Area 1 Committee Meeting Minutes

August 24, 2004

Opening of the Meeting
Grimaldi welcomed all participants and asked if they read the letter written to NTA Nina Olson on the issue of the 9/11 Grants. The members said they liked the letter and hope for a response from the NTA. Grimaldi stated that the Joint Committee is currently discussing the issue of addressing the TAP’s legislative issues to the Ad Hoc Issue Committee that will in turn refer to the NTA. Fish added that issues of legislative nature seem to be of most concern not only to TAP members but to the public. The Schedule C Issue Committee, he added, found many of these issues, compiled them and passed them on to the Program Owner. Grimaldi agreed that what is needed is an avenue for these issues. We cannot ignore them simply because they are not within our scope, he said.

Roll Call

Panel Members Attending

• Elizabeth Brodbine-Ghoniem, MA, Vice-Chair
• Walt Fish, NY
• James Grimaldi, NY, Chair
• Diane Mignano, RI
• Paul Nagel, NY
• Shamsey Oloko, NY
• Eileen Shuman, VT
• Charles Silva, MA

Panel Members Absent

• Aimee Brace
• William Gedge, CT

Quorum was met.

TAP and IRS Staff Attending

• Peter Gorga, Jr., NY, DFO
• Marisa Knispel, TAP Program Analyst

Meeting Minutes
The minutes of June 29, 2004 and July 27, 2004 were approved by consensus.

Subcommittee Reports:

Taxpayer Education Subcommittee – Grimaldi, Silva, Fish and Oloko
Grimaldi said that he has not written the proposal on “Adding the Tap Statement to Publication 1546” yet. He has, however, written the proposal on “Eliminating the Form 2688” and will share it will all the members. Nagel suggested that Grimaldi add to this proposal the recent tax relief given to the victims of hurricane Charley and storm Bonnie. Taxpayers in the disaster area were given until October 15th to file their tax returns and submit tax payments. The IRS will also abate interest and any late filing or payment penalties to those affected. All the members agreed with Nagel’s suggestion. Shuman also recommended that Grimaldi add a statement on how eliminating the Form 2688 would save time to the taxpayer – time in takes to complete the Form - and time to the IRS – time it takes to process and maintain the Form. Grimaldi agreed. He believes the proposal would involve mostly administrative changes rather than legislative. The only change that may have legislative implications, Grimaldi said, is that of changing the first automatic extension, Form 4868, to a six month extension. He explained that his proposal compares The Committee’s recommendations on the individual extensions (F4868 and F2688) to the changes made to the corporate extension over the years. This comparison, he believes, will support our proposal.

Silva said that he has not written a proposal on Schedule D yet but will before the Committee’s face-to-face meeting in Brattleboro, VT. Nagel said that all Area proposals are to be sent to TAP Analyst Barbara Toy no later than September 1st. Knispel volunteered to assist Silva in writing this proposal and will also request an extension from Toy.

Procedures and Processes Subcommittee – Gedge, Shuman, Nagel and Mignano
Shuman indicated that the Subcommittee has not been active since the face-to-face meeting in New Hampshire. Since Gedge, Subcommittee chair, was absent at the last teleconference, no Subcommittee member followed up on setting up a teleconference. She will, however, submit a proposal on “Adding a Penalty and Interest Statement” to all IRS notices.

Ghoneim indicated that she will share the response from the IRS to the Committee’s proposal on the understanding and issuance of ITINs with the lawyer who referred this issue to her. She also mentioned that Knispel referred to her the case of a Florida tax practitioner who seems to find many problems with the ITIN application process and the common rejection of the applications (Form W-7). Knispel briefed the members on her conversation with this tax practitioner with whom she expressed the Committee’s interest on this issue. Knispel also requested he sent her copies of any rejection letter(s) in order for the Committee to analyze the problem. She has not received any yet, but will call this practitioner again and invite him to join us at the next teleconference.

Other Issues
Grimaldi said that although the members were encouraged to work in subcommittees, not all committees work this way. He feels that last year, in the absence of subcommittees, the Area 1 Committee worked better and accomplished more. When a member raised an issue last year, he said, other members interested in that issue joined in to work on the proposal. This is not happening this year, he noticed, perhaps because some of the subcommittee issues may not be of interest to some subcommittee members. Shuman said that the idea of breaking into subcommittees is good when the subcommittee members are willing to meet and work on their issues in the time between the Committee meetings. This is not happening. Fish agreed and said that at their recent face-to-face meeting, the Schedule C Issue Committee accomplished many things. The best way to concentrate on an issue is working together in the same location. Gorga agreed and added that although undoubtedly the face-to-face meetings are most productive our budget limits the number of these meetings.

