Area 5 Committee Meeting
TAP Annual Meeting
December 12, 2006
Hyatt Regency Hotel on Capitol Hill
400 New Jersey Avenue NW
Washington, DC

Welcome / Review Agenda / Introductions
Ralph welcomed everyone and reviewed the agenda.

This is Area 5

• Ground Rules and Conference Call Etiquette

Handout – conference call guidelines.
Call in number and information is at the top of the agenda and can also be found on TAPSpace. All meetings need to be announced for a minimum of fifteen days in the Federal Register. Everyone will be receiving telephone calling cards for TAP business.

• 2007 Calendar Preparation

Conference calls are scheduled for the second Tuesday of every month, at 9:30 am, Central Time. Face-to-face meetings are rotated between states. The meetings are open and we try to attract public members to attend. Decision made to meet in Kansas City in May, 6-8, 2007. Delzer will try to arrange a visit to the Kansas City Campus to see return processing and phone operations. The goal is to break into subcommittee meetings during the face-to-face.

• Area 5 Leadership—Sandy McQuin

Each committee needs to choose a new chair and vice chair each year, Ralph took over as chair in the middle of last year and has indicated that he is willing to serve as chair again. Lee Stieger has also indicated he would like to continue as vice chair. Responsibilities include keeping the meetings on track, representing Area 5 when submitting issues to the Joint Committee and staying in communication with the staff. One difficult task is when the chair has to speak to a member because of poor attendance. There is a pre-call before each meeting to set the conference call agenda and a monthly report needs to be completed too. There is be two days of chair training sometime in January. The dates will be selected once all the chars are elected so they can decide. It has been recommended that the vice chair attend the training also but that will depend on the budget. Will chose a chair before the end of this meeting.

Chair Report

• Approve Minutes of November 14, 2006

November minutes were handed out for review and approval. Minutes were approved with no objections. Minutes will be approved via email and corrections are to be sent to Delzer within one week. Delzer will put “ACTION: due date” in the subject line of the email with the draft minutes. Last year quorum was determine to be 50% of active panel members plus one. That will continue through this year.

• Joint Committee Report

The minutes from the last Joint Committee face-to-face meeting will be out shortly. Most of the discussion was around the writing of the committees’ self assessments and the TAP Annual Report. Once you have your training on TAPSpace, you will be able to see the past TAP Annual Reports.

Delzer explained the information regarding the survey for the Taxpayer Assistance Center. Remember, no overnight travel will be approved. You will need prior approval if you want to be reimbursed for travel. All are encouraged to participate! The Taxpayer Assistance Centers committee gets direction from their program owner. However the TAP still gets issues from taxpayers regarding other areas of the Taxpayer Assistance Centers. The area committees will need to work these other issues as the Taxpayer Assistance Centers committee is very focused on their specific assignments. We already submitted a recommendation that the Taxpayer Assistance Centers share space with other agencies as a cost saving option.

• Area 5 Self Assessment

Colvin and Guthmann volunteered to work on the Area 5 self-assessment. Delzer sent them the format, issue and outreach reports, and panel input received to date. The final report is due to the Joint Committee by the end of December. Delzer will forward the draft report to everyone on the Area 5 Committee for their input and comments.
ACTION: Colvin and Guthmann will prepare the draft Area 5 self-assessment by Wednesday, December 27, 2006.

Flowchart – handout. Delzer explained the basic process of the life of an issue. Delzer will do your research but it does not preclude panel members from doing research as well.

Working Grass Roots Issues

• Gathering Issues

Issues come to TAP from various places; the website, toll-free line, talking to taxpayers, etc. Should work on three issues at one time otherwise it strains your time and the time of your analyst.

1. Address for Payments – Stieger (lead), Bell, Freeman, Rivera
2. Taxpayer Assistance Centers –Wong (lead), Bland, Colvin, Guthmann, Shah
   • payments
   • wait time
   • forms
3. Toll Free Issues – Guthmann (lead), Meyers, Rousseau, Wright
4. POA, Check Box Authority – Guthmann (lead), Wright

ACTION: Delzer will check with Mary Suther to determine her subcommittee preference.

• Prioritizing Issues

New issue #4018, regarding the amount of paper used by fax machine-consensus to drop.

• Reports
• Use of Subcommittees

Outreach Commitment-Meyers
Outreach is a continual discussion item. We are asking that each member commit to do a determined number of outreaches. The staff will send you brochures, pens, or other materials to hand out when doing an outreach. There is a PowerPoint show you can personalize and utilize. The two goals of outreach are to inform people about TAP, and to identify new issues from taxpayers.
ACTION: Delzer will put Outreach Commitment on the January agenda to discuss further.

Area 5 Chair / Vice-Chair Selection
Volunteers for Chair:
Ken Wright
Ralph Rivera

Vice-Chair: Lee Stieger

VOTE:

Chair is Ken Wright
Vice-Chair is Lee Stieger

ACTION Item Review
All action items have been completed.

Office Report-Sandy McQuin
There will be very limited staff in the office the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

Closing / Assessment