Joint Committee Minutes

May 7, 2004–May 8, 2004
Embassy Suites
600 North State Street
Chicago, Illinois

Members Present:

• Mario Burgos, Efiling
• Charlotte Cassady, Area 3
• Skip Eshelman, Notices
• James Grimaldi, Area 1
• Gwen Handelman, EITC
• Cheyañna Jaffke, Area 7
• Robert Meldman, Ad Hoc
• Paul Nagel, Schedule C Non-filers
• Tom Seuntjens, TAP Chair
• Teresa Smedley, Area 4
• Leonard Steinberg, Payroll Taxes
• Bruce Twomley, Multilingual
• Lillian Woo, Area 5

Members Absent:

• David Meyer, Area 2
• Sherry Whah, Area 6

Staff Present:

• Bernie Coston, DFO
• Martha Curry, National Program Analyst
• Nancy Ferree, TAP Manager
• Sandy McQuin, TAP Manager
• Judi Nicholas, TAP Manager
• Sandra Ramirez, TAP Manager
• Patti Robb, Note taker
• Barbara Toy, Program Analyst

Friday, May 7, 2004

Welcome / Announcements / Review Agenda
Tom Seuntjens thanked everyone for taking time from his/her busy schedule and pulling away from your other duties to attend this meeting. The agenda was reviewed and changes noted.

Introductions
Members and staff introduced themselves and their chair assignment. Mario Burgos is representing Area 6 for Sherry Whah and Steinberg is representing Area 2 for David Meyer.

National Office Report

Recruitment Schedule
Very successful recruitment process--electronically received 815 applications and 120 paper applications. For Taxpayer Advocacy Panel's (TAP's) first recruitment, 1300 applications were received but consider TAP is not filling the entire panel; only filling about 45 slots plus alternates. Applications were received from all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Juan Carlos Puig, Local Taxpayer Advocate for Puerto Rico, was very helpful to TAP in getting the word out. The application phase is now complete. Next step is to gather both paper and electronic applications; sanitize them and print them on paper for the team that will be ranking the applications the week of May 24. Last recruitment process, TAP was not able to get everyone on board for the annual meeting, Using lessons learned, recruitment started three weeks earlier and additional time was built in for background checks. Interviews will be done June 21 through July 23, 2004. Name and tax checks will be done during June and July. The selectees will be notified August 23 to August 27, 2004. Next thing that needs to happen in November is to introduce new people and have current members show new members the process. TAP will be recruiting every year, so each year TAP will have a reasonable level of turnover providing consistency in operation for seasoned and new members.

Steinberg asked what criteria the ranking was based. Martha Curry replied that the criteria is the applicant's responses to the essay questions on the applications. Coston added that the applicants are ranked on a scale of 0 to 5 based on skill set shown on the application. The score is totaled; higher scores show the highly qualified candidates. Responding to a question from Paul Nagel, Curry stated that 14% staying over are tax professionals (the 14% applies to the full panel of 102 members). Alternates were asked if they were still interested in TAP and if so, they were asked to reapply, first contact was by telephone and second by letter. Lillian Woo asked what "NCFB" meant on the timeline; the answer is New Carrollton Federal Building . Cheyañna Jaffke mentioned the difficulty Area 7 had reaching quorum at times after members resigned. Coston replied that Area 7, California , has been expanded to 12 members. Georgia was 3, now 4; Arizona was 1, now 2; Florida was 4, now 5; Texas was 4, now 5; Virginia was 2, now 3; and New York was 4, now 5. Coston admitted that TAP has not done a good job of bringing up alternates in the past and this will change. Bruce Twomley asked about the extent of the background checks and how long they take. Coston replied that during the first recruitment, full background (name) checks were conducted. Now TAP will only do the fingerprint checks which typically take two to three weeks. Part of the lessons learned is that the full background checks showed nothing more than the fingerprint checks. Now, TAS will be doing the tax checks which should speed the process. Nagel asked what is involved in tax checks. Tax compliance is all that is checked. Coston will ask for members to be part of the interview process and he is looking at locations where the managers are so resources are available. The annual meeting is scheduled for November 4 to 6 at Hamilton Crowne Plaza at 14th & K Street in Washington, D.C. two stops from Metro Center, at McPherson.

Seuntjens asked what was being done to get to the one third per year turnover recommendation by the Joint Committee that was approved. Curry replied that TAP hoped to meet the one third turnover goal through attrition and filling vacancies with alternates. Bob Meldman asked the reason for not going to three-year terms. The charter has a two year term and provides for a two year membership term. Judi Nicholas stated that when alternates come on their term starts the coming October so they have two years plus terms and that's how you get staggering based on attrition. Meldman suggested changing the charter and Coston replied that a change would be considered for next renewal. More discussion ensued on ways to meet the goal of a one third turnover each year. Seuntjen's concern is that Joint Committee went through process of recommending the one-third turnover and two and three-year term appointments; and TAP staff needs to do a better job of explaining when recommendations cannot be met. Coston agreed that if the turnover rate was not met, TAP would have the flexibility to extend terms as needed.

Large Print Materials for Panel Members
Steve Berkey, National Office Program Analyst, has researched the requirements for providing materials and accessibility to accommodate persons with special needs. But, members need to self-identify their needs or the chairs must make request. TAP does not want to exclude anyone from serving on TAP and will try to accommodate member's needs.

Coston observed that not all panel members are aware of decisions being made during Joint Committee meetings and asked all area committees to use the agenda and minutes to communicate back to all members. It is primarily area committee chairs responsibility but issue committee chairs should also share information with their committees.

ACTION: Area Committee chairs should routinely update committee members on decisions made and information provided at the Joint Committee meetings at the next scheduled area meeting.

TAP Annual Report
Olson has completed the review of the report and wants to make changes primarily from standpoint of reporting structure and will discuss with Seuntjens next week in Washington. The content of the report does not need approval by the NTA. As a courtesy, similar to how Olson sends a copy of the NTA annual report to the Internal Revenue Service, a copy should be sent to the NTA for review. Concern was raised by the amount of time the review took. Coston replied that TAS has changed structurally with future preparation of the NTA's annual report to Congress so Olson will not have to dedicate as much time to the NTA annual report so the delay should not occur again. It was agreed that the TAP annual report is an important a tool for members, stakeholders, and taxpayers and an effort to be more timely is needed.

Action: Toy will send out final draft of Annual Report to all Joint Committee Members

Coston said that staff is finalizing a standard operating procedure document that will offer aid in preparing minutes, committee reports, the annual report, managing meetings, arranging travel, etc. for analysts, managers, and all TAP staff. All TAP members will benefit by more consistency in minutes and other support from one committee to another. TAP will implement some new processes in the near future that offer consistency across the board and may ask chairs to modify some of the reports and forms used.

After discussion about sharing the staff Standard Operating Procedures with panel members, it was agreed that the parts of the document directly relating to panel members and chairs expectations of staff will be extracted from the main document and shared with the Joint Committee members.

ACTION: Staff will extract relevant portions of Standard Operating Procedures to share with panel members.

Discussion then turned to the recruiting and interviews and panel members concern than 300 hours is not realistic. Meldman stated that volunteers needed to know how much time is involved before making a commitment. Volunteers, who serve as chairs, average much higher than the 300 hours. The 100 hour minimum commitment is too low-- attending monthly conferences and face to face, as well as, travel and preparation time is much closer to the 300 hours, so committee members suggested removing the mention of 100 hours. Sandy McQuin noted that the numbers were based on the historical expectation that committees would meet quarterly and panel members made decision to meet monthly. Joint Committee members preferred removing the 100 hour minimum and setting expectation of at 300 hours and more if they choose to serve as chair. Coston agreed to resolve the issue during the interview process to make sure volunteers know how much time they will be contributing in meeting time, as well as, telephone time, return of emails, interim calls, travel time, etc.

