Area 2 Committee Meeting Minutes

Date: July 13, 2004 (3:00 PM – 4:30 PM ET)
Via: Teleconference

Roll call was taken by TAP Program Analyst Inez E. De Jesus
Quorum= 8; quorum was met, 9 members and the Designated Federal Official (DFO) were present on this call.

Designated Federal Official (DFO)

• Terry L. Mapp

Panel Members Present

• Richard (Dick) Bobb, NC
• Mary Balmer, NC
• Anthony DiMartino, NJ, Co Vice-Chair
• C. Morgan Edwards, NC
• Karen Kerrigan, VA
• Robert Maziarz, NJ
• Patrick McCombie, DE
• David L. Meyer, NJ, Chair
• Theodore Perros, D.C

Members Not Present

• Jerry Gensiejewski Jr., PA
• Calvin Johnson, VA
• Leonard Steinberg, NJ
• Faith Vinikoor, MD, Co Vice-Chair

TAP Staff

• Inez E. De Jesus, TAP Program Analyst/Scribe

Guests

• Ray Weinstein, Practitioner from Maryland

Welcome/Announcements/Review Agenda
Chair David Meyer opened the meeting by welcoming everyone.

Joint Committee News
None

Roll-Call & Confirmation of Quorum *(8)
For the record:

• Manning H. Mosley III resigned on June 1, 2004, and Robert Taylor resigned on June 27, 2004
• April 6, 2004 teleconference meeting was cancelled since the Federal Register Notice did not post timely, and the June 11, and June 12, 2004 face-to-face meeting scheduled to take place in D.C., was cancelled due to June 11th being declared a National Day of Mourning for Former President Ronald Reagan.
• TAP Program Manager Nancy L. Ferree and Panel Member Faith Vinikoor will not be present on this call since they are both conducting interviews for in-coming TAP Members that will begin their term in November 2004.

Review/Approve Meeting Minutes of May 4, 2004
The minutes were approved unanimously.

Review all Action Items from Previous Meeting

1. On Page 2, “Committee will review their “Operating Procedures’ during the next meeting to see if any changes need to be made.” This is an agenda item for today’s meeting.
2. On Page 3, “The Committee is to share with Leonard Steinberg which issues they would like discussed at the Joint Committee’s face-to-face meeting, and Inez is to share with Leonard, the Chair’s reports on “what committee has done and what are their goals.” This was accomplished by May 7, 2004.
3. Page 4, “Regarding Lessons Learned & Roadmap for Future Area 2 TAP, Dick Bobb will be providing input for the draft agenda. Chair Meyer has some ideas he wants to bring forward and he will make sure these are included in the draft agenda.” Done, and also an agenda item for today’s meeting.
4. Page 4, “Inez is to annotate the changes on TAP Master Calendar and inform all parties concerned that the July 6th teleconference meeting has been changed to July 13, 2004.” Done!
5. Page 5, “Dick Bobb will be providing input for the portion of the meeting agenda for the face-to-face meeting scheduled for June 2004, on the ‘Recap Committee’s Successes/Activities over the past 2 years and Lessons Learned.’ “ Done!
6. Page 6, “In response to Issue # 2808, IRS’s Employee’s Email & Direct Number Be on Notices, Vinikoor volunteered to prepare the response to the Practitioner.” On July 9, 2004, letter approved by the Chair was mailed to the Practitioner and issue placed in “Parking Lot” status.

Status Report(s) from Sub-Committee Chairs
Patrick McCombie reported that he had sent out an email to the Form 1041 subcommittee team earlier today, and was awaiting feedback from them.
Balmer made some inquiries about this and McCombie responded that the subcommittee was still addressing two proposals, his portion is considering changing the instructions, and that Faith Vinikoor’s portion would be addressing separately a “Simplified 1041 version.”

When Chair Meyer inquired from Dr. Perros about the status of the “Improve Communications to Taxpayers,” subcommittee, this led to the following dialogue, which primarily addressed the OMB (Office of Management & Budget) Paperwork Reduction Act:

