Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP)
Area 3 Committee
Meeting Minutes
October 16, 2007

Members in Attendance
Mary Armstrong
Dale Cooper
Byron Edwards
Hank Mosler
Al Rodriguez
Max Scott
J T Wright

Members Absent
Daryll Cordeiro
Patrice Marker
Mark Paris
Chuck Tice

DFO present
Carolyn Lewis

Staff in Attendance
Nancy Ferree, TAP Program Manager
Sallie Chavez, TAP Program Analyst
Anita Fields, Secretary

Welcome
Hank Mosler welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked Anita to take Roll.  He also allowed the guest on the call to introduce them.

Roll Call
Quorum of six (6) was met at different times throughout the meeting.

Introductions of Guests
Luis Fuentes, Puerto Rico
Moses Shillow, Keysville, Louisiana
Terri Powers, Conway, Arkansas

Review of Meeting Minutes - August and September
Was not approved and was tabled to next month’s meeting.

Review of Joint Committee Meeting
Hank Mosler sent an email explaining the process for electing Chair and Vice Chair for the Panel.  We are going to hold election before the annual meeting this year and are now in the process of accepting nominations.  All panel members can self nominate or nominate someone else.  There is also going to be a nominating committee that will nominate candidates if there are not enough people to hold a quality election.  After all nominations are in, we will then post resumes.  The voting will be by electronic voting.  All existing TAP members will be voting to include those rotating off the panel this year.

It was a very full agenda for the Joint Committee Meeting in Chicago.  There were six (6) issues reviewed and five (5) were elevated to the IRS.  One of those coming from Area 3.  It was the SSN Name Control Mismatch on E-filed Returns.  There was also a good discussion on the use of mass media, there was no decision made and it is something to work in the future. 

J.T. Wright added that he thinks everyone would be proud of the energy and attention of all of the Joint Committee members at the meeting.  He felt there were good thought processes and they covered many topics.

Review of ratings from last Area 3 call
Did not cover on this call.

Review of Active and Parking Lot Issues
Hank stated that Sallie Chavez did a wonderful listing all of the issues that we have in Area 3.  He took that list; added comments then abbreviated the list so that it only included what was active in the parking lot and sent it out to the committee.  He suggested that they only go down that list.

Dale Cooper will lead.

Issue 218- Check box authority- This is an IRS education issues and there is ongoing education.  Discussion was made and it was dropped by consensus.

Issue 3671 SSN Name Control Mismatch on E-filed Returns- Work is complete has been to elevated to Joint Committee and they forwarded it to the IRS.

Issue 3688 Circular 230 requirement—there has been a lot of talk in the last year or so.  They are re-writing the Circular 230.  They asked for input from the public with a deadline of the end of September.  Parking lot to follow up in January.

Issue 3900 Schedule H—the form is doing what it is designed to do.  Dale will go back, look at this, and report at next months meeting.

Issue 3910 Delay in TAC Services -- A draft Issue Document has be written by Hank Mosler summarizing this issue and recommendations. It has been reviewed by Area 3 and now will be sent to Areas 2 and 5 for their comments. A process has been put in place to circulate the comments coming into the hotline on a monthly basis to the TAC management.  No feedback has yet been received from TAC line management on this process. We will leave, as active; Dale will follow up next month. 

Issue 3929 Lack of Annual Communication to Individual Taxpayer-- Suggestion was made that the IRS send one page letter to the taxpayer.  Dale stated that he does not think that this will go anywhere.  Issue dropped by consensus.

Issue 4059 Lack of Communication in the IRS—this is a follow up on different criteria for getting out communication on audits; it has to do with the different CP letters. Dale thinks that there are standard letters for standard time frames, so it depends on which letters you get. Sallie Chavez will review and the committee will look at issue for next month.

Issue 4081 Required Minimum Distribution from IRA—Dale states that he will have to go back and look at this issue.  This is not anything that can be changed because it is legislative.  The only thing the committee can do is see how information is distributed.  Sallie Chavez informed the committee that Area 6 has already worked this issue and has a response from the IRS.  The information is located on TAPSpace if anyone is interested (TAP607-3400).  It was recommended that the committee go on TAPSpace and look at what is there before they decide to drop the issue.

Issue 4274 Living standards for OIC—the new standards were issued October 1st and is now located on IRS.gov.  It was decided to drop issue.

Issue 4218 Re-calculation of the estimated Payment—it was decided to leave in parking lot for one more month and have Patrice Marker look at it and will give us feedback in November.

Issue 4297 IRS loses Information Sent—Committee wants to focus on mis-typed payment entries.  Hank states that he can understand how this happens if the check comes in without any other information with it.  Hank also thinks that taxpayers should complete and include 1040V with payment.  It is not required to use a 1040 V when making payments nor if you do not send payment with return.  Carolyn Lewis informed the committee that it is imperative that taxpayers include notice and use envelope that they receive the information in, this is the reason why there are many mis-applied payments.  Byron Edwards volunteered to head this issue up and report next month as to how to proceed on this issue.  Nancy Ferree stated that since Mary Armstrong is a practitioner she could work on the subcommittee with Byron.  Sallie will inform Mary of this decision.

Review of New Issues
Dale will send out some comments before the next meeting so that they can be discussed at that time.  He will confer with Sallie Chavez on these because that they came from recent Tax Forums.

Review of Response- 04-053
Hanks asked the members to look at the original comments that were sent to Nina Olsen.  Hank had a question as to why we got a response back from Nina Olsen other than someone else from the IRS.  J.T. stated that this was sent to Nina because of the nature of the issue.  Dale asked has everyone read the issue.  Does everyone understand the issue?  We will pursue a little more and discuss next month.  Al Rodriguez and Dale will review the original write-up that was submitted to the IRS and Nina and look at her response. 

Subcommittee Report
There is no report due to absence of Patrice Marker and lack of time.

Outreach
None reported.

Citizen Input
Luis Fuentes stated that he was impressed with the democracy and seeking consensus. 

Terri Powers stated that she was really impressed by the level and sharing of information.

Meeting Close
Hank reminded everyone to complete the meeting survey.  He also apologized for jumping all around the agenda.  The reason for it was lack of quorum at different points throughout the meeting.  Hank also took this time to remind every one about the Annual Meeting quickly approaching in December and asked that everyone to complete the travel request forms that were recently sent out.   Nancy Ferree stated that Member Responsibility need to be added to next month’s agenda.

NEXT MEETING SCHEDULED FOR NOVEMBER 20, 2007 @1130 ET

*Certification of Meeting Minutes:  These minutes were approved by the TAP Area 3 Committee by consensus on 11/20/2007.