Review of Assignments
Jim Grimaldi said that Area 1 decided to place the “Offer in Compromise Waiver of Fee” proposal in the parking lot. Area 1 will take another look at the issue after the new procedures have been in effect for at least nine months.

ACTION: Toy will change status on the “Offer in Compromise Waiver of Fee” proposal from “Pending Review by TAP” to Closed, Proposal Rejected.”

Area 1 believes the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) misunderstood the recommendation for “Quality Control for IRS Correspondence” and will write a response on quality control for the Joint Committee to review.

Members expressed concern that the Systemic Advocacy Management System (SAMS) report has been an action item for the last 12 months. The Joint Committee requested the report not only to look at what issues are coming into SAMS and how TAP could fill any gaps or voids on issues TAS is not addressing but for general awareness of how TAS develops the top issues for the NTA's annual report. Staff had difficulty meeting this action item because of a misunderstanding of what the Joint Committee needed for the report and because the type of tool SAMS has become. Committee members were not able to properly assess the SAMS report sent out by staff because of a misunderstanding of how to use the report. The report will be sent out again and committee members will assess the report to see if it is a useful tool.

ACTION: Toy will send out the SAMS Top Concerns report to Joint Committee members with instructions on how to access.

All other action item changes are shown in the “Assignment” section of the minutes.

Review / Approve Minutes
Accepted with minor changes.

TAP Communication
Steve Berkey, National Office Program Analyst, is on the communications liaison group for TAS and has worked with Karen Kraushaar and TAP staff to develop the Media Guide and Media Pocket Guide. Berkey joined the Communication part of the Joint Committee meeting via conference call.

Communication Strategy
The Communication Strategy was approved by the Joint Committee in November. Now, Judi Nicholas will discuss each strategy and tactic explaining who is responsible and how it should be rolled out. First, the high level vision that the area chairs will use the document to initiate a conversation at the next area committee meeting on how each area will develop an outreach strategy. At the macro level, each person is best able to identify outreach opportunities.

First strategy is to raise profile externally with taxpayers and stakeholders. The items mentioned in Tactic 1 and 2 are now part of standard operating procedures (SOP) and as procedures roll out at the end of May, all staff will have materials.

ACTION: Staff will develop generic template for a “meeting advisory” notice and email procedures will be part of the document pulled out from the Staff manual for member use. Due date June 15th.

Tactic 3, increase citizen participation at public meetings by coordinating TAP public and outreach events with local/field media staff. Nicholas mentioned that staff has developed a check list of necessary activities prior to a public meeting, and this particular activity is part of the checklist. Burgos and Eshelman shared their less than lukewarm experiences working with a local media specialist. Tap members who have this problem need to contact the program manager for assistance. The local media specialist is important to TAP because they have the knowledge of their locality and what works best.

On the flip side, is a national coordinated effort to brand TAP throughout IRS media releases. IRS is doing a good job in some ways such as the Tax forums but in countless other ways it's not done. Part of Berkey's role as communications liaison is to attend to the branding of TAP through national press releases. It was agreed that IRS needs to help with branding but it wouldn't necessarily result in TAP branding, and TAP needs to answer the question, “Do we want TAP to be branded with IRS or be independent? With the name changed to taxpayer from citizen there is already a misconception as whether TAP is independent or not, and now there is confusion about Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) versus Taxpayer Advocacy Panel. Handelman added that she did not have a problem being associated with TAS and it is independent, so the TAS news releases are a natural place for TAP branding. Handelman reminded staff that even though this communication strategy is primarily directed at areas, issue committees should have their own meeting flyer templates for face-to-face meetings. The area template mentions TAP's role in general and is not as relevant for the issue committees.

ACTION: As part of the SOP, staff will develop a standard paragraph describing each issue committee to be used for the news releases, information flyers, etc.

Jaffke asked for a clarification of who were the community and national media stakeholders mentioned in Tactic 4. Nicholas replied part of this is the media specialist for your area, other parts include: local newspapers, local radio stations, and other opportunities that are not limited to large stakeholder groups. Basically, identify where there are groups of people and reach out to them.

ACTION: Berkey will develop fact sheet of success stories for panel members to use as part of their outreach and to insert into press releases and will update to keep stories fresh. First fact sheet due June 15.

McQuin suggesting using, not only, success stories but also what issues your committees are developing because you may draw someone who has interest in the topic, to the meeting or outreach.

Tactic 5 and Tactic 6 are primarily responsibilities of TAP National Office. Staff will develop a process of gathering what issues are coming into TAP and communicate the information to Olson who makes the decision on how to use the information.

Tactic 6 will also be worked in the field; staff can work with Stakeholder Partnership Education and Communication (SPEC) to identify outreach opportunities. Handelman said that the strategy is aimed mainly at the area committees and asked what is appropriate for issue committees to do as far as outreach. Nicholas replied that working with your program owner is appropriate. McQuin added that since the focus of the issue committee comes from program owner, the chair should work with the program owners.

Regarding marketing products, a document is in the process of being mailed out to all members, it contains life-sized examples of what is available to take out on outreaches, The document asks for a three week allowance for obtaining the items, but each office has supplies, so call the office if you do not have that three week cushion.

Tactic 8, Share and implement committee best practices. Chairs and staff should share the best practices during face-to-face meetings. Seuntjens suggested adding this to the Effective Committees discussion.

Meldman asked how to reach congressional staff members better locally or nationally. Nicholas replied that Olson will get the word out nationally and locally it's the government liaisons. Grimaldi added that most Local Taxpayer Advocates (LTAs) have a congressional round table and local TAP members have attended.

Strategy 2, Raise profile internally. The first tactic is an ongoing activity for staff and Berkey and the managers have been working on Tactic 2 and are working on articles that focus on each committee separately.

Regarding Tactic 3, members should gather the information on what taxpayers want and forward to chairs and staff. Part of being effective is through outreach and better methods of gathering and sharing the information. The best practices guidelines should become part of the “Effective Committees” document.

Tactic 4, Creating a system for notifying TAS managers and LTAs in advance of meetings is part of the SOP and is a an item on the check list for meetings mentioned earlier.

Strategy 3 is to improve media outreach. Media training for TAP members is available for face-to-face meetings. Chairs should let the analyst or manager knows of their interest. Grimaldi said Area 1 had a problem because the meeting is open to public and the training is not. McQuin said the problem is easy to resolve, the meeting time set aside for the training should not be put in the federal register. It does mean that the training should be arranged at least 30 days prior to the meeting to accommodate the training time in the Federal Register Notice.

Developing guidelines and procedures is next part of discussion and TAP staff will work the media specialists to improve local visibility of members by providing the tools. The focus of Public Speaking training is different than the Media training mentioned earlier. Training will be provided when interest is shown. The power point that Justin Doucette had originally developed needs updating.

ACTION: Staff will update the PowerPoint presentation and redistribute.

ACTION: Chairs and Program Managers should include discussion of the PowerPoint during the area committee communication strategy discussion including instructions on how to personalize the PowerPoint.

Steinberg asked how speaker training would be offered individually or by group. The focus of speaker training is different than media training. Since public speaking ability is ideally part of criteria for choosing panel members, most members may not need this type of training. Speaker Training will be considered as part of the national meeting in November. Woo suggested having an advanced media training. The media training last year was excellent but allowed only a very short period of time for mock interviews.

ACTION: Staff will put a reminder in place to consider Advanced Media Training and Speaker Training for the National Meeting in November.

