats and Republicans alike decried the agency’s actions as an unacceptable abuse of power. 
 
 In a news conference Monday, President Obama said he learned of the investigating in media reports on Friday and has “no patience with it.” 
 
 “If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on, and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that’s outrageous,” Obama said. “And there’s no place for it. And they have to be held fully accountable.” 
 
 White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Monday that the White House counsel’s office learned of an upcoming IRS inspector general’s report on April 22 as part of a routine notification but had not received access to the report. 
 
 On Capitol Hill, two Senate panels — the Finance Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations — announced Monday that they will investigate. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Ways and Means Committee have been looking into reports of IRS attempts to single out organizations on the right for heightened scrutiny. Ways and Means has called IRS officials to testify Friday. 
 
 “These actions by the IRS are an outrageous abuse of power and a breach of the public’s trust,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.). “The IRS will now be the ones put under additional scrutiny.” 
 
 Separately, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) introduced companion bills Monday that would require the IRS to fire any employee found “willfully” violating “the constitutional rights of a taxpayer,” according to statements by both lawmakers. The bills also would make them criminally liable for their actions. 
 
 Even as Obama vowed that his administration “will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this,” however, the IRS offered no new information on how it selected which groups to single out for scrutiny. 
 
 The White House is legally barred from contacting the IRS about a tax matter, under a prohibition adopted after the Watergate scandal. And although it can contact the Treasury Department about tax issues, neither Treasury nor the IRS can disclose specific taxpayer information. The IRS can release information about a petition for tax- 
 
 exempt status only after it has been approved. 
 
 Obama is not in a position to remove Lerner, a career official who can be terminated for cause only under normal civil service proceedings. The IRS has two political appointees: the commissioner, who serves a five-year term, and the chief counsel. 
 
 As the IRS came under broader political attack Monday, more details surfaced on how the exempt-organizations division struggled to determine which nonprofits should receive “social welfare” status after the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling. That decision, which allowed corporations and unions to raise and spend un­limited amounts of money on elections, opened the door for groups to accept undisclosed contributions as long as their “primary purpose” was not politics. 
 
 In a Jan. 9, 2012, letter to the Richmond Tea Party, IRS specialist Stephen Seok asked questions including “the names of the donors, contributors and grantors,” as well as the size of the contributions and grants, and when they were given. 
 
 
 
 Richmond Tea Party President Larry Nordvig, whose group applied for tax-exempt status in December 2009 and received it in July 2012, said the extended inquiry had “a very chilling effect” on how much money the group could raise because its donors preferred anonymity. 
 
 The Wetumpka Tea Party of Alabama experienced a two-year delay after submitting its initial application. 
 
 Becky Gerritson, a 44-year-old stay-at-home mother and the group’s president, said the IRS sent a questionnaire asking for the names of all volunteers, donor identification and contribution amounts, the names of any legislators its members had communicated with directly or indirectly, and the contents of all speeches its members had made, among a long list of other details. 
 
 “I was outraged,” Gerritson said. “Being an election year, I felt like it was intimidation.” 
 
 The group did not provide the information. Approval came only after the group sought help from the American Center for Law and Justice, which threatened a lawsuit against the IRS, Gerritson said. 
 
 Although some of the groups were explicitly labeled “tea party” or “patriot,” others that came under intense scrutiny were focused on challenging the Affordable Care Act — known by many as Obamacare — or the integrity of federal elections. 
 
 In a June 3, 2011, letter to the IRS, Mitchell questioned the agency’s motivations for delaying recognition of one of her clients who had filed nearly two years earlier, writing, “Is the [group’s] opposition to Obamacare and the takeover of America’s healthcare system by the government the reason that this application has been held up and not approved?” 
 
 Catherine Engelbrecht, president of the Houston-based True the Vote, first filed for tax-exempt status in July 2010. At one point, Engelbrecht — who is still awaiting a determination from the IRS regarding her voting rights organization and a separate tea party group, King Street Patriots — said an IRS employee informed her: “I’m just doing what Washington is telling me to do. I’m just asking what they want me to ask.” 
 
 The IRS did not respond to requests for comment Monday. 
 
 Josh Hicks and Julie Tate contributed to this report. 
 
 Discuss this topic and other political issues in the politics discussion forums. ||||| The Internal Revenue Service’s acting commissioner first learned about the agency’s targeting of conservative political groups more than a year ago, the agency revealed Monday, even as President Barack Obama called the extra scrutiny “outrageous,” and promised those responsible would be “held accountable.” 
 
 “You don’t want the IRS ever being perceived to be biased and anything less than neutral in terms of how they operate,” Obama said at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron. “I’ve got no patience with it, I will not tolerate it and we will make sure we find out exactly what happened on this.” 
 
