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By Paul Kiel, ProPublica, and Mitchell Hartman, Marketplace

itle Credit Finance is two doors down from Cashwells Title Pawn and World Finance Corp. on Victory Drive outside of Fort Benning, in Columbus, Ga. Photo: Mitchell Hartman/Marketplace

itle Credit Finance is two doors down from Cashwells Title Pawn and World Finance Corp. on Victory Drive outside of Fort Benning, in Columbus, Ga. Photo: Mitchell Hartman/Marketplace

This story was co-produced with Marketplace. Listen to their coverage.

Seven years after Congress banned payday-loan companies from charging exorbitant interest rates to service members, many of the nation’s military bases are surrounded by storefront lenders who charge high annual percentage rates, sometimes exceeding 400 percent.

The Military Lending Act sought to protect service members and their families from predatory loans. But in practice, the law has defined the types of covered loans so narrowly that it’s been all too easy for lenders to circumvent it.

By Dave Levinthal, Center for Public Integrity irs

Amid withering accusations the Internal Revenue Service targeted tea party and other conservative groups with enhanced scrutiny, the agency faces another problem: it’s drowning in paperwork.

The IRS’ Exempt Organizations Division, which finds itself at the scandal’s epicenter, processed significantly more tax exemption applications in fiscal year 2012 by so-called 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organizations  — 2,774 — than it has since at least the late 1990s, according to an analysis of IRS records by the Center for Public Integrity.

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Referrer: https://floridabulldog.org/2013/05/page/2/