Media Guide/Pocket Guide
Berkey is the National Office Program Analyst who deals with the budget, travel, purchasing, as well as, communication issues. The pocket guide is a condensed version of the media guide and is designed to be shrunk down to a wallet-size trifold card. Members felt it was important to also have the Talking Point document included in the pocket sized version. Members discussed going to a larger size to ensure the information could be easily read but left the decision to Berkey and publishing.

ACTION: Berkey will work with publishing to produce pocket-sized versions of the Media Guide and the Talking Points.

As far as rolling out the documents, staff will distribute the documents to all members and ask chairs to discuss at upcoming meeting. Chairs should encourage members to look for media opportunities and work with manager and analyst prior to the event if any expense is involved. Chairs should work with the program manager if speaker or media training is needed for their group.

ACTION: Any content changes to the Talking Points, Media Guide, or Media Pocket Guide should be provided to McQuin by May 12, 2004.

The Speaker/Media Report Form is multipurpose. Members should use to request approval if any travel expenses would be incurred. But, more importantly, it is for members to use to inform staff and other members of any activities, what issues were heard during that activity, or what was learned by the activity. The information from the form is entered into a Speaker/Media database where the information is easily pulled for reports. Just last week, the NTA requested information on the type of events TAP members were attending and what was learned from the outreach events. Not all members are using the forms or reporting the outreach events so it was difficult to pull the information together. Additional outreach information was pulled from minutes but, this is cumbersome and not all areas use their monthly meetings to report outreach activities. The Speaker/Media Report Form is a good tool and Berkey urged chairs to discuss the importance of gathering the outreach and media activities information with their committees.

ACTION: Area committee chairs should stress with members the importance of completing the Speaker/Media Form or finding another method of getting the information to staff for entry into the database.

Talking Points
Seuntjens asked how Berkey's role differed from Karen Kraushaar, and if Kraushaar would continue to work with TAP. Coston replied that Kraushaar is on TAS communications staff and TAP is not her sole responsibility. Berkey's role is to act as a communications liaison; he is TAP's link to Kraushaar.

Area 1 Report
Grimaldi reported that Area 1 is successful with outreaches and working with LTAs. LTAs have listed outreach opportunities when asked but our disappointment is they are very helpful when asked but they have not come to us. A whole host of outreach opportunities could open if TAP could set up a booth next to TAS. Another disappointment is that the elevated issue regarding earnings for newspapers carriers not subject to self employment tax, has not had a response. Catherine Kelly who authored the issue retired from the panel and TAP has still not received a response on the issue. Another issue about extending the time the information from using EFTPS (Electronic Fund Transfer Payment System) has been rewritten and will be presented later in the meeting. The IRS response on quality control on notices is another disappointment. Area 1 asked for increase in the sample size of notices reviewed and IRS responded to a request for total notice review. For IRS response to the Waiver of fees for the Offer in Compromise, Area 1 will place the issue in the parking lot for about nine months to see how the IRS new policy is doing. Area 1 is also resubmitting the issue on putting TAP information on forms and instructions but narrowed down to most popular forms. Issues coming down the road, introducing financial literacy to certain groups particularly school systems, working with Area 3 and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on some examination issues. Area 1 is concerned about TAP's effectiveness in gathering “grass roots” issues if TAP can't address legislative issues. A big issue in this area is the taxation of September 11 grants. Overall issue is support more support for outreaches, outreach opportunities don't come to you, you have to go out to get them. Another concern is the integration of new panel members; most of Area 1 is old Citizen Advocacy Panel (CAP). Panel members new to CAP benefited by attending CAP meetings and seeing how it worked.

Seuntjens returned to the legislative issue and reminded members that as an individual, members can enter the issue on Systemic Advocacy Management System (SAMS). The issue should still be raised and entered on TAP database, or directly to the SAMS site, but working legislative issues is not TAP's goal and committees should raise the issue but not work it. With multiple contacts similar to the September 11 grants, the “grass roots” legislative issue should be raised to the NTA for possible inclusion in the annual report by email.

Handelman suggested routinely notify those who are selected for interviews of meetings in their area because they've expressed interest in the panel. Staff was concerned that this could cause a problem for those not selected after the interview and preferred to wait until the person was selected before inviting him/her to the meeting.

Panel members also discussed their concern that they could not bring legislative issues to the congressional offices. Seuntjens stated that members as private citizens can raise issues to congress but should not represent his/her position as TAP's, but as your own. Members can announce they are TAP panel members, fit in TAP's mission, as well as ask what “grass roots” issues the congressional offices are receiving.

Area 2 Chair Report
Leonard Steinberg reported for Area 2 and thanked Nancy Ferree and Inez DeJesus for pulling together the major points of accomplishment. Area 2 elevated an issue requesting a survey option by caller request rather than random as a way for callers to provide immediate feedback on toll free. IRS rejected the suggestions because it can't be supported by current technology and implementing is too costly and complex. Area 2 elevated two other issues that are awaiting acknowledgement: “EFTPS Clarification of Tax Year, system is based on calendar tax year as opposed to fiscal tax year and the “Form W-4 Percentage Option, allows persons to opt for a percentage of their wages withheld rather than a flat dollar amount. This issue will be brought to the Payroll Tax Issue Committee. The Payroll Tax Issue Committee and Area 4 are working together on revising the Form W-4. Area 2 currently has two active issues: Simplification of Estates and Trusts Income Tax Returns. The current form can be used to report nine different types of entities' income ranging from estates to various types of trusts. Area 2 has a committee for Improving Communications to Taxpayers currently this committee is addressing Publication 519, United States Tax Guide for Aliens. Area 2 placed the issue concerning a paragraph about TAP in IRS forms and publications in the parking lot since Area 1 is also working the issue. Area 2 Chair, David Meyer, brought an error on the newly revised Form 2848, Power of Attorney, to TAP staff's attention. The form included a line for the representative's Social Security Number. The IRS took immediate action to correct the error and reissue a revised form within a week. New issues--a practitioner suggested IRS employee's place their email address and direct telephone number on all notices. Another new issue is a request for taxpayer's previous year's 1040 information be available on line. Area 2 was involved in a variety of outreach activities practitioners and taxpayers during the first part of the year; it included working with an IRS Installment Agreement focus group. The committee's next steps include recapping the committee's activities for the incoming members and developing a set of program recommendations that would provide for more effective volunteer participation.

Area 3 Chair Report
Charlotte Cassady presented Area 3's mid-year assessment. The Telephone Listing/Answering Quality sub committee headed by Buck Paolone has put in a lot of work but the project is so overwhelming that it was suggested by Chair George Sullivan that they push some parts forward by trying "bite size" portions. But the problem is so complex, just where do you bite? The recommendation to raise the materiality base from $5 to $25 is being written up by Phil Bryant and will be elevated soon. A Walk-in Office Review (Taxpayer Assistance Centers) is being conducted by the entire area 3 panel. Some of the things noted to date are; Remodeling in some area offices have provided privacy for the taxpayer where there was none before.  Local phone numbers are not listed in phone books. Signs with TAP or State or national Taxpayer Advocate information are not posted. This is an ongoing project. A number of issues are in the parking lot but will be active again soon. 

Selma Taylor
Selma Taylor, Local Taxpayer Advocate in Chicago Area, was introduced and attended a portion of the Joint Committee Meeting.