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 Obama’s comments were his first on the situation since the IRS’s scrutiny of groups with “tea party” and “patriot” in their names came to light on Friday. The IRS also targeted groups working to make “America a better place to live” and ones focused on government spending and debt, according to a draft report from the agency’s investigator general. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Obama's comments on IRS, Benghazi) 
 
 Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller was told in May 2012 that the Internal Revenue Service was targeting conservative groups for extra review, POLITICO has learned. 
 
 The tax exempt and government entities office informed Miller, then the deputy commissioner for services and enforcement, about the “improperly identified” applications on May 3, 2012, according to the IRS. 
 
 This detail from the agency clarifies when senior IRS officials first learned about the program that singled our conservative groups that included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their tax documents. 
 
 Two months before Miller was informed, former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told Ways and Means lawmakers that the IRS was not giving extra review based on groups’ politics. The IRS has maintained that Shulman did not know details of the program when he testified. 
 
 Miller’s position at the time would have been only one level below Shulman. 
 
 Miller has been at the IRS for more than two decades and once headed the exemption organizations office currently under review, but he transferred departments before the program began in 2010. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: 5 questions on the IRS debacle) 
 
 The president said he learned of the IRS misbehavior in the news reports that emerged Friday, though White House press secretary Jay Carney later told reporters the White House counsel’s office was informed of the report during the last full week of April, but not told of its findings. 
 
 “If, in fact, IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that is outrageous, and there is no place for it, and they have to be held fully accountable,” Obama said Monday. 
 
 The president’s comments came as congressional leaders signaled plans to probe the issue, tea party groups threatened to to sue the IRS, and fresh charges emerged that the agency’s misconduct may have been broader than originally reported. ||||| During a news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, President Barack Obama responds to a question about the alleged IRS political targeting, saying if these allegations are true it is 'outrageous'. 
 
 President Barack Obama said Monday those responsible for any improper scrutiny of conservative groups' tax status would be held "fully accountable," hours before it emerged that the current and former heads of the Internal Revenue Service were informed last May that tea-party groups had been targeted. 
 
 The IRS said in a statement that acting Commissioner Steven Miller was first told by the agency staff on May 3, 2012, that some specific groups' applications for tax-exempt status were improperly selected for extra scrutiny based on their names. 
 
 But two top GOP lawmakers said Mr. Miller, who was named to the top IRS post in November, didn't disclose the problems in subsequent letters sent to them—even as they and other congressional Republicans had raised questions about IRS scrutiny of tea-party groups' applications for tax-exempt status. Mr. Miller couldn't be reached for comment on Monday. 
 
 Opinion The IRS Wants You: The scandal over politicized tax enforcement is growing. Read more. 
 
 Separately, investigators told congressional staffers Monday that Mr. Miller's predecessor, Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2008, was informed of the problems in May 2012, according to an aide. But Republicans say Mr. Shulman—who had previously testified that there was no IRS targeting—never told them of what he subsequently learned. Mr. Shulman couldn't be reached for comment Monday. 
 
 Mr. Obama, in his first public comments on the controversy, echoed the anger expressed by Republican and Democratic lawmakers. "If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on, and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous," he said during a news conference with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron. 
 
 The president, who said he first learned about the alleged abuses Friday, added that he wanted to reserve judgment on the matter until after release of an investigation by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. 
 
 The IRS controversy, combined with a continuing GOP focus on the administration's conduct before and after the death of a U.S. ambassador in Benghazi, Libya, and the increasingly bloody Syrian civil war are among a litany of issues threatening to disrupt the administration's second-term agenda. Already, Congress has rejected Mr. Obama's preferred gun-control legislation. On deck is a complex immigration-law overhaul. 
 
 On Friday, Lois Lerner, head of the IRS tax-exempt-organizations division, apologized for "inappropriate" actions by workers in subjecting applications of some conservative groups that had "tea party" or "patriot" in their names, among other criteria. 
 
 "I wrote to the IRS three times last year after hearing concerns that conservative groups were being targeted," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee said Monday. "Yet it didn't occur to anyone at the IRS to let us know that this targeting was in fact happening? Knowing what we know now, the IRS was at best being far from forthcoming, or at worst, being deliberately dishonest with Congress. These are the facts and the questions we need answered." 
 
 In a letter sent in September to Mr. Hatch and posted on the committee's website, Mr. Miller said, "Revenue agents use sound reasoning based on tax law training and their experience to review applications and identify the additional information needed to make a proper determination of an organization's exempt status." 
 
 Mr. Miller also sent a letter to Rep. Charles Boustany (R., La.) in June that said IRS officials saw an increase in applications from groups that were "potentially engaged in political advocacy" and took steps to "coordinate the handling of the cases." The letter mentioned delays in processing, but not targeting. 
 
 Groups granted tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code are allowed to engage in some political activity, but their primary focus is supposed to be promoting social welfare. 
 
