Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP)
Joint Committee Teleconference Minutes
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 - 2 p.m. ET

Designated Federal Official
Bernie Coston, TAP Director

Members Present
Hank Mosler, TAP Chair
Shaun Barry, Chair, Area 1
Ben Chapman, Chair, Area 2
Dale Cooper, Chair, Area 3
Elizabeth Colvin, Vice Chair, VITA    
Kenneth Wright, Chair, Area 5
Milissa Bensen, for Area 6
Charles Davidson, Chair, Area 7
Bruce Zgoda, Chair, Burden Reduction
Mark Paris, Chair, Communication
John Verwiel, Chair, EITC
Joe Shields, Chair, Area 6
Lee Stieger, Chair, Notices
Stan Wernz, Chair, Area 4
Wayne Whitehead, Chair, TAC

Members Absent
MJ Lee, TAP Vice Chair
Al Rodriguez, Chair, Forms and Pubs
Rick Rousseau, Chair, VITA

Staff Present
Anita Fields, Note Taker
Susan Gilbert, Acting TAP Manager
Nancy Ferree, TAP Manager
Judi Nicholas, TAP Manager
Inez DeJesus, Program Analyst
Mary Ann Delzer, Program Analyst
Sallie Chavez, Program Analyst
Donna Powers, Jr. Program Analyst
Steve Berkey, Senior Program Analyst

Visitors:
Bob Haines, Panel Member
Pat Bryant, Panel Member
Robert Jackson, Panel Member
Howard Margulies, Panel Member

Welcome/Announcements/Review Agenda
Hank Mosler welcomed everyone.

Roll Call
Quorum met.

National Office Report
See Attachment 1 for report.  This report has also been posted to TAPSpace.  Note that the TAC Face to Face is taking place at the same time and place as the Burden Reduction in Denver, CO this month.  At the request of Mark Paris, Bernie will go into a more detail report on the budget.

TAP Chair Report
See attachment 2 for full report.  Hank said that if anyone has anything to add to the agenda please get back to him.  The agenda for the June Face to Face is a working progress.  Ben Chapman asked for clarification on the mid-year report. Hank explained to just add where we are on various issues, what the accomplishments are and any significant outreaches that we’ve done.  Hank said at the face to face each chair will present the activity that is going on in their committees and use the mid-year as a handout.  Hank also mentioned that he and Louis Morizio have created a new active issues report and it will be available soon.  Take a look at the previous one dated March 24th to ensure that it is accurate.  We would like to establish a completion target date for each issue. 
ACTION:  Chairs submit a written summary of what your committee has done through May.  This will take the place of the May monthly report.  Due to Marisa June 12, 2008.

Chairs take a look at the last active issues report dated March 24 to ensure that it is correctly represent what is active.   

The April minutes were approved as submitted.

Bernie pointed out that there will be a Joint Committee meeting the first week of June as scheduled.  Also have the Face to Face June 19, 2008, but will not have a Joint Committee meeting in July.  The June Face to Face will take the place of the July meeting.

Feedback from April 2 Meeting
Kenneth Wright congratulated Hank, he received great reviews.  One comment said that this was a great meeting.  Another said, this call was a tremendous improvement over the previous calls, I think we are finally getting the handle on how and how not to participate on a conference call with so many participants.  There was a suggestion for the upcoming face to face meetings; it was emailed to Hank for him to take a look at it.

Kenneth Wright solicited panel members from other Areas that speak Spanish to help with an assignment from MLI to review the Spanish free file website. 
ACTION:  Chairs identify Spanish speaking TAP members that want to participate in reviewing the Spanish free file website and put them in touch with Alberto Rodriguez.

Recruitment
This year’s recruitment was improved by 60% as far as applications are concerns over last year.  We have about 619 applications.  Applications were received from every state that we recruited in.  We are now in the process of ranking and we are on target.  Bernie thanked everyone on the work they have done with recruitment.  Steve Berkey informed chairs to be on the look out for calls to help out with interviews. 

Area Recommendations for Review and Elevation to IRS
Wayne Whitehead said that the vacancy on the Quality Review team has been filled by Bob Haines from Area 2.  Issue 4633 will be sent elevated to the IRS with the changes hank made.

• #4633, Elimination of full Social Security Number on Checks—Howard Margulies said payments made to the IRS via checks pass through many hands during the entire financial processing procedure. The committee feels that with all the other information appearing on a check, e.g., taxpayers’ name(s), address, financial institution and account number, the full Social Security number facilitates identity theft or other financial fraud.  In addition, the FTC, in a brochure regarding prevention of identity theft and on their website, recommends that Social Security numbers should not be put on checks.  Dale Cooper asked what happens if the check gets separated from the voucher, because every check that comes into the IRS is not a personal check.  Howard states that we are asking that just the last four SSN along with the last name should allow for it to process to the correct account.  There were discussions regarding e-file and e-pay. Hank suggested that in the benefits and barriers where it mentions the voucher to add in parenthesis (e.g. 1040ES and 1040Z).  Ben Chapman shared that IRS really need SSN, not just the last four digits.  This was received from IRS personnel on a screening committee call regarding a similar issue.  It was decided to send Issue 4633 forward to the IRS with additions added by consensus.