Issue Matrix/TAP Recommendations Index and Recommendations Summary/Area Committee Status Report
The new issue matrix, recommendations index, recommendations summary, and status report was presented and members provided feedback on improving the reports. The issue matrix, titled, List of TAP Issues , tracks both Area and Issue Committee issues that are either “Active” or in “Parking Lot” status. The primary purpose of the issue matrix is to avoid duplication of efforts. Both chairs and staff need to check the matrix for duplication. The issue matrix is sorted first by “Primary Category,” “Secondary Category,” and then alphabetically by the “Issue Statement.” It was suggested to try to use the keyword as the first word in the “Title” of the issue so similar issues are more likely to be grouped together. Also, the category “other” is customarily the last choice in any list.

ACTION: Analysts and chairs will review the issue matrix titles and, whenever possible, place the key word first (i.e., if an issue is concerning EITC, EITC should be the first word in the title. If it concerns a form, the form number should be the first word.)

ACTION: Toy will update the category list as suggested and present at June Joint Committee meeting.

ACTION: Staff will continue to work on the TAP Contact Database so complete report is available for June Joint Committee meeting.

The TAP Recommendations Index and the TAP Recommendation Summary report contains both Area and Issue committee recommendations sent to the IRS. The elevated issue index is confusing. Numbers should not be in reverse order and the alpha codes should be separate. In addition, a key to the alpha codes should be placed in the footer of the report. It would be helpful to have the issue status on the TAP Recommendations Summary report. The issue index and summary report should be updated with requested changes by June meeting. After that the elevated issue index and the summary report will become a quarterly report. The report will be updated as changes occur and is available electronically on TAPSpeak in the “Elevated Issue” folder and on www.improveirs.org.

ACTION: Toy will update the TAP Recommendations Index, put in numerical order, separate the alpha codes and provide a key to the alpha codes by the June Joint Committee Meeting.

ACTION: Toy will add the status of the issue to the TAP Recommendations Summary report and will run the revised report for the June Joint Committee meeting and thereafter, quarterly.

The Area Recommendations Status Report contains only the issues referred to the Joint Committee by the areas and then approved by the Joint Committee for elevation to the IRS. The report is run monthly on the tenth of each month. It contains all issues originating from area committees in any of the “open” statuses and only issues placed in one of the closed statuses during that monthly period.

The TAP Recommendations Summary report contains all of the elevated area recommendations, as well as the written issue committee recommendations submitted with the Monthly Committee Report. Some issue committees have also submitted a summary of any feedback provided to the program owners orally with the Monthly Committee Reports and this information is also included.

Handelman stated that issue committees need some type tracking system maybe not quite as elaborate but some type. A discussion followed on whether or not the IRS response should be written and If TAP should expect responses from the program owners. It is the Joint Committee's understanding per agreement with Sue Sottile and Michael Chesman during the Joint Committee meeting in Denver that the IRS response should be in like kind. If the feedback is written, the response should be in writing; if the feedback is given orally, the response would be oral. Burgos suggested establishing follow-up dates which would make issues easier to track. The analyst and program manager assigned to the issue committee will be responsible for tracking their assigned committee's issues and doing the follow-up for non-response. Coston stated that TAP's expectations for responses will be part of the discussion with Brian DeSousa, who has replaced Margie Kinney in working with Michael Chesman and TAP and Sue Sottile that he and Seuntjens are having next week in Washington, D.C. Toy reported that she had already followed up with DeSousa on the two “aged” recommendations and one response was received after the status report was run and more information on the second should be available prior to the run date of the next one.

ACTION: The Analyst and Program Manager assigned to an Issue Committee will start tracking their committee's recommendations and perform any necessary follow-up with the program owners.

It was also decided to change the “Open, Response to IRS” status to “Awaiting Second Response.” It is important that when a response to any area recommendation sent through the Joint Committee is returned directly to the originating committee either in writing or provided orally, the response be forwarded to Toy for inclusion in the TAP Recommendation Summary and Area Recommendation Status Report.

ACTION: Toy will update status report as requested by the June Joint Committee Meeting.

ACTION: Staff and chairs should ensure a copy of or summary of any responses to issues elevated through the Joint Committee be sent to Toy.

Coston expressed concern over the plethora of action items plus staff's commitment to the TAP recruitment process and suggesting prioritizing the action items. It was agreed that staff would review the action items and inform Seuntjens of any conflicts.

Area 4 Chair Report
Smedley reported that Area 4 lost several members over the last year and had to reassess how many issues Area 4 could realistically work. Area 4 also reviewed old parking lot issues, closed some issues and designated others as “prospects” or “suspended.” “Suspended” refers to issues that were addressed but need future follow-up. This list includes issues that were elevated. Area 4 worked on the following issues: Married Filing Separate (MFS) returns--the distribution of income and deductions often creates need for multiple communications with IRS; VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) and TCE (Tax Counseling for the Elderly) training material availability; ability to electronically file the Amended U.S. Individual Tax Return, Form 1040X and found that program owner has this slated for 2005; Lien Recording Release, Area 4 learned the lien release program will become centralized and would like to provide input into the process; Area 4 had the W-4 Form issue in the parking lot for some time and will be working with the program owner and the payroll committee on this issue; and the difficulty of non-citizens getting a refund of the social security tax withheld from their income. Area 4 has brought three issues regarding innocent and injured spouse for Joint Committee approval later in the meeting and is still waiting for a response on the “Just in Time” elevated issue.

Area 4 met face-to-face in Chicago three weeks ago and wanted to express how absolutely invaluable face-to-faces meetings are for making progress on issues. Area 4 has performed outreach of all kinds but one major outreach is the “What's on TAP?” project. Various members have written articles about TAP and Area 4 has contacted professional organizations with newsletters and offered the articles as fillers. Area 4 is just about to release the first series of articles. Other Joint Committee members and staff really liked “What's on TAP?” idea from Area 4 and will also start gathering names of organizations that are willing to accept the articles. In addition, Smedley would appreciate additional articles from other members on what's happening in their committees. Coston also suggested the articles be made available for TAS and IRS employees. TAP has to make a commitment to the program because when you commit to a certain amount of space in a newsletter or publication, TAP needs to fulfill the promise.

ACTION: Toy will place this “What's on TAP” discussion on the agenda for the next Joint Committee meeting agenda for further discussion.

Area 5 Chair Report
Lillian Woo presented the Area 5 mid-year assessment. Area 5 has seven active issues and seven in the parking lot. Area 5 elevated eight issues during 2004 and has one more ready to refer to Joint Committee. Two issues were dropped; one because it was just too complicated, simplifying the capital gain forms, and another was dropped because the program owner thought it was a dumb idea. Area 5 had a face-to-face meeting in St. Louis on February 2, 2004. Part of that meeting was a media training session.

A subcommittee of Area 5 worked on the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) issue. Since the issue was in the NTA's Annual Report, AMT has become a phenomenon. LTAs in Area 5 incorporate TAP into their visits. TAP members are invited to congressional forums and TAP members give a short presentation describing TAP. The face-to-face meeting had good public attendance. One reason is that the TAS Area Director is very active in getting the word out about TAP and inviting the public to meetings.

Area 6 Chair Report
Mario Burgos presented the Area 6 Report. Issues coming into TAP are still being handled by a committee of one, the panel member from the originating state. Many come from Alaska, two from Montana—what proof is needed for audits, and employee benefits. If the issue is either legislative or not grand in scale and Area 6 decides not to elevate, a response is sent very quickly. In Oregon, Area 6 has an issue on how the IRS handles Native American names. The TAP member in Washington, Joe Reder, has been very ill and other members helped him with Washington's issues. Clayton Agena in Hawaii has published articles in trade publications and Jim Banks from Montana simultaneously hands out his pancake cookbook and TAP information. For Idaho, Larry Barnard hands out TAP materials and Darlene Braemon spends a lot of time in Washington, D.C. talking about TAP. In New Mexico, Burgos is running for office, and uses TAP as part of his public service experience. His website is linked to TAP. The most common question he is asked as what involvement he has had in government. Gregory Maciulla in Arizona is working on financial literacy; Chris Forzano in Washington is active in promoting TAP. Sherry Whah teaches tax classes and part of the curriculum is explaining about TAP.

