Area 1 Committee Meeting Minutes

September 7, 2005

Designated Federal Official

• Gorga, Peter, LTA, New York, NY

Committee Members Present (These attendees count for quorum)

• Brodbine-Ghoniem, Elizabeth, Winchester, MA, Chair
• Epstein, Harvey, Lee, NH
• Gadon, Harold, Cranston, RI
• Grimaldi, James, Brooklyn, NY
• Guthman, Michael, Westport, CT
• Havey, Dorothy, Lincolnville, ME
• Nagel, Paul, Glen Cove, NY
• Sanford, Searleman, Glens Falls, NY

Committee Members Absent

• Silva, Charles, Provincetown, MA

TAP Staff

• Knispel, Marisa, Analyst
• Odom-Russell, Meredith, Management Assistant
• Ramirez, Sandra, Manager

Other Attendees

• No other attendees

Welcome

Roll Call (quorum was met)

Review Agenda

Approval of July 2005 Meeting Minutes
Minutes approved with change requested by chair that names of those without action items due be removed from “Action/Assignment Review”.

Chair Report
Philip Cimino of Staten Island, NY, resigned.

Joint Committee Report
Area 1 presented four separate proposals to the last Joint Committee Meeting on Form W-4 (2 proposals) and Form 5500 and the Internal Revenue Code. They were all approved by the Joint Committee and will be forwarded to the IRS. The Joint Committee was also informed that the Area 1 committee will work with the LITC Program on issues that don’t belong to the Multilingual Issue Committee; specifically controversy issues versus English as a Second Language issues- which is the focus of the MLI committee.

Annual Assessment
The Area 1 committee must put together an Annual Report/Annual Assessment. Elizabeth would like for the committee to fill out the lower portion of the report that Sandra sent out. Please forward your comments to Elizabeth. Elizabeth will incorporate your comments in the Annual Report and share the draft with the committee for review before submission.

Agenda Items

Subcommittee 2
Grimaldi discussed Form 8892. There were a lot of comments from members on changing the form or changing the original extension Form 4868 and proposing to eliminate Form 8892. A conference call is being set up with Ed Mikesell, who created the Form 8892. One of the reasons for the creation of this form is that the IRS was having problems processing gift tax extensions and Income tax extensions on the same form. The proposal will not be submitted until the committee speaks with Ed to find out specifically what problems the IRS had. If the Area 1 committee accepts the proposal, it will be presented to the Joint Committee in October. Next subcommittee 2 meeting will be on September 16, 2005.

Subcommittee 3
New proposal on Advertising TAP in Publications 1, 594 and 556 is not ready for presentation. Havey reported on the status of the rewrite of proposal on Letter 2645C. This proposal was presented to the Joint Committee which suggested rewriting the Letter template instead of selecting paragraphs to write the Letter. The subcommittee will discuss this at their next meeting.

Outreach
Gadon did outreach and is working with a newspaper columnist in Rhode Island on publishing an article on the TAP and the TAS. The best results from outreach, Gadon said, are when members see common people working with the IRS; they get a better feel of the IRS in general.

Nagel participated in the Nationwide Tax Forum. When speaking with people, the main complaint was not getting responses back from the IRS. The issue of better communication could be addressed next year by the Area 1 Committee.

Epstein participated in the Forum and received a complaint from a taxpayer in reference to Form 5500. Her complaint was she could not download and submit the Form. Harvey let the taxpayer know that the committee made a recommendation about this problem already. There was also a complaint about e-filers with two last names. The last names were not matching with Social Security. Another complaint was that Form 1099 could not be downloaded from the internet and used to file because it is only machine readable. A taxpayer complained that the W-2 form is not uniform in format. Every company can use its own. The taxpayer suggested the IRS come up with a specific format for all users. The last complaint item was related to the IRS’ lack of assistance on Form 1040NR.

Guthman, who also attended, stated the Forum was very informative and suggests members attend the first year. Area 2 member Sonny Kasturi participated in a Notice’s focus group. Nagel, Guthman, Epstein and Kasturi participated in an IRS Oversight Board focus group.

Action/Assignment Review

• Analyst
  • Marisa will set up a conference with Ed Mikesell for Subcommittee 2
• Any proposals that require the review and approval of the Committee will be shared via email and will be approved or rejected via email.

Closing/Assessment
Elizabeth thanked members that are leaving for their continued contributions to the committee, and asked that they don’t forget about TAP.

• Meeting adjorned (4:15 pm)
• The next meeting will be in November at the Annual Meeting.

*These minutes were approved by the TAP Area 1 Committee on Date 10/19/2005