• #4243, Notice of Deficiency

Pat Bryant said this was brought to her by the LITC clinic.  They have a large number of taxpayers signing the Form 4089, Notice of Deficiency-Waiver without fully understanding that they are agreeing to pay the balance due. The notice letters specifically state if you decide not to file a petition with the tax court to please sign the enclosed.  It doesn’t stress the fact that you are agreeing to the payment, also the size of the lettering is too small on the form. The committee believes that increasing the font size, making it bold and adding that not only are they not going to tax court, they are also agreeing to pay the assessment that is involved. We feel that this will lessen the error rate and lessen the burden on low income taxpayers.  It was decided to send Issue 4243 to the IRS by consensus.

Patti Robb will be doing travel for the face-to face meeting.  Mosler said if you are planning to bring your spouse to please email Kenneth Wright for a headcount.  The meeting will start Thursday morning, June 19 and end at noon on Saturday, June 21.  The committee will meet and stay at the Crowne Plaza in Clayton, MO which is a suburb of St. Louis. 

Mosler said the second Face-to Face will be held tentatively October2-4, 2008.  We still have to come up with a location.  There are two primary agenda items for the second face-to-face meeting.

• Getting closure on working issues and wrapping up the year.
• Working on the Annual Business Meeting.

• New template

Susan stated to please get your monthly reports in on time using the new template.  Please send them through your area or issue manager to Marisa Knispel.

• Reminder of Where to send

The Monthly committee report is due to the committee’s manager and analyst by the 10th of each month.  The manager or analyst will forward the report to the JC analyst for compiling and send a copy to the chair.  This will serve to inform the chair the report was submitted timely.  Joe Shields asked if the panel members can get an updated email list of the staff.
ACTION: Send an updated email list of the staff to panel members and post to TAPSpace.

Town Hall Meetings
The Town Hall meeting in Springfield was successful. There were about 62 people from the public there.  Most were practitioners.

• Area 2 Feedback

Ben Chapman said that during the face-to face meeting in Baltimore we were able to get two of Nina’s attorney advisors to come and speak.  There was also a presentation by the LTA in Baltimore and two attorneys’ from the University of Baltimore LITC clinic.  Ben felt that the meeting went very well and the surveys were good.

• EITC Feedback

John Verwiel said that he just sent the first draft of the EITC recommendation to Louis Morizo and Audrey Jenkins in Brooklyn.  The committee is going to try to simplify the EITC process a bit to go after the under served and non served individuals that qualify for benefits but are not receiving what they are legally entitled to.

• Area 6 Feedback

Joe Shields shared that Area 6 just concluded their face-to-face meeting.  He said that he hope to have some stuff elevated before the June meeting.  They found that there were a lot of issues that they could close due to some law changes.  They were able to eliminate a lot of the parking lot materials.

Area/Issue Committee Success Stories (e.g., Outreach, Special Events, Others)
Ken Wright said that the Adhoc Committee had a rush project to review Pub 4681 Cancellation of Debt and at the Town Hall meeting he received positive feedback and kudos from the NTA (Nina Olson) on the quality input from TAP.

Dale Cooper said that he and a couple of other panel members from Georgia are going to attend a Congressional Liaison meeting next week.  

Ben Chapman wanted to know if there is going to be some sort of letter regarding Refund Anticipation Loans (RALs).  He mentioned that he noticed in one of April Chair reports that someone was working on preparing comments for RALs.  Stan said that the IRS was requesting comments on RALs and the comments needed to be filed by April 7th.  There was nothing formal to put comments together, but the panel members that were interested did submit their comments.  Elizabeth Colvin said that some members of the VITA submitted comments also.  Ben said that the IRS is always looking for comments; although they gave a deadline of April 7th they would still take recommendations.  He asked if anyone was interested in putting together some TAP comments regarding RALs.  Someone asked about the IRS position regarding RALs.  It was answered that they want to restrict paid preparers from advertising loan products.

Mosler reminded everyone to take pictures at their face-to-face meetings to use in the annual report.

Public Input
No comments. 

Closing
Hank said thanks to everyone for the call and to please complete the survey form.

Next Meeting:  Wednesday June 4, 2008, 2 p.m. ET

DECISIONS:

• Consensus to elevate issue #4633, Elimination of full Social Security Number on Checks and Issue #4243, Notice of Deficiency

ACTIONS:
All:

• Please submit your meeting surveys to Ken Wright by Friday.
  All Chairs:
• Look over the proposed topics carefully so we can finalize June’s face-to-face agenda.
• Chairs submit a written summary of what you committee has done through May.  This will take the place of the May monthly report.  Due to Marisa June 12, 2008.
• Chairs take a look at the last active issues report dated March 24 to ensure that it is correctly represent what is active.
• Chairs identify Spanish speaking TAP members that want to participate in reviewing the Spanish free file website and put them in touch with Alberto Rodriguez.
• Hank needs to talk to Bernie regarding Joint Committee second face-to-face meeting location.
• Send an updated email list of the staff to panel members and post to TAPSpace.

Quality Review team:

• Complete the Quality Review checklist for each recommendation and post for pre-read for the Joint Committee meeting.

Area Chairs:

• Review the List of TAP Issues and determine a target elevation date for each of their active issues.  The Chair should ask the Committee analyst to input the date to the TAP database.

PRIOR MEETING OPEN ACTION ITEMS AND DECISIONS:

All Chairs:

• Send an email to MJ Lee with your thoughts and comments regarding outreach and setting goals.
• Chairs with additional suggestions for improving the outreach feedback form should send them to directly Kay Bell.

Mark Paris:

• Send out the survey comment report.

Kay Bell:
The Outreach Feedback Form will be updated with the suggestions made and Kay Bell will send the revised form out to all Joint Committee members