Review and Approval of Area Recommendations

Expanding “Check the Box”
Cassady presented the Area 3 recommendation on “Expanding the Check Box.” Area 3 received complaints from practitioners that IRS bypassed the process by sending notices directly to taxpayers. Area 3 would like to see the check box authorization process simplified and expanded so the authorized party can verify taxpayers estimated tax payments, and additionally expand the authorization for the life of the tax return—three years. Currently, the third party designation is only good for one year and the check box can not be used to designate the third party as the primary contact. Bob Meldman mentioned that the changes to the Power of Attorney and tax authorizations may be in conflict with this proposal. As of March 29, 2004, Form 2848, Power of Attorney, can only designate a third party that is eligible to practice before the IRS. Unenrolled preparers can receive only limited disclosure authorization by using the Form 8821, Tax Information Authorization. Steinberg recognized the barrier of attempting to combine the authority of the power of attorney with the check box limited disclosure authorization given this change. This change will have a large affect on unenrolled preparers. Grimaldi added that this change would not affect one portion of the proposal which is to expand the term to allow following return through processing and future audits. Cassady stated that the main objective of the proposal is to follow through for life of return. Smedley provided a case history example of why it is important for the preparer to receive copies of notices. There was a discussion of which tax year's estimated tax payment history was indicated, the preceding or succeeding. There was an objection to only the designee receiving the copy of the notice, from the taxpayer's point of view--since the taxpayer is ultimately responsible, the taxpayer needs to be informed as well as the designee. The Joint Committee reached consensus on returning the issue to Area 3 for revision. Handelman suggested that the chair, or someone designated by the chair, needs to take responsibility for reviewing the issue and ensuring all topics are under correct headings; issues should not be rewritten at the Joint Committee level.

ACTION: The Expanding Check the Box Authorization will be sent back to Area 3 for reconsideration of the issues discussed at the Joint Committee meeting.

Adult Education
Cheyañna Jaffke presented Area 7's issue on Financial Literacy and Adult Education. Area 7 approved the issue on March 2, 2004. The recommendation is missing attachments that support the proposal. The proposal is to encourage IRS to devote resources to promoting tax education for adults with existing and future coalitions. IRS should also develop tax modules for the adult learners to go with the existing tax modules on ww.irs.gov. The products should be developed in different languages as well as versions for the visually impaired. Seuntjens asked how this issue differed from the previous financial literacy issue sent to Olson. Nicholas replied that the previous recommendation focused on high school students and working with the Treasury's coalition. Financial Literacy and Adult Education proposal was approved for elevation by consensus.

ACTION: Jaffke will forward the corrected referral form with attachments on the Adult Education proposal to Toy.

ACTION: Toy will format the “Adult Education” proposal, send the elevated issue to Sue Sottile, and enter on Tracking Database.

Notification of Non-requesting Innocent Spouse
Smedley stated that originally Area 4 worked these three as one issue but decided although related, they are separate. IRS has done a good job of making the Innocent Spouse form easier to understand. However, one problem is the notification of non-requesting spouse. It is not clear enough that this notification is a requirement for obtaining the innocent spouse status. When the requesting spouse finds out the IRS will notify the other spouse, often the requesting spouse drops the claim which wastes the time of both the IRS and the person filing. The proposed solution is to make this information bold and change the phrasing of the instructions. Editorial changes were made and the proposal was accepted with changes for elevation by consensus.

ACTION: Toy will format the Notification of Non-requesting Innocent Spouse” proposal, submit to Mike Chesman, and enter on Tracking Database.

Innocent Spouse/Injured Spouse
There is a tremendous amount of confusion among taxpayers and professionals because the words Innocent Spouse and Injured Spouse are so phonetically similar. Area 4 recognizes the barriers changing the name will cause especially since it requires a change in the statutory definition of Innocent Spouse. Discussion followed on whether this issue was beyond TAP's scope because it required a statutory change. It was decided that a technical correction that did not introduce “new” legislation was within TAP's scope. Injured spouse relates to how the income is allocated on a Married Filing Joint account when one spouse owes a liability outside of the marriage and their portion of the refund is offset to pay the liability. Seuntjens suggested changing the suggested wording for “Relief from Denied Spouse Refund” instead of injured spouse to “Relief for Spouse Denied a Refund.” Wording was changed to reflect Seuntjens' suggestion and proposal was approved for elevation by consensus.

ACTION: Toy will format the “Innocent Spouse/Injured Spouse” proposal. Submit to Sue Sottile, and enter on Tracking Database.

Innocent Spouse Outreach
Taxpayers and their legal advisors are not always aware that the terms of a divorce decree do not override the IRS tax code. This proposal is for IRS outreach to the Family Law Bar and Judiciary on Innocent Spouse Liability. Burgos questioned whether IRS had resources to create a new program. This is really another dimension to an existing program so should not cause serious problem. Changes were made to the wording of the proposal and the proposal was accepted for elevation by consensus.

ACTION: Toy will format the Innocent Spouse Outreach proposal, submit to Mike Chesman, and enter on Tracking Database.

Area 7 Chair Report
Jaffke reported that Area 7 was 100% successful in having proposals accepted by the IRS. The IRS accepted, for the most part, Area 7's proposal to clarify the Offer in Compromise instructions. Area 7 is currently looking at the installment agreement website and providing suggestions on making sure it is user friendly. Area 7 has never had a full complement of members and not all have been active. This caused a lack of momentum. Area 7 also shares the frustration of not working legislative issues.

A new discussion on working legislative issues ensued. The new members being brought to the panel need to know upfront that the panel does not address legislative issues. TAP is an advisory board to the IRS and the main focus should be working procedural or administrative issue where TAP can affect change. Again, it was stressed that information TAP receives from the public should not be ignored if it is legislative in nature but captured. TAP is supposed to by the “eyes” and “ears” for IRS in capturing “grass roots” issues. Legislative issues should be left to the NTA. TAP is more effective using their limited resources where change can be affected. Legislative issues can be referred to Olson through email by the committee or the individual panel member may enter the issue on the TAS page on www.irs.gov. Individuals can also bring the issue to their congressional representative. Another method of easing the tax burden instead of trying to change the law is to suggest an educational program on the issue. Seuntjens suggested chairs communicate this message to their committee members. Woo reminded the Joint Committee of an earlier recommendation she had made to form a subcommittee that would look at all the legislative issues.

ACTION: Chairs should communicate the legislative issue discussion to their committee members.

Back to Area 7. Jaffke reported that one of Area 7's best practices is to arrange their public meetings around an IRS outreach activity.

EITC Chair Report
Handelman reported that the EITC committee operates with three subcommittees: 1) Education, Publication & Forms, 2) Marketing and Outreach, and 3) Overclaims Analysis. The full committee meets every month by teleconference and has a face-to-face meeting next week in Las Vegas . Subcommittee work is done by email and some work will be completed during the face-to-face in Las Vegas . EITC submitted three sets of written proposals in response to requests from the program owners: proposals for forms and notices used in examinations to recertify EITC eligibility; proposals to improve The On line EITC Tool Kit for SPEC employees and partners; and proposals to improve the explanation of the EITC qualifying child residency certification pilot project.

The committee also responded to a request from the NTA regarding how to improve due diligence of preparers filing EITC claims. The committee also responded to a Low Income Tax Clinic lawyer's concerns about EITC audits.

