Area 4 Committee Meeting Minutes

Conference Call
September 15, 2004

Present:

• David Cain
• Richard Greenberg
• Lawrence Lexow
• Robert Meldman
• Dick Murphy
• Teresa Smedley, Chair

Absent:

• James Abraham
• Robin Gausebeck
• Delford Jones
• Leslie Malcolmson
• Joseph Meissner

Staff Present

• Sandy McQuin, TAP Manager, DFO
• Mary Ann Delzer, Analyst
• Patti Robb, Note-taker

Welcome / Review Agenda / Roll Call
Welcome. We have a short agenda today. Quorum met.

Announcements / Approve Minutes
Minutes were approved without changes.

Public Input
None

Joint Committee Report-out

McQuin – Area 4 is winding down like the rest of the committees. There was a lot of discussion about the annual report during the Joint Committee meeting.

Smedley – the Married Filing Separately sailed through the Joint Committee smoothly due to great research and a thorough write up.

Meldman – “What’s On TAP” – the Ad Hoc committee proposed that they will have a permanent subcommittee with at least one person assigned at all times to write articles for What’s On TAP. All the panel members would gather subject topics and send them to this subcommittee. The subcommittee would write the article. If anyone writes an article and wants to submit it, they can do that too. National Office will review all articles for content before they are submitted for publishing.

ACTION: Delzer will contact Berkey (National Office) regarding current Area 4 articles written for “What’s On TAP” for approval to distribute.

McQuin – we were asked if discontinuing panel members could be a resource. National Office said yes, you can participate as alumni. All meetings are public anyway.

Meldman – Ad Hoc also recommended that the new chair be elected from the returning members and in place of a vice-chair, there would be a chair elect. The chair-elect would be elected from the general body and would shadow the chair in all he/she does. The chair of the Ad Hoc would no longer be vice-chair. The entire body would vote on the chair and chair-elect. This proposal was forwarded to Nina Olson, National Taxpayer Advocate (NTA), for approval.

Ad Hoc also proposed that issues that are legislative or regulatory in nature, be given to them to address. They would be forwarded directly to the NTA and would not go through the Joint Committee. If Ad Hoc does not hear from NTA in 60 days, the issue would not be worked. This proposal was sent to Nina Olson for approval. We are waiting for her response.

Smedley – Chair Seuntjens strongly recommended that current chairs not run for chair of the same committee again. New blood is needed.

W-4 – Smedley
Smedley asked if there were any comments on the W-4 issue being elevated by the Payroll Committee. Meldman gave it thumbs up. Greenberg agreed.

Smedley – probably won’t hear about the outcome – whether it is put into effect – during our term. The Payroll Committee will actually elevate this recommendation to their program owner.

ACTION: Smedley will update the annual assessment to reflect Area 4’s contribution to the W-4 issue.

McQuin – this issue was discussed at the Joint Committee meeting last week, and Payroll Chair Leonard Steinberg did acknowledge Area 4’s contribution.

There is no question that you all did a great job. I think you set the tone because your recommendations were so well researched, thought out, and well written. And you always represented the taxpayer’s point of view. You have been very successful. You were definitely a “best practice.” Many areas don’t work the way you did and some of them struggled.

Murphy – thanked the staff.

Greenberg echoed.

Smedley thought the committee was great to work with.

Outreach Report
Delzer asked if the Outreach section of the annual assessment was complete. Some reports turned in were general and some were specific.

Meldman – thinks the Joint Committee wanted more general information which is the way it is already written. You can write generically and can say, “Including an article written for Guidestar…”

Lexow – include something about “What’s On TAP” and that it was adopted to go nationwide.

Smedley – you did a good job in writing this report. I just compiled everything you wrote and put it into the annual assessment. Does anyone want any other changes before we submit it to the Joint Committee?

Report was approved with the minor changes/additions as discussed above. No objections.

Oral Report in Washington, D.C. – Smedley
I will summarize our annual assessment at the annual meeting in Washington, D.C., and will probably use a PowerPoint presentation. Staff is currently working on a template for the PowerPoint.

Office Report -- McQuin
Panel member Meldman, DFO Morris, and McQuin did more interviews in Milwaukee this week. Morris and McQuin felt more needed to be done for the state of Wisconsin. Did a total of five interviews. Our recommendations were sent to National Office. Coston will be taking the list of recommended selections to Treasury this week. The list will include 52 names for replacement of regular panel members and another list for alternates. Coston said the Treasury liaisons were great to work with. Area 4 will be getting ten new panel members. That is a large turnover. We will miss the discontinuing members.

The staff is currently working full speed on the annual meeting scheduled for November 3-6, 2004, in Washington, D.C.

I want to say that I am in awe of your commitment to the TAP program (as Morris said). You bring amazing energy and passion to this committee. As IRS people get more involved, that will only help make TAP more successful. Although it may take a couple years before your recommendations are implemented. The IRS moves slowly.

Coston has spoken to Chesman and Sottile. The issues for the new issue committees have not been identified to TAP yet, but that does not mean they haven’t been identified yet. They talked about the importance of the program owner knowing their role and the focus of the issue. They would like to get the program owners together at the annual meeting to give them their expectations so everyone understands and is on the same page. The program owners would also attend their issue committee meeting.

When the new members are selected, you are encouraged to contact them. It would also be nice if the discontinuing members would joint the first conference call after the annual meeting.

Closing / Assessment
Smedley thanked everyone. It was a great pleasure working with you all.

Meeting adjourned.

Action Items

• Delzer will contact Berkey (National Office) regarding current Area 4 articles for “What’s On TAP” for approval to distribute.
• Smedley will update the annual assessment to reflect Area 4’s contribution to the W-4 issue.