Area 4 Committee Meeting Minutes

Conference Call
September 26, 2006

Designated Federal Official

• •Betty Martin, DFO

Committee Members Present

• Rashidah Abdulhaqq, Ohio
• Larry Behnkendorf, Michigan
• Robert Broniarczyk, Illinois
• Paul Duquette, Wisconsin
• Donna Hafer, Kentucky
• David Meister, Wisconsin
• Jerry Melchior, Indiana
• Don Miller, Tennessee
• Marie O’Donnell, Illinois
• Lovella Richardson, Tennessee
• Ferd Schneider, Ohio

Committee Members Absent

• Maureen Amos, Illinois
• Kimberly Chowning, Indianapolis
• Joe Hurr, Ohio
• Mary Ann Lawler, Michigan
• Allen Scioli, Michigan

TAP Staff

• Mary Ann Delzer, Program Analyst
• Patti Robb, Secretary

Visitors

• Barbara Delbene, National Community Tax Coalition

Welcome / Roll Call
Quorum met.

Chair Report

• Approve Minutes of August 22, 2006
  Minutes approved as submitted.

• Joint committee report
  The Joint Committee had a discussion on how the chair and vice chair are elected for the TAP. All the areas submitted their recommendations to the Joint Committee, however they could not reach consensus. It was decided to revisit this during the Joint Committee face-to-face meeting in October. The Joint Committee also discussed the response to the IRS Oversight Board inquiry concerning IRS measures. The oversight board is appointed and they report to Congress. These discussions took so long, there was no time left to discuss elevated issues so they were put on the agenda for the October meeting.

Public Input
Barbara Delbene, National Community Tax Coalition. This coalition is a VITA program. She was asked to get more involved in looking at the administrative portion of the IRS, particularly customer service, so decided to join the conference call today.

Ferd Schneider told her that TAP is charged to address issues that are identified by the general public. We sift through these issues and determine which seem to be systemic. We do research, come to a conclusion and then make a recommendation to the IRS. Each of the TAP members also serves on an issue committee. The IRS provides direction to the issue committees. One of the issue committees is a VITA committee. They have been working on the VITA test the volunteers have to take before they can be certified to prepare tax returns.

Subcommittee Reports

• Issue Review
  Ferd did look at the reports send by Delzer. The contact history report was dated September 6 and the issue report was dated September 5. There were four new issues.

  3761 – Innocent Spouse – IRS employee who brought the issue to TAP is satisfied with the information on the issue on irs.gov. — Close

  3694 – Publication 393—When form W-3 are sent preprinted, EIN not secure as no envelope is used. Program owner said they are redesigning the W-2 and W-3, which may mitigate the problem. Will put in the parking lot and monitor. — Parking lot

  3706 – E-file Forms 8453 Not Received – Area 1 wrote recommendation and sent to Joint Committee. Will wait for Joint Committee response. — Parking lot

  2971 – E-file Rejects, Extend Time for Filing – Will consider if the issue resurfaces this next filing season. — Drop

  3817 – Fraud Reporting to CI. Delzer gave to Area 5 as they have been working on this issue. Drop

  3988 – Third party requests Form 4506 - . Broniarczyk thinks disclaimer on form should be in bold or larger type. People need to read the form more closely before they signing. Active

  ACTION: Issue review committee will write up a recommendation concerning the highlighting or bolding of the disclaimer statement on Form 4506.

New Issues
3993 – 1099R Coding - customer issue committee is looking at. Delzer is working on research for this issue at this time. Active

3994 – Application of Estimated Payments. Delzer said this is a big issue in Ohio, but does not seem to be an overreaching IRS problem. Drop

4001 – Wait Time at Taxpayer Assistance Centers - service issue and how TAC offices handle problems. Different assistors handle different problems.

ACTION: Delzer to forward to wait time in TAC offices to Area 5 as they are currently working this issue.

4004 – Return Processing - IRS received state return with payment. Did not forward return to the state and taxpayer was upset as she didn’t find out for two years. Active

ACTION: Delzer to research to see what procedures IRS is supposed follow when IRS receives state tax returns in error.

Outreach
The final outreach report will be generated soon for the annual report. If you have any outreaches you haven’t submitted, please report to Delzer ASAP.

Office Report

• Face-to-Face Meeting, 2007
  The committee needs to pick two tentative dates for a face-to-face meeting next year, so staff can put them on the calendar. This needs to be discussed during the October agenda. The staff will need to block out time for recruitment activities, staff training and meetings as well. Area 4 should have four new members, perhaps we will know who they are and they will be able to join us on the October call to provide their input.

• Annual Meeting
  The current version of the draft agenda has orientation is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. for new members. That will last until about 10:30. The area committees will have combination meetings with their staff from 11 a.m. to Noon. Everyone will travel to Washington, D.C., on Sunday, December 10 to meet on Monday. The meeting is scheduled to end around 11 a.m. on Thursday, December 14, so everyone can travel home that afternoon. We are trying to schedule longer area meetings per your requests. The names of the potential panel members have been sent to Nina Olson, National Taxpayer Advocate, and to Treasury

The next meeting will be the October 24, 2006, conference call.

November 28 will be the last conference call before the annual meeting.