The committee currently is preparing to provide feedback requested by program owners about the EITC qualifying child residency certification pilot project, EITC audit reengineering; EITC notice re-design; and EITC on line outreach and preparer education materials. The committee is also working on issues raised by committee members—EITC outreach in rural areas, EITC outreach through SPEC partnerships; EITC forms testing, and alternative ways to collect EITC eligibility information. The challenges are incorporating new members and the loss of Catherine Kelly. EITC has a productive relationship with program owners but is enormously frustrated with not having received written feedback.

Notice Chair Report
Skip Eshelman thanked Sally Chavez for pulling the information for this report together. The Notice committee has six subcommittees: Language Standardization is working with IRS team as external stakeholders in completing a writing style guide for all notices. The Document Assessment Tool (DAT) subcommittee had eight hours of training on the use of the DAT to score notices; the score is used to determine how well the notice is written. The DAT is used before the notice is written and after to determine the clarity of the notices. This subcommittee is currently working with EITC Issue committee on scoring EITC notices and assisting SB/SE in scoring collection notices. The Quarterly Strategy Team works with the program owners and attends the meeting held each quarter to review notices issues. This meeting is attended by IRS employees and external stakeholders, such as TAP. The Referrals subcommittee works with referrals from taxpayers from the TAP toll free number, web comments, or panel members on issues concerning notices. The Notice Process Improve Initiative Team (NPIT) subcommittee is working on a report concerning eliminating notices. The Dynamic Project Team (DPT) subcommittee works with the IRS DPT team as outside stakeholders. The panel members provide feedback and participate in the testing of redesigned notices.

Handelman asked if it made sense for other committees to get the DAT training.

Sandra Ramirez and Ferree will coordinate on this issue.

ACTION: Sandra Ramirez and Ferree will coordinate the possibility of providing DAT training for other committees.

Efiling Chair Report
Burgos reported that the Efiling committee is doing very well although the program owner has missed a deadline. The “E-File Made Easy” website application is very good and is completed but not on line. The marketing is coming along. Efiling already had our face-to-face but we are still missing items to complete our project. His one IRS criticism is the responsiveness of program owners, if the non-responsiveness issues were elevated quicker, Efile wouldn't have lost so much time in completing their projects and showcasing the projects at the meeting in November.

Exit Interviews & Recruitment
Many members have left: some due to health problems, some job changes, some moved, but TAP needs to know why people are leaving. Seuntjens proposed field managers conduct the exit interviews because they are closer to members. Steinberg suggested the chair conduct the interview since the chair has more rapport and will be free of any potential bias. Meldman disagreed because the problem may be with the chair. After more discussion, it was decided that from an industry perspective, the exit interviews are usually done by human resources and that you get more honest answers if the person conducting the interview is objective. Woo suggested the exit interviews be conducted by Treasury since TAP members are appointed by Treasury. Members also expressed concern about getting feedback from the exit interviews and did not want the information sanitized. Coston stated that the National TAP office is currently drafting the exit interview process and he prefers the national office conduct the interviews since there is no direct involvement with members on a regular basis. National office staff can be more objective and receive truer responses. Smedley suggested conducting the exit interviews in person, if it is possible or perhaps an on-line anonymous survey. Coston did not believe enough members were leaving and they leave sporadically that developing an on-line survey is not justified. But, he gave his assurance that TAP wanted to use the information gathered from the exit interviews to make corrections and build a better TAP and the information would not be sanitized before presentation to the chairs.

ACTION: Coston will share the exit interview form by June 15 Joint Committee meeting.

Discussion of IRS Responses

TAP 04-011 Immediate Feedback on Toll Free
Steinberg reported that Area 2 decided to close this issue and accept IRS's response. IRS responded that this type of survey was not practical with the current system and too expensive. The committee worked very hard and felt strongly that the information would be helpful to the IRS but closed the issue.

TAP 04-012 EFTPS Clarification of Tax Year
Held over until next meeting

TAP 03-016 W-4 Clarification
Held over for next meeting

Joint Committee Meeting in Denver on September 10th and 11th
A preliminary agenda for the November Annual meeting will be available for the September Joint Committee meeting. Seuntjens asked chairs to make sure the dates are on your calendar or ask a committee representative to attend. The meeting will be to discuss the November preliminary agenda and the chairs roles for the transition.

Saturday, May 7, 2004

Open Meeting
The May 18, 2004 Joint Committee meeting is cancelled. Chairs should combine the Monthly Committee reports for April and May on the report due June 8th. The two proposals from Area 1 will be covered later in this meeting.

ACTION: Committee chairs who haven't submitted their April report should combine the April and May report for the report due June 8, 2004.

Multilingual Chair Report
Twomley thanked the support staff for the good support and likes the format of his committee minutes so hopes the standardization will not change the format. One important part of the Multilingual recommendation is the realization that there is more to Multilingual than translating documents. Many are not literate in the first language or their first language is not written. At Joe Meissner's suggestion, the Multilingual committee is trying to formalize a way to work with the Low Income Tax Clinics (LITCs) that deal with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) persons. Multilingual would like to form an ongoing relationship to draw on each others experience and knowledge. Another priority is developing educational programs for English as a Second Language (ESL) people. Sharon Lassar is working on how best to use the new financial literacy commission and going outside the IRS to partner with other government agencies, homeland security, the office of citizenship. The Multilingual committee will have a face-to-face meeting in Brooklyn in June to discuss providing LEP taxpayer education and bringing all the other issues together. The committee would like to draw on the best practices of other government agencies and create ESL and LEP taxpayer education resources. This is not a finite project but ongoing. Steinberg suggested the committee visit the Multilanguage kiosks that the Brooklyn Citizen Advocacy Panel helped develop.

Payroll Chair Report
Steinberg presented the Payroll Committee report. Payroll tax reporting and payment of payroll taxes can be very complicated. The committee is wrapping up recommendations to issue owners by the end of May. The recommendations include proposing revisions to the Form 941, Federal Employer's Quarterly Tax Return, which will be revised for 2005. The committee made recommendations on form and format, who should file, level of liability, and other issues that can be implemented without legislation. Another subcommittee is dealing with the upcoming revamping of the payroll tax penalty structure. There are now six levels of penalties and the committee's recommendation is to streamline the structure using the prevalent IRS interest rate. The committee has also made recommendations for taxpayer education for small businesses/self-employed taxpayers. The committee did not work on the Federal Unemployment Tax issue because it is primarily a state issue and is not in the committee's realm. IRS needs to write publications for small business in plain, simple language so small businesses can meet their tax obligations by themselves and not have to hire professionals. IRS is making progress with Efiling individual, employment, and corporate tax returns but the committee wants greater emphasis on payroll taxes. The committee will be working with an Area 4 subcommittee on the Form W-4 that each employee should complete to figure out their tax liability.

Attendance and Participation of Panel Members
Seuntjens stated that TAP has a window of opportunity to replace current members who are not participating in their committees with new members. Each chair should review attendance. If the non-participating member has volunteered for a third year, the committee chair should check with the chair of the member's other committee to discuss their level of participation. Nagel asked how often staff should give the chairs the attendance report and Coston replied quarterly.

ACTION: Program Mangers will send out list of members who have volunteered to stay a third year to their committee chairs.

ACTION: Analysts will update and send out list of meeting attendance by May 10 to their assigned committees' chair and thereafter will send out attendance information quarterly.

