February 24, 2003
2:00 PM PST
Conference Call

TAP ATTENDEES:

• Clayton Agena
• Jim Banks
• Darlene Bramon
• Mario Burgos
• Richard Cormier
• Justin Doucette, Chairperson
• Skip Eshelman
• Chris Forzano
• Gregory Maciulla
• Joe Reder
• Sharon Stetz
• Virginia Symonds
• Sherry Whah, Vice Chairperson
• Thomas Sherwood, Designated Federal Official

ABSENT:

• Bruce Twomley

TAP STAFF:

• Anne Gruber
• Judi Nicholas

OPENING
Tom Sherwood, as the Designated Federal Official, called the meeting to order at 2 o'clock sharp PST and handed it over to Justin Doucette to conduct business. Justin welcomed everybody and Anne Gruber took the roll call. Then Justin reviewed the minutes and the Action Items from last month's meeting. A poll was taken and the selection for a possible second meeting was Las Vegas, Nevada. Anne briefly described the tax forum held in Las Vegas and Area 6 Committee's plan to staff a TAP booth at the convention plus have a meeting.

OFFICE REPORT
Anne discussed the new Sprint calling cards that everyone should have received by now. The last part of the phone card authorization number that is not printed on the card is the holder's last four digits of his or her social security number. Anne pointed out that if those four numbers begin with a "0" a "1" is substituted. Sherry has not received her calling card yet. ACTION ITEM: ANNE WILL CHECK FOR SHERRY'S CARD.

REFERRALS

ALASKA: #3 - Taxpayers' Rights
Bruce was not in attendance and Tom Sherwood led the discussion. He told about his conversations with other Taxpayer Advocates in DC last week at the Congressional Affairs Program. He discussed with them TAP's proposal to include a reference to TAS in the final notice. An alternative was suggested to say "If you feel the proposed IRS action will cause you a hardship, please see page five of the attached Publication 594." ACTION ITEM: TOM AND BRUCE WILL GET TOGETHER AND DISCUSS POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS AND BRUCE WILL PREPARE A REPORT FOR THE PANEL.

ALASKA: #6 & # 55 - Alaska Rural Outreach
Sherry Whah described the efforts that the Alaska Business Development Center (ABDC), which is a Low Income Tax Clinic, was exerting and all that they were accomplishing for rural Alaska. Anne reported that four IRS volunteers went to Dillingham in concert with ABDC last weekend and prepared almost 200 returns. What they couldn't finish in Dillingham, they brought back with them to do in Anchorage. On March 8, four more volunteers will go to Iliamna to prepare returns there. ABDC is paying for all airfares, hotels, and a per diem for all the volunteers. Villagers do not seem to be as weary of strangers as expected. The phase out of the "fish team" seems to be working well. Sherry commented that it was handled right. ACTION ITEM: ANNE WILL WRITE CLOSING LETTERS TO BOTH TAXPAYERS WHO BROUGHT THIS ISSUE TO TAP'S ATTENTION.

ARIZONA: #681 - Visiting Professors
Greg Maciulla said that the taxpayer who made this suggestion was kept aware of TAP's efforts and research and was fairly content. Anne contacted UCLA to find out their experiences with visiting professors. As with Harvard, they had no extraordinary concerns with the procedures required for foreign visitors, although they did agree that there was a lot of paperwork. ACTION ITEM: ANNE WILL WRITE THE PERSON WHO BROUGHT THIS ISSUE TO TAP'S ATTENTION ONE MORE TIME AND CLOSE THE CASE.

Greg, in an unrelated issue, also inserted that a contact in Arizona indicated to him that IRS cut funding for the VITA programs. He asked if that were true. ACTION ITEM: TOM WILL FOLLOW UP TO DETERMINE IF THIS IS TRUE AND ATTEMPT TO DETERMINE THE IMPACT ON TAXPAYERS.

COLORADO: #31 - Form 1116, Foreign Tax Credit
Richard Cormier described the foreign tax credit and it's lack of a de minimis clause forcing this taxpayer to complete the overly complicated Form 1116 even for small amounts. Jim Banks mentioned that he thought there was a way around this problem and agreed to look into it. ACTION ITEM: JIM, RICHARD, AND ANNE WILL DO MORE RESEARCH ON THIS PROBLEM.

COLORADO: #82 - Capital Gains Forms
Richard described the problem and Anne told of the positive results of her inquiries. The owner of Form 9452 had not realized that the sentence that stated "You must file if you have a gain or loss on the sale of stocks" was missing from the 2002 form and will fix the problem. The owner of the Schedule D form agreed to consider the addition of "gross proceeds from the sale of stock" in the definition of gross income, and the owner of Form 8814, Parents' Election to Report Child's Interest and Dividends, confirmed that the form could only be used when the child has only interest and dividend income. The only aspect of this suggestion not resolved was the question about the merger statement. ACTION ITEM: ANNE WILL CONTINUE TO RESEARCH THIS.