 Details of the investigation that emerged over the weekend showed that by June 2011 IRS workers had identified applications from more than 100 groups that would be targeted based on concerns the groups had about government spending, debt or taxes; or if they planned to lobby to "make America a better place to live"; or if they criticized how the country was being run. 
 
 The findings, which were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, showed that after Ms. Lerner was briefed on these proposed guidelines, she ordered that such criteria be immediately revised. But investigators found that the IRS unit continued to press ahead with other politically sensitive requests, including asking applicants for donor information. 
 
 It still isn't clear how the scrutiny of conservative groups got started. A timeline prepared by investigators for the inspector general's office suggests that it began in 2010. But the first entry in the timeline is redacted. 
 
 The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing Friday to look into the IRS allegations. 
 
 Rep. Dave Camp (R., Mich.), chairman of the committee, and Rep. Sander Levin (D., Mich.), the ranking Democrat, said the only witnesses would be Mr. Miller and the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George. 
 
 "The American public expects the Internal Revenue Service to be apolitical in its enforcement of our tax laws," Mr. Camp said. "News that the agency admits it targeted American taxpayers based on politics is both astounding and appalling." 
 
 The Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, promised to investigate as well, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid termed the allegations "very troubling." 
 
 The investigation into the IRS's targeting of conservative groups has revealed that high-ranking IRS officials knew as early as 2011 of the practice. John McKinnon reports. 
 
 Late Monday, Republicans on the Ways and Means and Finance committees released their own timelines of their interactions with the IRS, detailing how they say they were stymied in their efforts to find out what had happened to conservative groups. 
 
 Treasury inspector general reports often include recommendations for policy changes or further review. If this report includes recommendations, the Obama administration could decide to act on them, ignore them or launch its own review. 
 
 IRS officials have maintained that the problem was localized among lower-level employees in the Cincinnati office, which oversees approvals of many tax-exempt organizations. They also have characterized the problem as a bureaucratic snafu that resulted from taking shortcuts. The agency said in a statement Friday that the special treatment didn't stem from "any political or partisan rationale." 
 
 But Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer representing a number of the conservative groups, said several of her clients received IRS letters early in 2012 that came from Washington, not Cincinnati. Two were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Both asked for additional information. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Reuters President Obama responds to a question Monday during a news conference with Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron in the East Room at the White House. 
 
 One asked 13 questions, including identities of all contributors of more than $2,000 for 2009-2011. It also asked for "copies of emails you distributed and indicate the key issue, date and target audience for each." Another asked about the group's planned lectures, classes and workshops; websites; rallies and exhibitions; lobbying; and voter education and registration efforts. 
 
 The IRS didn't respond to a request for comment. 
 
 Ms. Mitchell and another lawyer representing tea-party groups, Jay Sekulow of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, both said they sent letters demanding that groups they represent be approved for tax-exempt status. "If that does not occur by Friday, we will advise our clients of their right to sue the IRS for the redress of their grievances," Mr. Sekulow said in a statement. 
 
 Republicans also are upset that Ms. Lerner learned of the activities in June of 2011, according to the investigative review, yet made no mention of them in lengthy correspondence with lawmakers during 2012. 
 
 Republicans also questioned why Mr. Obama said he only learned of the IRS conduct last Friday. Press secretary Jay Carney told reporters the White House Counsel's Office was told during the week of April 22 that the inspector general for tax administration was wrapping up an investigation of the issue. 
 
 Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com
– Did the IRS lie to Congress about Tea Party groups being singled out for extra scrutiny? The agency has admitted that acting Commissioner Steven Miller knew about the targeting by May last year, but senior Republican lawmakers say Miller didn't tell them about it, even when they contacted him to express concerns about conservative groups being singled out, the Wall Street Journal reports. Investigators say Miller's predecessor Douglas Shulman—who testified before Congress that "there's absolutely no targeting"—was aware of the targeting at the same time as Miller. As reports surfaced that the scandal went beyond the Tea Party, some conservative organizations said they were seriously considering suing the IRS, Politico reports. "Given the sheer scope of maleficence at the IRS, there may be a legal recourse," a lawyer for a half-dozen targeted groups says. Lois Lerner, the IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, blames the targeting on the agency's Cincinnati office, but the effort went a lot further than that, with officials at IRS headquarters in Washington and at least two other offices involved, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post. Several congressional panels plan to investigate, and the House Ways and Means Committee has set a hearing for Friday morning. While the IRS was targeting small Tea Party groups, it wasn't nitpicking large groups like Karl Rove's Crossroads or the pro-Obama Priorities USA (both of which also run super PACs that spent even more on elections), the New York Times reports. More than a dozen complaints from government watchdog groups asking whether such organizations were violating their tax-exempt status through political spending were ignored, while the smaller Tea Party organizations—which had small budgets and were much less likely to be buying political ads—saw delays with their applications as they were asked question after question. But that doesn't mean Crossroads completely skated through: It was one of nine groups whose confidential info the IRS leaked to ProPublica.