• Meyer alerted every one of the OMB requirements before the IRS can change a form.
• At one point, committee suggested that perhaps obtaining a subject matter expert would be helpful in order to learn the entire process.
• Recently there was an elevated recommendation made to the Joint Committee by the Area 5 Committee, (TAP 04-022) “Forms Testing” which requests that the number of IRS forms and instructions tested with focus groups be increased since there has been very little focus group testing of IRS individual income tax forms and instructions during the last seven years. (Committee confirmed that they had received copies of this recommendation.)
• Perros emphasized that the IRS needs to improve on simplifying their communications to taxpayers. As this committee addressed making changes to forms and/or publications, it’s important to understand the process.
• Meyer explained “Notice of Proposed Ruling Making Regulations”, whereby the public is invited to provide comments.
• Bob Maziarz shared that in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Issue Committee which he also serves on, he along with Faith Vinikoor, have been dealing with modifying EITC forms, specifically Form 8862, Information to Claim EITC after Disallowance. Maziarz and Vinikoor have a first hand experience on the process involved with the pre-certification for those who are entitled to receive this tax credit.
• Tony DiMartino also shared that he has participated through the Reducing of Tax Burden- Notice Issue Committee on focus groups and he knows that the IRS is using focus groups whereby the public has been brought in to provide input. DiMartino stated that he has found this to be very productive.
• Mary Balmer shared that she is aware that the IRS is currently rewriting Form 990, Return of Organizations Exempt from Income Tax.
• Action item for Inez: DFO Mapp requested that the committee allow time for the staff to obtain information on what outside focus groups are being used by the IRS to review revised forms and/or publications.

Response to TAP 04-012-EFTPS Clarification of Tax Year
Chair Meyer inquired if every one had received the responses received back from the IRS based on the elevated recommendation and the response was yes they had.

Dick Bobb emphasized that the EFTPS has been programmed to generate the fiscal year-end and month from the master file in order to reduce these errors. Therefore, it is done!

The committee accepted the response with no additional comments. Inez shared that she will be sharing this information with TAP Program Analyst Barbara Toy.

Review of Committee’s Operating Procedures
Since this committee agreed by consensus to create the positions of Co Vice-Chairs, the committee reviewed the operating procedures to see if any changes needed to be made, but this is not warranted. The operating procedures will remain as is.

Area 2’s Re-Cap of Evaluation Survey & Guidance for Future TAP Committees
Chair Meyer turned this portion of the meeting over to Dick Bobb.

Dick Bobb stated that there are some very interesting themes throughout the input received. He inquired how many members had responded, and analyst said that 10 panel members participated. The names were not included as per Chair’s instructions.

Dick Bobb made the following summary:

• It seems that work gets done more on an Issue Committee level than on an Area Committee level.
• The Leadership role, not stepping on present leadership toes, requires a lot of time, and he feels that the Chair should set goals for the committee and make work assignments with follow-up dates.

Chair Meyer responded by reminding every one that back in January 2004, reflected in the meeting minutes of January 6, 2004, the committee discussed in length their “Goals and Objectives for Second Year Term”- and in conclusion agreed that it would focus this coming year on engaging in more extensive outreach to better educate the public on TAP and continue to work on grassroots issues.

Meyer went on to share that he speaks before different groups and always mentions TAP but so far it has been to no avail.

Meyer sees this as a volunteer organization and does not feel comfortable forcing volunteers to do what they are not comfortable with.

Perros pitched in and stated that next week he will be in Miami, Florida attending a business meeting and he too takes these opportunities to mention TAP whenever he is around a large group of people. Since he belongs to many organizations, he mentions TAP on a National level and strongly feels it is important to get the word out.

Meyer recalls that during the last TAP Annual Meeting, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson shared that she envisioned TAP to be a “read and react” forum for the IRS. It seems that many members still do not understand the TAP mission. The tax code is a very incomprehensive thing to mankind.

Chair suggested that Dick Bobb take the lead on summarizing the responses received and he felt that this would be a great recommendation for this committee to elevate to the Joint Committee before its term is over. Chair requested that an hour be set aside just to discuss the “Evaluation Survey”.
Dick Bobb accepted this assignment. Action item: Inez is to add this to next month’s agenda. * (The Chair has requested after this call that this subject matter be moved to the September 2004 meeting agenda since the Chair will not be available for the Aug 2004 call)

Publication 4255, IRS Tax Help Insert
Since Leonard Steinberg was not present on this call, this issue will be carried over to next month’s meeting agenda. Action item for Inez: to add this subject matter to the August 3, 2004 teleconference meeting agenda.

Submitting Issues Directly to SAMS (Systemic Advocacy Management System)
Mary Balmer shared that she had found this system to be not user friendly. “Before the issue can be successfully submitted you are “pre-qualified” on an “Issue Qualification” page. You must answer all 5 questions correctly before you can go any further. It took many attempts before I figured out how to answer the questions so that I was allowed to proceed further. And it took this many attempts on my part (with prior knowledge of SAMS), I suspect the average taxpayer (with no prior knowledge of SAMS) may not ever get any further.”

