Area 5 Committee Meeting Minutes

March 14, 2005

Present:

• Steve Landauer
• Clifford McKenzie
• Jeana Warren
• Bill White
• Nan Wilson, Chair
• Warren Wong
• Lillian Woo

Absent:

• Robert Meyers
• Stanley Miller
• Thomas Seuntjens
• Robert Stokes
• Mary Suther
• Charles Wendt

Staff:

• Dianne Glass, DFO
• Sandy McQuin, TAP Manager
• Mary Ann Delzer, Program Analyst
• Patti Robb, Note Taker

Public:

• Shawn Lorion, Alternate panel member for Iowa
• Steve Bankler

Welcome/Announcements/Review Agenda
Wilson welcomed the committee members.

Area 5 Chair Report
You all should have received a copy of the TAP annual report via email today. A hard copy was also sent out last week Friday. If you haven’t received it yet, you should soon.

Review/Approve Minutes
The February 18-19, 2005, minutes from the Area 5 face-to-face meeting in Austin, TX, were approved without changes.

Sub-Committee Report-out

• AMT Education — Woo
  The sub-committee met this morning. We talked about our strategy and divided up tasks so each member has an assignment. We are going to put together talking points for the public. Will make our recommendation to the IRS and will include a sample column (similar to “What’s On TAP”) they can use to educate the public about AMT. Would like to set up a time during one of our upcoming meetings for the whole committee to discuss AMT. We would like a press release to go out to the public for this meeting to encourage them to call in and collect their input about the problem of AMT. Former TAP members Linda Bader and Leonard Steinberg are helping us on this sub-committee.

  ACTION: Woo will write the AMT press release for the May meeting.

• TAC Partnering — Warren
  Our sub-committee had a call last week. We talked about an overall strategy and about the issues involved. We are looking at GSA resources. Will research some pilots for partnering space. Next meeting is scheduled for March 30.

• TAS Delegated Authority – White
  We got a lot of information from the staff. Received information from Patrick Castleberry, a former TAP member. Elayne Goldstein, former Area 4 TAS Director addressed the subcommittee regarding her involvement with a TAS task force working on delegated authorities. Their recommendations have been elevated to NTA Nina Olson. We are not going to do any more work on this issue until we find out her response.
  
• Definition Age 70 — Wong
  Recommends not taking this issue on at this time. Consensus - Issue will be dropped.

• Fraud Form Availability — McKenzie
  Got a copy of Form 211, Application for Reward for Original Information. This form is not widely known about and is difficult for the public to get. Will speak to someone who used to be in Criminal Investigation and find out why it is so hard to get.

  ACTION: McKenzie will write up a summary on the fraud form issues for the April meeting.

• Form 433 A/B, Collection Information Statement for Wage Earners and Self-Employed Individuals/Collection Information Statement for Businesses, Task Force — Woo
  Met with Carla Young from Systemic Advocacy. IRS looking at ways to improve the form. Feedback to the task force due March 28.

  ACTION: Subcommittee to report at the next meeting about what recommendations were made to the task force.

Action Item Review

Panel Member Open items:

• Panel members can still provide a list of recipients to receive the TAP report.

Delzer Open items:

• TAPSpeak email link is not yet available for new panel members. Staff is working the issue.

Glass action items:

1. Glass will forward TAC wait time issue to the TAC territory manager – there are over 20 employees in the TAC office and the wait time is not over two hours. The person who called this issue in should have asked to see a manager.
2. Glass will run a TAMIS report to see how widespread 1040X issue is – this is still a big issue. It is the number two issue in both the open and closed cases. We are trying to determine why we are having this problem. It looks like the IRS is not contacting the taxpayer after reviewing the form. Gallup is doing a study for us. This issue will be put in the parking lot until the study is complete.

Outreach

• Woo and Wendt spent a day with the territory manager of SPEC.
• McKenzie spoke to an Indian gaming investment group.
• Wilson met with the LTA in Wichita, KS and also visited the TAC. She also went to a Congressional liaison meeting.
• White reminded everyone of their commitment to do 15 individual outreaches.

Office Report
McQuin – working on a press release to combine recruitment and the TAP annual report. Posters are available for recruitment. It looks like we will be conducting mainly telephone interviews this year. The application will be available online April 1-29, 2005. Encourage everyone to do the online application vs. the paper application. We may not need members from every state, but we always need an alternate pool available

White said think of recruiting as advertising about TAP. It’s a good way to help get the word out.

ACTION: Staff to send panel members recruitment posters to post in their communities.

Public Input
Bankler asked that the committee reconsider his request to allow public input during the meeting instead of limiting it to five minutes at the end of the meeting. He also stated that he was contacted by Gallup regarding TAS. How can you be using Gallup when you are in a budget crunch?

Glass responded that TAS has balanced measures. Gallup has been doing surveys for satisfaction with TAS for quite a while. That is how TAS gets the feedback used to better serve the taxpayers. LTAs receive reports on a quarterly basis.

ACTION: Glass/McQuin will research and provide more information on the Gallup survey.

Shawn Lorion said he was on the call because he is an alternate for Iowa. He wanted to get a feel for what the committee does.

Closing/Assessment
There were no comments. Wilson thanked everyone.
The next conference call is April 11 at 2pm.

Meeting adjourned.