Nagel remarked that the Area 1 Committee is not the only committee running out of issues to discuss. He heard from many TAP members that this is happening in their respective committees. Grimaldi added that outreach events are imperative in order to bring in new issues to these Area Committees. Gorga took this opportunity to invite the members in the New York area to join the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) in a presentation to the NY State Society of CPAs (NYSSCPA) on September 8th and 9th. Sixty practitioners are expected to participate each day in this conference. Knispel asked Gorga to send her a list of any upcoming or future TAS outreach opportunities to share with the members. Grimaldi commended Gorga for his support and encouragement to the Area 1 Committee to participate in these events, mainly to those in the NY area where his TAS office is located. He asked members from other states if their Local Taxpayer Advocate (LTA) inform them of these local outreach opportunities. While Shuman and Ghoniem said their LTAs did, the others said no. This is an issue, Gorga said, for the TAP Director to discuss with the TAS Area Directors.

IRS Response to the ITIN Proposal and EFTPS Proposal
The members discussed the letters received from the IRS in response to these proposals.

Again, Ghoniem said that she will share the response from the IRS with the person who referred the ITIN issues to her. She would value this person’s opinion and feedback on the IRS’s response. Afterwards, she will share this person’s comments with the Committee to decide if the response merits additional follow up.

Since he was the originator of the issue, Grimaldi discussed the response from the IRS on extending the EFTPS information access period. The response is that the IRS will accommodate a 24-month payment history but the 36-month is not possible due to system capacity issues. Grimaldi is disappointed that the extension could not be the 36 months as recommended by the Area 1 Committee and added that if the reason impeding the proposed extension is due to system capacity issues the Committee will have to accept this response.

Area 1 FTF Meeting in Brattleboro, VT
Gorga reminded the members that the upcoming face-to-face meeting will be two-full days long. These days are September 27th & 28th and September 26th and 29th will be travel days. Knispel reminded the members not to contact the hotel individually to reserve their lodging since the IRS will take care of these arrangements. If the situation changes, she will let everyone know. Shuman asked the members if they would be interested in ordering lunch from a local deli on the 27th the first day of the meeting. On this day, the meeting will take place at Shuman’s employer’s training building. She suggested to everyone the idea of contacting the local accounting firms to join us in a brown bag lunch so that they could share their issues with the Committee during this time. DFO Gorga disagreed by explaining that the issues have to be discussed in a public forum where everyone follows the same rules. The accountants, as any other public participant, would have five minutes to present their issues. They can present them at length in writing. We do not want to give the impression that other public participants do not have the same rights to participate in this luncheon. Also, we must record all the minutes and this would be difficult in such a setting. After some discussion, all members agreed not to pursue this idea.

Shuman volunteered to create a 3’ X 5’ chart of the Area 1 accomplishments as a visual aid to the public participants. This will allow participants to visualize the Committee’s accomplishments and invite them to share their own issue. At the same time, it may help avoid duplication of issues.

Joint Committee (JC) FTF Meeting in Denver, CO
Ghoniem will represent the Area 1 Committee at this meeting since Grimaldi is unable to attend.

Grimaldi briefed the members on the last JC meeting’s issues:

1. The TAP Director and his staff will conduct exiting interviews. They are currently working on the questions to be asked.
   
2. The Joint Committee is looking at the issue of accounting firms and tax practitioners “outsourcing tax returns” and whether or not the IRS should require that these practitioners disclose their outsourcing to their clients. Currently, the TAP Director is researching whether or not this is an issue within the TAP’s scope.
   
3. The JC is also working on tips for volunteers to make outreach and other public presentations.

Closing Assessment
Grimaldi thanked everyone for their participation and announced that the next teleconference on September 21st will be a very brief, administrative one to discuss the meeting in Vermont.

Action Items

• Gorga will send Knispel the list of upcoming outreach opportunities in the NY area.
• Grimaldi will write proposals on “Eliminating the Form 2688” and “Adding a TAP Statement to Publication 1546” and share them with all members for review before deciding to forward to the JC.
• Silva will write the proposal on the Schedule D Loss Carry-forward with Knispel’s help.

Next teleconference will be Tuesday, September 21, 2004 at 11:00 A.M. ET.