If court 'certifies' class-action status, the tea party groups will be free to demand emails, phone records and other documents

Judge in Cincinnati overruled the government and ordered the IRS to hand over the list

Obama administration fought the release of a list of 298 groups it denied tax-exempt status beginning in 2010, citing privacy concerns

A federal judge has ordered the Internal Revenue Service to hand over a list of the 298 tea party organizations that it targeted with broad and often intrusive questions when they applied for nonprofit tax-exempt status.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott means right-wing groups are a step closer to being allowed to pursue a class-action lawsuit against the IRS.

The agency has admitted playing political favorites with the tax code beginning in 2010, when it began applying extra scrutiny to groups with red-flag words like 'patriots' or 'tea party' in their names.

While those organizations' applications were held up for years, liberal groups sailed through the process.

Federal tax-exempt status is confered on groups that serve a public purpose, including issue advocacy, and allows them to promise tax deductions to their donors.

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F.U.I.R.S.: American conservatives were up in marks in 2013 after the IRS confirmed it had been slow-walking tax-exemption applications from tea party groups based on red-flag words in their names

Lois Lerner, the former IRS official at the heart of the tea party targeting scandal, ran the 'Exempt Organizations' division until late 2013 when she retired with full benefits; the Justice Department said this week that it won't prosecute her for defying a congressional subpoena and refusing to answer questions

Tax-exempt organizations are not permitted to work for or against candidates for public office, but they can use up to half of their funds to make public arguments about political matters like tax policy, the Obamacare insurance overhaul, the environment or foreign policy.

Dlott agreed this week that the tea party groups suing the government can pursue their claims that the IRS violated their First and Fifth Amendment rights, along with a section of federal law – Section 6103 of Title 26 – that prohibits the government from releasing private information contained in tax returns.

When the Treasury Department's Office of Inspector General investigated the IRS's actions, it demanded – and received – a list of 298 groups whose tax-exemption applications had been held up.

It's this list that the tea party groups want.

Their lawsuit aims first to identify a list of 'all dissenting groups targeted for additional scrutiny by the IRS from January 20, 2009, through July 15, 2013.'

Dlott could then choose to certify that list as a 'class' of plaintiffs.

IRS commissioner John Koskinen has insisted that his agency is no longer targeting conservative groups with special scrutiny, and has offered to green-list any group that promises it will limit its political activity to 40 per cent of its budget – but some organizations are holdout out, claiming the law entitles them to a 50 per cent limit

The IRS's lawyers claimed that they couldn't provide the court with the names of all the groups, saying they would have to turn over the very documents that Section 6103 requires them to keep confidential.

The conservative plaintiffs said they would be happy to have only the spreadsheet that the inspector general got from the IRS. Dlott agreed and ordered the agency to hand it over.

'The Court concludes that the return information sought is directly related to the issue of class certification in this federal court proceeding,' her ruling reads.

'The names of the putative class member organizations and their control dates – the date which the putative class member organizations submitted their applications for tax exempt status to the IRS – are directly related to the issue of class certification.'

Dlott decided that without the list, the plaintiffs wouldn't be able to show all the disaffected conservative applicants it has already identified share common experiences at the hands of America's tax collectors.

Courthouse News Service first reported her ruling.

The IRS is the federal agency Americans most love to hate, polling worse in opinion surveys than Congress

A partial list was unearthed by USA Today in September 2013, showing that as of 2011 the IRS had questioned the political advocacy of 162 right-wing organizations and delayed approving their tax exemptions.

In an IRS spreadsheet published online by the newspaper, partisan government officials characterized the activities of 21 of those groups as 'propaganda.'

Dlott also ordered the IRS to tell the court whether or not that list was authentic, The Washington Times reported.

Former IRS official Lois Lerner, who has been at the center of the targeting scandal since it emerged in 23 months ago, was facing the possibility of criminal Contempt of Congress charges until the Obama administration's Department of Justice declined on Monday to prosecute her.