Mary forwarded her concerns to a SAMS contact individual who informed her that he would be sharing her concerns with the SAMS Advisory Board that was going to hold a meeting in June 2004. Inez shared that she has attempted to follow-up on this but had not received any feedback yet.

Outreach Efforts
Area 2 members Faith Vinikoor, Bob Maziarz, Tony DiMartino, and Leonard Steinberg attended the 2004 Nationwide Tax Forum in Atlantic City, New Jersey, July 6-8. 2004.

Vinikoor and Maziarz attended the Taxpayer Advocacy in Action sessions where TAP was acknowledged and Maziarz said a few words about TAP. Vinikoor observed a focus group of practitioners commenting on the regulation of unenrolled preparers and participated in a Notice focus group and EITC session. DiMartino attended a second focus group which also had to do with Notices.

Maziarz shared that he estimated that there were about 2,000 persons there. Many stopped by the TAP Booth to inquire about what was TAP all about. TAP received a lot of questions, but no issues. Some thought that TAP was there to evaluate sessions.

TAP Communication Strategy
Chair requested feedback, and since some members had indicated that they had not received it, Chair requested that the analyst send this out again to the committee since he needs to respond by the next Joint Committee meeting which is scheduled for July 20, 2004. Action item: 1) Inez is to re-send the June 16, 2004 email to the entire committee, requesting that they review and forward their responses directly to the Chair by no later than July 19th

2) Committee members are to review the “TAP Communication Strategy” and respond directly to the Chair as indicated above.

Response to Congress-Simplify Tax Code
Since Faith Vinikoor was not present on this call, this issue will be carried over to next month’s meeting agenda. Action item for Inez: to add this subject matter to the August 3, 2004 teleconference meeting agenda.

Review of New Issues
Inez reported that no new issues have been received for the Area 2 committee during this past month.

News from the Staff
None

Public Participation/Input (2 Citizens from Maryland have registered)
Although 2 citizens registered to provide input to the Area 2 Committee, only one participated.

Ray Weinstein, shared that he works in a Law Firm, in the Washington, D.C. area, outside of Maryland. He handles a great deal of collection work; he represents taxpayers before the IRS to resolve tax issues in either establishing a payment agreement or with the submission of Offer in Compromises (OICs).

Mr. Weinstein shared that when a taxpayer receives a notice, and you call the 1-800 toll free number you usually do not get a quick response. You are usually told that you cannot be helped and your call is transferred; this is very frustrating and time consuming.

C. Morgan Edwards shared that the Notice Issue Committee, which he serves on also, is currently working in addressing the issue of the telephone number and contact person information provided on Notices. Mr. Edwards suggested that Inez forward this issue to the Notice Issue Committee.

DFO Mapp inquired from Mr. Weinstein what type of collection notice was it and whether a sanitized copy of the Notice with the specific CP number and telephone number be provided to the panel so that this matter be researched further. Mr. Weinstein promised to submit this information to Inez within the next couple of days. Action item: Upon receipt of this information Inez is to share it with DFO Mapp and conduct appropriate research before referring this matter to the Notice Issue Committee.

Mr. Weinstein also shared that sometimes when he gets to speak to an IRS Representative in ACS, Automated Collection System, he is asked for a valid Power of Attorney and for his CAF number, which is understandable, but then the taxpayer’s date of birth is requested. DFO Mapp reminded everyone of the Disclosure Verification that is required.

Mr. Weinstein also stated that sometimes the Power of Attorney is not in the system under the Social Security Number.

Bob Maziarz shared that at the Tax Forum, it was discussed that the IRS is considering communication between the Practitioners and the IRS by email; the Practitioner will receive acknowledgment.

Face-to-Face?
Bob Maziarz inquired about the possibility of holding the face-to-face meeting within the next month. He believes this will be a good opportunity to discuss the “Evaluation Survey & Guidance for Future TAP Committees”.

Analyst was asked what was the possibility of coordinating a face-to-face meeting for possibly August and she responded that currently, during this week, she was involved with TAP Interviews.

DFO Mapp stated that she had budget concerns. Action item: DFO, and Analyst will be following up with the Nancy Ferree, TAP Program Manager concerning the DFO’s concerns and Chair requested that he be kept informed of what transpires.

Perros shared that he will be out of town within the next month and will not be able to participate on the August 3rd teleconference call.

Closing Assessment-Confirm next meeting: August 3, 2004 at 3:00 PM (ET)

Chair adjourned meeting after confirming the next meeting date and time.

These meeting minutes were reviewed and approved by consensus by the Area 2 Committee on August 3, 2004.