Coston added that the members have already been accepted for the third year and this will not be rescinded but will agree to ask the non-participating member's intentions for their commitment during the third year. Woo asked for guidelines for removing panel members. The TAP guidance statement states missing three consecutive meetings without good cause as determined by the chair will be proposed for removal by a majority vote in the Joint Committee. The final decision for removal is made by Treasury. Coston reminded the chairs that in fairness there may be some one who's not participating in one committee but fully in the other so both chairs need to make the decision to bring it to the Joint Committee.

Effective Committees
The original objective in writing the Effective Communication document was to help the new chairs. It can also be thought of as best practices. McQuin asked if it should be thought of as Standard Operating Procedures for chairs and if so, should it incorporate the communication strategy. Seuntjens replied that it was not his initial thought but through earlier discussions, he heard that it should not be just conducting effective meetings, but should include information on making outreach more consistent, a template for monthly report, information on referrals to the Joint Committee, etc. It would be better to have one document covering everything rather than handing out one document at a time. Joint Committee members agreed that one guide would be very valuable and that staff and members should work together in producing the document for final review at the Joint Committee's September meeting,

Action: Jaffke, Woo, Seuntjens, Sandra Ramirez, and Tersheia Carter will produce an operating guidance document for committee chairs by the September Joint Committee (this action item combined with earlier action item to extract portions of staff Standard Operating Procedures).

After discussion the following decisions were made regarding the guidance document and should be incorporated into the final document:

• The guidance document should be written from the perspective of assisting the chair's in developing effective committees
• The audience for the guidance documents should be all TAP members with emphasis on the chairs
• Special attention should be paid to keep the document gender neutral

Area 1 Referrals

Extend EFTPS Access Period
Taxpayers can review tax payments made using EFTPS electronically. Initially the archive period was only 120 days; then the period was extended to 16 months. This recommendation is to extend the archive period from 16 months to 36 months. This will cover the extension of filing and processing periods. The Joint Committee agreed to elevate this proposal by consensus.

ACTION: Toy will format the “Extend EFTPS Access Period” proposal, enter it on the tracking database, and elevate to Mike Chesman.

TAP Information on Forms and Publications
This proposal was to add a statement on the most popular IRS forms, instructions, and publications to encourage taxpayers to contact the TAP website or toll free number to provide feedback. Coston warned that if you put the number out there, it will be used, but not by those wanting to provide suggestions but by people needing tax help. Smedley believes it will be difficult to get the IRS to agree to add lines to forms. McQuin added that it would be ideal to place TAP information in publications where there is room to explain TAP's mission and when to use the number. Meldman suggested the ideal method is to add a stuffer to all tax forms explaining TAP. Seuntjens suggested staying away from forms and not using the toll free telephone number but the web address only. Grimaldi asked if there was a way to get feedback prior to submitting a proposal so it can be modified to avoid rejection. Handelman suggested adding web site address to notices. Coston added that TAP's message needed to be consistent with its mission “to improve IRS services and customer satisfaction.”

ACTION: Grimaldi will bring the “TAP Information on Forms and Publications” proposal back to Area 1 for more research and revision.

Interviews
Coston asked Area chairs to start working on a list of volunteers for recruitment interviews. Volunteers will be asked to commit a week--interviews held Tuesday through Wednesday, travel days, Monday and Friday. Currently the interview sites being considered are Milwaukee, Brooklyn, Florida, Seattle and the District of Columbia. There will be no interviewing in either Hawaii or Puerto Rico.

Consensus Decision Making
Handelman reported that some committees had trouble reaching consensus and that one member could effectively block any work being completed. Meldman suggested sending in a majority and minority report. Smedley believes TAP operating procedures asks the committees to strive for consensus but that the committee is not absolutely bound to it. Seuntjens asked if the problem was caused by someone's personal agenda or what more specifically caused the conflict. Steinberg suggested using Meldman's suggestions for referring the proposal to the Joint Committee and if the Joint Committee agreed to the majority proposal, they drop the minority opinion. Smedley stated that TAP needs to work from the taxpayer's perspective, what works best for the taxpayer and if someone opposes because of their own personal objective, there has to be a way around reaching consensus. Steinberg said it was important to present both sides to the Joint Committee and either the Joint Committee will oppose or choose to elevate the issue. Seuntjens concluded that the committees should always try to reach consensus.

Sch C Non filer Chair Report
Paul Nagel presented the Schedule C Non Filer committee report. The committee has assigned various issues to two subcommittees. Outreach and Education--the outreach targets are trade schools and high schools. This subcommittee works a lot on the W-9 Form, Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification. The other Subcommittee is Payment Issues which works on analyzing and increasing usage of the Schedule C-EZ, Profit or Loss from Business, Short Version, and a separate line on Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business, for reporting amounts paid to independent contractors when the Form 1099, U.S. Information Return, is issued and amounts paid not using the form 1099. Some of the committee's accomplishments are: Consistency between Schedule C filing requirements and the Social Security credit, Expanding the EZ pay method to IRS, and simplifying the compliance to estimated tax payment requirements. One disappointment has been the turnover in program owners; the committee has had three program owners.

Ad Hoc Chair Report
Meldman presented the Ad Hoc committee report. The committee worked the following issues: National Licensing of Practitioners which is addressed in Senate Bill S-882; Confidentiality of information provided to return preparers by taxpayers, the recommendations to the Notice Gatekeeper; and the issue on cutting the dedicated phone line in the Taxpayer Assistance Centers. Seuntjens added that the NTA was to give Ad Hoc issues but the practice has not continued. The Joint Committee needs to reassess what the Ad Hoc is doing. Handelman asked if there has been any talk about having different issue committees. Coston replied that the issues need to be reevaluated and discussed; some issue committees may continue but some may not. Program Owners of the Issue Committees will be invited to present their issues at the November meeting.

McQuin asked if anyone had different ideas of how to assign members to issue committees.

ACTION: Chairs should send their thoughts for ways of assigning members to issue committees to McQuin.

Coston reported that due to the Joint Committee and Ad Hoc's involvement and insistence on the dedicated phone line in the TACs, IRS reversed their decision. Coston stated this shows how TAP is having an impact and making a difference for taxpayers.

Annual Report Writing
Chairs will provide both verbal and written reports at the November meeting. Seuntjens would like more consistency in the committee annual assessments. The TAP annual report should be a composite of the area and issue committee reports. The report should be written by the TAP chair and a subcommittee not just the chair. Steinberg stated the difficulty of standardizing the reports because of the differences in the chairs. Seuntjens would like to retain more detail than National Office prefers because he wants the public to know what TAP has done. Steinberg suggested separating the area and issue committee reports.

Seuntjens stated that chairs, even if they have not opted for a third year, will be invited to the November meeting to help with the transition and provide consistency in the annual report. Seuntjens will ask for volunteers to polish the annual report after the November meeting and to start thinking about volunteering. Handelman asked how much input should we get from our committee members and should it be anonymous. Nicholas suggested asking committee members what would you suggest to continue doing, what should be stopped, what should we start doing? Seuntjens said the chair should ask for written comments and it's best to ask all committee members to have input to the committee's report.

ACTION: Toy add agenda item to next face-to-face on chair's role for the transition: should the chairs continue for the one year term, should they be mentors?

Closing
Reminder that changes to media documents need to be to McQuin because after that they will be sent for publishing.

