Area 4 Committee Meeting Minutes

Conference Call
June 27, 2006

Designated Federal Official

• Betty Martin, Local Taxpayer Advocate (LTA)

Committee Members Present

• Rashidah Abdulhaqq, Ohio
• Maureen Amos, Illinois
• Larry Behnkendorf, Michigan
• Robert Broniarczyk, Illinois
• Donna Hafer, Kentucky
• Joe Hurr, Ohio
• David Meister, Wisconsin
• Jerry Melchior, Indiana
• Lovella Richardson, Tennessee
• Ferd Schneider, Ohio

Committee Members Absent

• Kimberly Chowning, Indianapolis
• Paul Duquette, Wisconsin
• Steve Hoffman, Ohio
• Mary Ann Lawler, Michigan
• Don Miller, Tennessee
• Marie O’Donnell, Illinois
• Allen Scioli, Michigan

TAP Staff

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

Visitors

• Teresa Smedley, former TAP member

Welcome / Roll Call
Ferd Schneider welcomed everyone to the call. Quorum met.

Chair Report:

• Approve Minutes of May 24, 2006
  Minutes approved by consensus.

• Joint Committee Report
  The Joint Committee had a conference call on June 7. The annual meeting is scheduled for the week of December 11-14, 2006. It will be held at the Capital Hyatt again which is the same hotel as last year. Monday will be a travel day – either morning or afternoon depending on when you are required to be there. The agenda is still in the planning stage.

  It would be best to block that whole week for the annual meeting.

  The Joint Committee is meeting face-to-face in Denver at end of this week.

  The town hall meeting was a success. Donna Hafer, Jerry Melchior, Joe Hurr, and Ferd Schneider were there to represent TAP and host the event. About 25 people attended and we got some good publicity. Three people who attended the town hall meeting applied to be a panel member and were interviewed.

• Chicago Agenda
  If anyone has an issue for the agenda or would like a speaker on a particular issue, please contact Mary Ann Delzer. Subcommittees will have break out time at this meeting. The meeting will run 8:30 am to 4:30 pm on Friday, July 14, and 8 am to Noon on Saturday, July 15, 2006.

• VITA Report for the Commissioner
  As you probably remember, several members of the Joint Committee met with the Commissioner in April. He wanted input from TAP on five issues. One of the issues is the future of VITA. The VITA issue committee is looking at training issues, so Area 4 has been assigned to work on this VITA issue. Maureen Amos wrote the Area’s initial draft. It was revised and sent out to everyone for their comments. The final report should be about two pages long. The Joint Committee was hoping the report would be ready by their scheduled face-to-face meeting at the end of this week, but I told them we won’t be able to finalize it until our face-to-face in Chicago. We can send it to the Joint Committee right after that. Schneider asked everyone to do a little more homework and be ready to discuss this issue in Chicago so it can be finalized. He would like everyone to have input.

Public Input
Teresa Smedley, a former TAP member and Chair of Area 4, said she wanted to be active in working with the current members. She has asked if former members could re-apply to be panel members again as she is interested. Schneider said he will bring this issue up at the Joint Committee face-to-face meeting in Denver. There is nothing in the handbook that specifically addresses this issue. He will get back to Smedley to let her know what is said in Denver.

Subcommittee Reports

• Issue Review - Schneider
  The subcommittee did not meet this month. We received a list of new open issues. We wanted to set up a call but there didn’t seem to be a lot of interest right now. Hopefully we will have more to discuss in Chicago next month. We are not actively working any issues at this time.

• Forms and Publications - Meister
  We have not done anything yet as we are still gathering information. We have now received information in response to our requests and will be able to get to work in Chicago. There is nothing to report but now, but we have the information to get busy.

  Schneider noted that last month we agreed to elevate issue 3670, Forms, Issues, and Publications, on draft forms. In it we recommended that the when the IRS posts these draft forms, they needed to indicate what was changed. Joint Committee review subcommittee suggested a few changes. Toy sent a revision with the requested changes to Schneider. Delzer felt the changes made did not alter the original intent. If we accept their changes, the Joint Committee can discuss during the face-to-face and, if approved, can send forward. Consensus to elevate.

• Customer Issue - Amos
  The subcommittee will work on this issue in Chicago. Delzer sent out some statistical information so there is more discuss.

Outreach required reporting / Communication Committee - Amos
The Communications Committee wanted to send out a reminder about the importance of accuracy in reporting outreaches. More specifically the number in attendance. One outreach reported that they spoke to a group, and yet the number of people showed a zero.

Delzer said the town hall will not be reported as an outreach if the Joint Committee decides to have a separate section in the annual report. They will discuss the annual report format at their meeting this week.

ACTION Item Review
All action items were completed; however Delzer did not receive any agenda items for the Chicago meeting.

Office Report – Recruitment
McQuin reported that she has been interviewing since last Tuesday and would like to thank Amos, Broniarczyk, Duquette, Hafer, Melchior, Richardson and Schneider for their help. We have interviewed 29 people for Areas 4 and 5. We need three people in Area 4, and there are six vacancies for alternates. In Area 5 we need five people and have five vacancies for alternates. Overall, the interviews have been very high quality.

Schneider asked why we didn’t replace members who dropped out. McQuin said it was because Coston wanted to get to the one-third rotation. It was a little difficult but we are at the point where we will now have one-third of the members rotating off every year, so we don’t lose all the veteran members in any single year. This will be discussed a little more at the Joint Committee meeting.

All the managers and analysts will be in New Orleans for their CPE the week of July 10, 2006. The secretaries will be in the offices.

Schneider said when we receive the new issues report; they are not in any particular order. Hafer felt they were difficult to keep straight. It seems that some of the new issues have dropped off the list. Where did they go? Are they in someone’s parking lot? It appears that each committee may have their own parking lot.

Delzer said active issues can be seen on the “TAP Issue List” and all issues listed as “active,” are actively being worked. Delzer runs a report each month that shows the NEW issues that came in that month first, and then the parking lot issues. Schneider said it is up to the committee to review and clean out the parking lot.

The next meeting is July 14-15, 2006, in Chicago at the Hotel Indigo.

We will plan to have our regularly scheduled conference call on Tuesday, July 25, 2006, at 11:00 a.m. CDT, 12: p.m. EDT.

Larry Behnkendorf said Coston told them (at their issue committee meeting) that he wanted the committees to stay active and not lapse in action. He would like to see the committees schedule regular meetings through November.

Meeting adjourned.