Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP)
Ad Hoc Committee
Annual Meeting Minutes
Committee’s Annual Meeting in Washington, DC
December 13, 2006; 8am-12pm

Designated Federal Official (DFO)
Nancy L. Ferree, Plantation, FL, TAP Program Manager

Members Present
Rashidah Abdulhaqq, Cleveland, OH
Mary Armstrong, Pensacola, FL
George Bates, Great Falls, MT, Vice Chair
Kimberly Brown, Blakeslee, PA
Margaret Ferguson, Vista, CA
Christopher Freeman, Pleasant Hill, IA
Mary Ann Lawler, Dearborn, MI
MJ Lee, Portola Valley, CA
Patrice Marker, Davie, FL, Chair
Kenneth Wright, Columbia, MO
William Yaeger, Alexandria, VA

Members Absent
Gim Hom, Acton, MA
Gary Lundberg, Carlsbad, CA 
Luis Parra, Bronx, NY
Alberto Rodriquez, Miami, FL

IRS Program Owners
Toni Cross, Chief, MLI Strategy Office
Carie Schaffer, MLI Policy Analyst
Sue Sottile, Director Tax Forms and Pubs
Bob Erickson, Senior Technical Advisor, Tax Forms and Pubs

Staff Present
Nancy Ferree, TAP Program Manager
Inez E. De Jesus, TAP Program Analyst
Isai Pallango, Note Taker

Welcome & Announcements
Chair Patrice Marker opened the meeting by welcoming everyone. Chair Marker requested that all returning panel members complete the 2006 Annual Self-Assessment document and send via email to Program Analyst Inez De Jesus. New panel members requested information concerning this document and information of the TAP Ad hoc Program.

Roll Call
Roll call was taken and Quorum of 9 was met.

Ad Hoc 2006 Accomplishments
Chair Patrice Marker provided details of TAP accomplishments for fiscal year 2006 and stated that she would like the success of TAP with new panel members to continue. Examples: TAP accomplishments issues being elevated to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Elections for Committees Chair and Vice-Chair
Chair Patrice Marker requested new panel members to consider becoming Chair and/or Vice-Chair. New panel member Christopher Freeman and MJ Lee stated their desire of becoming candidates for either one of these positions.

Chair Marker provided a brief explanation of the duties of these positions. It was stated that Chair and Vice-Chairs require extra time, work, and a written report on a monthly basis. New panel members Freeman and Lee agreed with the requirements and a vote was taken from all panel members. Calculated vote was taken and MJ Lee was voted New Chair and Christopher Freeman was voted as New Vice-Chair of the TAP Ad hoc committee. Congratulations were extended to Chair MJ Lee and Vice-Chair Chris Freeman.  The new leadership moved into their new positions at this point.

Confirm Meeting Dates, Times, and Location of Face to Face for 2007
The list of Meetings Projected for 2007 was reviewed and all agreed that the teleconference meetings will be held every other month commencing on February 8, 2007, at 2:00 PM ET for one hour duration and the face-to-face meeting will be held on June 13-15, 2007 in Washington, DC.

Presentations by IRS Program Owners

• Multilingual Initiative (MLI) Strategy plan for 2007: Toni Cross, Chief, MLI Language Services Office of the IRS and Carie Schaffer showed a PowerPoint presentation on the IRS’ commitment to help taxpayers who lack full command of the English language to understand and meet their tax responsibilities.

• Ms. Cross addressed the Legislative Mandate, Executive Order 13166, which mandates federal agencies to provide meaningful access to products and services to person with Limited English Proficiency (LEP).
• Currently the focus is on Spanish and it provides limited languages assistance in other languages, as resources permit based on the census data.
• The 2007-2008 Strategy Plans were reviewed with emphasis on exploring options for developing an interactive electronic tax application in Spanish.  This is the area in which TAP’s input is needed.  The TAP will be asked to assist in testing a new interactive web tool for Spanish speaking customers, “Guide to Federal Income Tax Returns”* which will be in CD format.

                 Ms. Cross requested that the TAP help them. 

• It was mentioned that TAP should contact ESL’s in order to test the CD package.  A meeting should be scheduled to follow-up on this.  The goal is to have the TAP run the CD and provide feedback to Toni Cross via the TAP Staff.
• The TAP MLI Team participants will be:  Bill Yaeger (Subcommittee Lead), MJ Lee, Kim Brown, Luis Parra, Al Gonzalez, and Rashidah Abdulhaqq.  (This team will be working closely with Cross, Schaffer, Ferree and De Jesus).


• Sue Sottile, thanked all panel members for their past participation in the program. Sottile provided detailed information of current products and requested feedback. Bob Erickson gave important information on the redesign of Form-1040 and indicated that the redesign of Form 1040 is currently on hold because of the budget situation.   Patrice Marker questioned the redesign of the IRS website. No change in the near future.  There was brief dialogue about making the 1040 electronic filing only.  (Schedule O is running out of space.)

Sottile and Erickson requested that this committee review the following forms and/or publications and provide them with feedback via the TAP Staff:

• New Publication 600, State and Local General Sales Taxes 2006*-

Subcommittee will be led by Ken Wright, and other participants are Margaret Ferguson, Rashidah Abdulhaqq, and George Bates.

• Form 5695, Residential Energy Credits*-

Subcommittee is composed of:  Ken Wright, Kim Brown, George Bates and Patrice Marker.

• Form 8888, Direct Deposit of Refund to More Than One Account*-

Subcommittee is composed of:  Ken Wright and George Bates

• Form 8910, Alternate Motor Vehicle Credit*-

Subcommittee is composed of Ken Wright, George Bates, MaryAnn Lawler, and Chris Freeman.

• Review Draft Forms located at www.irs.gov - Provide Feedback after Reviewing It *- Subcommittee is composed of Ken Wright and George Bates. And MJ

*The new issues assigned today will be added to the TAP Contact Database and assigned an automatic number for tracking purposes by the TAP Program Analyst and this information will be shared with the entire committee. 

Creation of Sub-committees for Upcoming Projects for IRS Program Owners
The committee agreed that each member have the flexibility of choosing which sub-committees they will work on as issues were assigned by the IRS Program Owners as opposed to the practice last year of remaining in one sub-committee for the entire year.

Questions and Answer / Closing
New Chair MJ Lee along with former chair Marker welcomed new panel members and provided valuable input on becoming a productive panel member. No questions were asked of chair.

Meeting Survey and Confirm Group Dinner
A proposal was made to panel members to complete Annual Self-Assessment document and send via email to Program Analyst Inez De Jesus. Group dinner was confirmed with location and time.  Members were reminded to fill out the meeting survey. Chair Lee adjourned the meeting. 

Next Meeting:  Teleconference on February 8, 2007 at 2PM ET