Coston asked the attendees to give their impressions of the meeting. Twomley thanked Coston for attending meeting and being open. Steinberg thanked the staff; effort is greatly appreciated. TAP is an evolutionary process—it takes time to build. There have been missteps and problems but that is how organizations are built. Progress has been shown in each face-to-face meeting. Smedley stated that this was her first Joint Committee face-to-face and that it helped her. She feels more comfortable now in her role and feels the committee accomplished a lot. Smedley thinks that face-to-face meetings are effective and allow the committees to accomplish a lot. Woo thanked the staff. Woo thinks the meeting went well and the committee made progress. This also is Grimaldi's first face-to-face; it is nice to be a part of seeing the Joint Committee and TAP growing and evolving. Jaffke thanked Coston for attending and hearing what the chairs had to say. Handelman feels enormously encouraged and energized. TAP has come so far in just a few months. It's great that staff and chairs will have standardized operating procedures. The EITC committee is finally coming together. Meldman said that face-to-face meetings are invaluable and reminded the committee that TAP is taxpayer advocates not preparers. Cassady learned a lot from being at the meeting. Staff provided good support. McQuin said it was good to hear how the committees are working and working together. Nicholas feels attending the Joint Committee meetings make her more effective in her job. Ferree agrees that it helps her be more effective on calls and at meetings. Ramirez said this was her second face-to-face and it provided an opportunity to hear from all committees. Curry said the meetings get better and better.

Coston thanked all for their commitment, their time, and their diligence. He has seen quite a bit of work in a short amount of time. He feels TAP will improve and accomplish a lot. Seuntjens said that staff gave us footholds. For the first year, it was amazing we got things done. But, during the second year TAP has really evolved. We got through some administrative issues; working together to accomplish a lot. Seuntjens is happy with the organization and we should feel good when we hand over the committee. The Joint Committee is coming together as a team.

ACTION: Seuntjens will report to Joint Committee the results of his meetings in Washington.

Assignments

All attendees:

1. Any content changes to the Talking Points, Media Guide, or Media Pocket Guide should be provided to McQuin by May 12, 2004
2. Send their thoughts for ways of assigning members to issue committees to McQuin.

Joint Committee Members:

1. Work with their assigned analyst to review the issue matrix titles and, whenever possible, place the key word first (i.e., if an issue is concerning EITC, EITC should be the first word in the title. If it concerns a form, the form number should be the first word.)
2. Ensure a copy of or summary of any responses either written or oral to issues elevated through the Joint Committee be sent to Toy
3. Committee chairs who haven't submitted their April report should combine the April and May report for the report due June 8, 2004

Area Chairs:

1. Routinely update committee members on decisions made and information provided at the Joint Committee meetings at the next scheduled area meeting.
2. Work with Program Managers to include discussion of the PowerPoint during the area committee communication strategy discussion including instructions on how to personalize the PowerPoint.
3. Stress with members the importance of completing the Speaker/Media Form or finding another method of getting the information to staff for entry into the database
4. Communicate the legislative issue discussion to their committee members

Berkey:

1. Work with publishing to produce pocket-sized versions of the Media Guide and the Talking Points.
2. Develop fact sheet of success stories for panel members to use as part of their outreach and to insert into press releases and will update to keep stories fresh. First fact sheet due June 15

Tersheia Carter, Jaffke, Woo, Seuntjens, and Ramirez:

1. Produce an operating guidance document for committee chairs by the September Joint Committee (this action item combined with earlier action item to extract portions of staff Standard Operating Procedures).

Coston:

1. Share the exit interview form by June 15 Joint Committee meeting
2. Speak to Chesman and Sottile about a feedback mechanism or reporting mechanism to issue committees from the program owners. (01/20/2004)

Ferree and Ramirez:

1. Will coordinate the possibility of providing DAT training for other committees.

Grimaldi:

1. Bring “TAP information on Publications and Forms” proposal back to Area 1 for more research and revision.

Handelman:

1. Brief Coston on what is meant by the following assignment: TAP and IRSAC sometimes have similar committees working the same issue as the TAP issue committees, for example each have a subcommittee on EITC. Jim Grimes is the lead of the EITC task force (01/20/2004)

Jaffke:

1. Forward the corrected referral form with attachments on the Adult Education proposal to Toy

Nagel:

1. Work with the authors of the Schedule K-1 proposal and George Sullivan to rewrite it, and present again to the Joint Committee (03/16/2004).

Program Managers:

1. Present the Communication Strategy at upcoming area meetings.
2. Work with chairs to include discussion of the PowerPoint during the area committee communication strategy discussion including instructions on how to personalize the PowerPoint.
3. Inform analysts to work with the chairs to review the issue matrix titles and, whenever possible, place the key word first (i.e., if an issue is concerning EITC, EITC should be the first word in the title. If it concerns a form, the form number should be the first word.)
4. Inform analysts and work with the analyst assigned to an Issue Committee to start tracking their committee's recommendations and perform any necessary follow-up with the program owners.
5. Inform analysts to ensure a copy of or summary of any written or oral responses to issues elevated through the Joint Committee be sent to Toy
6. Send out list of members who have volunteered to stay a third year to their committee chairs.
7. Inform analysts to update and send out list of meeting attendance by May 10 to their assigned committees' chair and thereafter will send out attendance information quarterly.

Seuntjens:

1. Report to Joint Committee the results of his meetings in Washington.

Staff:

1. Update the PowerPoint presentation and redistribute.
2. Put a reminder in place to consider Advanced Media Training and Speaker Training for the National Meeting in November.
3. Continue to work on the TAP Contact Database so complete report is available for June Joint Committee meeting

Sullivan:

1. Bring the “Expanding Check the Box Authorization” referral back to Area 3 for reconsideration of the issues discussed at the Joint Committee meeting.
2. Work with the authors of the Schedule K-1 proposal and George Sullivan to rewrite it, and present again to the Joint Committee (03/16/2004).

Toy:

1. Change status on the “Offer in Compromise Waiver of Fee” proposal from “Pending Review by TAP” to Closed, Proposal Rejected.”
2. Update the category list for TAP contacts as suggested and present at June Joint Committee meeting.
3. Update the TAP Recommendations Index, put in numerical order, separate the alpha codes and provide a key to the alpha Codes by the June Joint Committee Meeting.
4. Add the status of the issue to the TAP Recommendations Summary report and will run the revised report for the June Joint Committee meeting and thereafter, quarterly
5. Update status report as requested by the June Joint Committee Meeting
6. Place this “What's on TAP” discussion on the agenda for the next Joint Committee meeting agenda for further discussion.
7. Format the Adult Education” proposal, send the elevated issue to Sue Sottile and enter on Tracking Database.
8. Format the Notification of Non-requesting Innocent Spouse” proposal. submit to Mike Chesman, and enter on Tracking Database
9. Format the “Innocent Spouse/Injured Spouse” proposal. submit to Sue Sottile, and enter on Tracking Database
10. Format the Innocent Spouse Outreach proposal, submit to Mike Chesman, and enter on Tracking Database
11. Format the “Extend EFTPS Access Period” proposal, enter it on the tracking database, and elevate to Mike Chesman
12. Add agenda item to next face-to-face on chair's role for the transition: should the chairs continue for the one year term, should they be mentors?
13. Distribute SAMS issue report with instructions on use to Joint Committee members.
14. Place review of Issue Matrix report on June Joint Committee agenda and distribute updated report to committee members and staff.
15. Prepare the Message on Refund Check Envelope for elevation (01/20/2004)
16. Place review the form for collecting the inventory of knowledge, skills, and abilities and the proposed process on the June Agenda and distribute update form to committee members and staff prior to meeting.
17. Prepare letter to elevate forms testing recommendations.
18. Prepare a letter to elevate fax numbers on notices (03/16/2004).

Whah:

1. Discuss the On Hold for Toll Free and the Provider Identification Number response and report back to Barbara Toy on its status. Consolidate the response for Meyer and Sullivan on the On Hold for Toll Free issue
2. Discuss the IRS response to TAP 04-012 EFTPS Clarification of Tax Year and TAP 03-016 W-4 Clarification with Area committee and report results back to Joint Committee