Area 4 Committee Meeting Minutes

Conference Call
August 23, 2005

Designated Federal Official

• Richard Morris, Local Taxpayer Advocate

Committee Members Present

• James Abraham, Ohio
• Larry Behnkendorf, Michigan
• Robert Broniarczyk, Illinois
• Paul Duquette, Wisconsin
• Richard Greenberg, Illinois
• Donna Hafer, Kentucky
• Steve Hoffman, Ohio, Area 4 Vice-chair
• May Ann Lawler, Michigan
• Leslie Malcolmson, Michigan
• Joe Meissner, Ohio
• Donald Miller, Tennessee
• Lovella Richardson, Tennessee
• Ferd Schneider, Ohio
• Teresa Smedley, Indiana, Area 4 Chair

Committee Members Absent

• Maureen Amos, Illinois
• Adrienne Bell-Stampley, Illinois
• Delford Jones, Indiana
• F. Patrick Matthews, Wisconsin

TAP Staff

• Sandra McQuin, TAP Manager
• Mary Ann Delzer, Program Analyst
• Patti Robb, Secretary

Visitors

• Allen Scioli, Michigan

Welcome
Smedley welcomed everyone to the call. She announced that she will do the Joint Committee report and Steve Hoffman will run today’s meeting.

Roll Call
Quorum was met with 14 members present.

Area 4 Chair Report -- Smedley

• Joint Committee Report
  • TAP Director Bernie Coston will be sending out exit surveys to the departing panel members. Please complete and return.
    
  • The Joint Committee approved the newly revised ethical conduct form.
    
  • Each chair will be giving a brief synopsis of their committee’s accomplishments for the past year while at the final face-to-face in Las Vegas in September.
    
  • Coston announced that National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson will be conducting town hall meetings nationwide to gather information from taxpayers on how their future customer service needs will be met. TAP has been invited to play a major role in this effort by acting as the host of these events. Seven meetings will be conducted and correspond with the TAP area configuration. The tentative dates are December 2005 through March 2006. He is asking for volunteers to serve on a planning committee. If anyone is interested, please submit your name to Smedley and she will forward to Coston. McQuin said there may be some travel involved but most of the work would be done via conference calls.
    
    McQuin noted that the December meeting will be held in Philadelphia in conjunction with the LITC conference. The January meeting will be held in New Orleans in conjunction with the ABA convention. The names must be sent to Coston by Friday, August 26.

  ACTION: Volunteers: Paul Duquette, Bob Broniarczyk, Larry Behnkendorf: Smedley will send names to Coston.

  • Smedley said she shared the Area’s concerns about TAPSpeak with the Joint Committee. The Communication Committee asked that everyone be patient while they try to improve the program. There are some items that are only on TAPSpeak, for example the rosters. Panel members’ personal information (address and phone numbers) should not be put on the public website. They will decide at a point in the future whether they will continue to use TAPSpeak. If you experience specific problems, please send the information to McQuin who will forward to the Communication Committee. Smedley ensured Area 4’s opinion is officially on the record though. Several members said they talked about TAPSpeak at their monthly issue committee meeting and they do not want to use it either. McQuin again asked members for specific examples of difficulties encountered in TAPSpeak. The Communication Committee will try to work with the vendor to solve problems. Duquette said some email notifications of new documents on TAPSpeak are identified as spam on some panel members’ computers.

• Area 4 Self-Assessment – Smedley
  If you haven’t done a committee self assessment yet, please get it done and send it to Delzer. She is going to add the outreach report to the compiled report. Volunteers are needed to review the accomplishments of each sub committee and write a report:
  • VITA – Don Miller
  • Innocent Spouse – Teresa Smedley
  • Lien Processing – Teresa Smedley
  • Refund Anticipation Loans (RAL) – Joe Meissner
  • W-4 Issue – Teresa Smedley
  • Just-In-Time – Teresa Smedley
  • Form 990 – Paul Duquette
  • What’s On TAP – Duquette and Richardson

  These reports should be a brief synopsis of what occurred during the year.

  Delzer will have the issues that were put in the parking lot.

  Disappointments – everyone should complete as well.

  Committee Assessment – everyone should do a committee assessment. Same with staff, IRS cooperation, and the Chair.

  ACTION: These self assessments are due to Delzer by September 6.

  ACTION: Delzer will send out a reminder on September 1.

  Delzer sent out a copy of last years self assessment as an example.

Public Input
Allen Scioli commented that the meeting has been good so far. He is interested in getting involved. Asked how subcommittees are selected; how are issues brought forward; and, how the committee decides which issues to work.

Discussion of Elevated Issues--Smedley

• Innocent/Injured Spouse Focus Group— Delzer said there will be a conference call this coming Friday, August 26. There are fifteen TAP members from across the country so have a good mix of participants. IRS wants input on how the forms look and work, as many claims are received from taxpayers who do not qualify for the program.

Discussion of Current Issues

• Refund Anticipation Loans— Meissner — Sent out a report for review before the meeting. There is another conference call this Friday, August 26. If we can wrap up and write up the final report, we can review on September 8, 11a.m. ET to approve. Then it can be sent to the Joint Committee for elevation at the September meeting. Duquette is unable to be on the September 8 call so will send comments via email.

• Form 990 — Duquette — Looking to see need improvement in the determination letters. IRS developed a plain language publication for 501(c) 3 Organizations. Looking to see if IRS will write more of these for other types of organizations and if such publications are sent with the determination letters.

ACTION: Duquette will send his recommendation regarding the ACT report before the September 8 call so it can be discussed.

• VITA — McQuin — Received a response from Sue Sottile, Director, W&I Strategic Planning and Development, this morning. They want to schedule a meeting to discuss the issues shared to date. McQuin will ask Sottile for tentative conference call dates. W&I is reorganizing and so SPEC is going through transition. Mark Pursley, Director, Customer Assistance, Relationships and Education (CARE) has committed that TAP will have SPEC employees to work with in regard to VITA issues. The week of September 12, four TAP members people will look at Publication 678, Volunteer Assistor’s Guide and the student test/re-test in Atlanta

• What’s On TAP – Duquette/Richardson – retiring members should write up their experiences while in TAP. We also have several generic articles that need some updating. And we need a publishing plan. McQuin said the biggest barrier is the time it takes to get articles ready and then contacting publishers. Duquette said everyone could contact one or two people (publishers) in their areas. Smedley said the staff is too busy so the members need to work this issue. Delzer sent some articles out but if you don’t follow up with the publishers, nothing happens. McQuin thought it was a good idea for each member to identify places in their own state.

ACTION: Smedley will write an article for What’s On TAP.

Outreach
Please be sure to send Delzer you’re your final outreach report for the fiscal year. The final outreach report will be run in October for inclusion in the Annual Report.

Office Report—McQuin
Area 4 members, Bob Broniarczyk, Adrienne Bell-Stampley, and Dick Greenberg, will be at the Tax Forum in Chicago next week along with McQuin.

Action Items – Smedley
Smedley will research current phone options and report results at August meeting. Smedley called the IRS toll free number and got three options in the first menu. One would think you should be able to press “0” in the second level to get to speak to an operator but you can’t. It is difficult to get to an operator, but it can be done. Don’t know how much TAP can change, but recommend keeping this issue in the parking lot.

Closing/Assessment/Meeting Adjourned
September 8, 2005, is the next conference call (to discuss the final RAL report and Form 990 report) and September 27, 2005, is our regular scheduled conference call. Meeting adjourned at 11:04 a.m., ET

Next meetings:
September 8, 2005, 11 a.m. ET.
September 27, 2005, 11 a.m. ET.