HAWAII: No Reports

IDAHO: No reports this month, although Darlene Bramon has recently met with the Idaho Bar Association and will present their ideas next month.

MONTANA: #57 - Capital Loss Carryover
Jim Banks stated that the limit for the capital loss carryover has not been indexed for inflation and is at the same dollar amount, $3000, since 1979. Area 4 Committee is also working this issue. Jim agreed to work with Jim Abraham to develop the issue. ACTION ITEM: JIM WILL CONTACT JIM ABRAHAM TO OFFER SUPPORT IN WRITING THIS PROPOSAL. ANNE WILL CONTACT AREA 4 STAFF AND ASK HOW WE KEEP THIS ISSUE ALIVE.

At this point, Greg asked if there were any statistics available on IRA conversions from traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs. He wondered, with the downturn in the stock market, if the government was allowing any special concessions to taxpayers. He would like to see this issue raised. ACTION ITEM: ANNE WILL WORK WITH GREG AND DARLENE TO DEVELOP THIS ISSUE.

NEVADA: No reports

NEW MEXICO: #77 - Fax Number on letter
Mario Burgos relayed his experience with CP-161. On his business account, he wrote a letter and made a follow-up phone call where he was told the fax number to the Ogden campus. He thinks if the IRS can give out the fax number over the phone, why don't they just put it in the letter to begin with? ACTION ITEM: ANNE WILL CONTACT THE OWNER OF CP-161 AND FIND OUT IF THIS IDEA IS FEASIBLE. ANNE WILL SEND COPIES OF CP-161 TO ALL COMMITTEE MEMBERS. Everyone wondered what percentage of Americans has fax machines or access to the Internet. ACTION ITEM: ANNE AND TOM WILL SEE WHAT STATISTICS THEY CAN FIND.

OREGON #612 - Change to Pub 535
Neither Anne nor Virginia had any luck in researching this suggestion. Research will continue.

UTAH: # 14 - Moving Expenses
Anne and Sharon Stetz worked on this suggestion and decided the best solution was to extend the time limit for handicapped individuals. TAP will suggest that they be given a 39-week test where an employee must be employed full-time in the general location of his new principal place of work for at least 39 weeks during the 24-month period immediately following his arrival in the new area. ACTION ITEM: THIS PROPOSAL WILL BE WRITTEN UP FOR THE JOINT COMMITTEE.

UTAH #82 - FTD Coupons
This truly is a burdensome procedure. Justin said that he would like to find out the reaction of Margie Kinney of the Payroll Issue Committee. The IRS should make paying money as easy as possible. ACTION ITEM: ANNE WILL CONTACT THE PAYROLL TAX ISSUE COMMITTEE TO DISCUSS THE ISSUE.

WASHINGTON: # 546 - Practitioner Priority Service
Joe Reder called PPS 22 times last month at various times and the longest amount of time he was on hold was 8 minutes. Statistics from the Joint Operations Center, which oversees the PPS phone line, web site was provided by Tom. The statistics taken from the week of February 3 revealed that IRS is providing a level of access in excess of 80 %. ACTION ITEM: WRITE CLOSING LETTER TO THE PRACTITIONER EXPLAINING THAT IMPROVEMENTS TO ANY NEW SYSTEM ALWAYS TAKE TIME AND TAP WILL KEEP MONITORING.

WASHINGTON: #18 - OIC
At last month's meeting, Bill Holmes, a manager in the Centralized OIC organization, offered his services. ACTION ITEM: TOM WILL CHECK WITH BILL TO SEE IF THE PRACTITIONER GOT HIS CASES RESOLVED AND IF HE WAS SATISFIED. ANNE WILL CHECK WITH THE PRACTITIONER TO SEE IF HE HAS HEARD FROM BILL AS WELL.

WASHINGTON: #28 Ad to DECD taxpayer
The problem was fixed this time but since each mailing is treated separately there is no guarantee that it won't happen again. ACTION ITEM: ANNE WILL ASK HOW IT HAPPENED?

WASHINGTON: #56 - Proposed reg change
Chris Forzano mentioned that this proposed reg change already has support in Congress and wondered if the real problem was just how to leave comments on the IRS web site. Several members were able to go on line immediately to the correct web sit e with no trouble. ACTION ITEM: CLOSING LETTER TO BE WRITTEN SAYING THAT THE TAP MEMBERS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE PROPOSED CHANGE AND HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE ADDRESS TO LEAVE A COMMENT ON THEIR OWN.

At this point, Greg asked if there were statistics about how often the IRS web site goes down. ACTION ITEM: TOM WILL RESEARCH THIS.

Wyoming - No reports but Skip mentioned that he was in Austin last week with the Notices issue committee and they discussed the CP 161.

CLOSING
Justin reminded everyone that the next meeting is March 17, 2003 at 2:00 PM PST.
Tom adjourned the meeting at 3:40 PM PST.