October 3, 2003
1:30 PM – 5:00 PM- EDT

Face-to-Face Meeting
Grand Hyatt Washington Hotel
1000 H Street NW-Roosevelt Conference Room
Washington , D.C.

Welcome/Annoucements/Review Agenda
Chair Sharon Lassar opened the meeting timely followed by the roll call.

Lou Romito will be Designated Federal Official (DFO) during this meeting.

Program Owner Cross introduced Program Analyst Raymond Mills who will be working with the committee during the upcoming fiscal year.

Roll Call & Confirmation of Quorum (5)
Taken by Program Analyst Inez E. De Jesus.

• Quorum= 5
• Total Members Present=8

Panel Members Present

• Linda Bader, Chesterfield, MO
• Lou Romito, Designated Federal Official (DFO)
• Elizabeth Brodbine Ghoniem, Winchester, MA , Vice-Chair
• Delford Jones, Griffith, IN
• Sharon Lassar, Miami, FL , Chair
• Joseph Meissner, Cleveland, OH
• Sharon Stetz, Salt Lake City, UT
• Bruce Twomley, Juneau, AK

Members Not Present

• Mary Balmer, Chapel Hill, NC- (Reassigned by choice to W&I-Reducing Taxpayer Burden Notice Issue Committee)
• Yvonne Gallegos-Bodle, Oxnard, CA- (Reassigned by choice to SB/SE Payroll Taxes Issue Committee)
• Kenneth Logan, Blue Springs, MO

MLI Program Owner(s)

• Toni M. Cross
• Raymond Mills

TAP Staff

• Inez E. De Jesus (Program Analyst/Scribe)

Review/Approve Meeting Minutes of September 19, 2003
Minutes were approved by consensus.

Sub-committee Reports
Chair Lassar reviewed with the committee and Program Owners the “Report of Activities and Recommendations” from October 2002 – September 2003 which she had previously emailed to everyone.

Highlights of the discussion were as follows:

Recommendation #2
“The IRS should work with the federal and state agencies charged with oversight of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program to insure participants receive basic tax education.” (Because this recommendation does not pertain solely to LEP taxpayers, will be presented to the TAP Joint Committee for consideration). Committee agreed.

Recommendation #3
“We recommend the IRS reach out to “notarios” and provide training workshops in their native languages. “Notarios” may be licensed as notary publics in the communities they serve. The local government should be able to provide a mailing list of license holders.” Program Owner Cross stated that this is an excellent recommendation and the committee feels that this recommendation needs to be worked further before elevating.

Chair Lassar explained that “notarios” work in all types of ethnic neighborhoods and help their clients with all types of paperwork, including tax return preparation. Some are unethical but many are honest individuals who do the best they can with limited tax knowledge. The issue of educating LEP (Limited English Proficient) individuals is crucial. Also, there is a need to educate tax preparers and notarios in the communities.

Committee agreed that committee members should try to obtain a list of notarios that are licensed in their local communities so that we can assess the viability of developing outreach to notarios. (Action item)

Committee agrees that an educational package is a great idea and work with media such as Telemundo in Miami, Florida would assist LEP's.

Some members mentioned that sometimes there is a literacy issue between LEP's even in their native language.

Recommendation #4
“We recommend that the IRS provide a mechanism by which the “unofficial” documents and pamphlets prepared by LITC's (Low Income Taxpayer Clinics) can be freely shared by all communities and organizations that serve LEP taxpayers. For example, the Director of the LITC program could establish a web site for this purpose.”- (This recommendation will be presented to the Program Owners for further discussion.- It should be noted that the IRS is aware of the fact that numerous “unofficial” translations of documents in Asian languages have been prepared and it has formed a task force to try to gather these documents so they can be shared.)

The committee agreed that this recommendation needs to be changed.

Program Owner Cross reminded the committee that before any official IRS pamphet is translated, it needs to be brought to the attention of the Program Owner.

Committee agreed that each member will contact their local Low Income Tax Clinic (LITC). (A copy of Publication 4134, which lists the LITC's throughout the country had previously been shared with the committee.)

Since Publication 4134 is not coded, the committee requested that a list be obtained from the LITC Director which shows which clinics serve LEP taxpayers as well as LITC's email addresses. (Action items for Analyst De Jesus)*

• Analyst learned and shared with the committee after this meeting that Publication 4134 is currently being revised and the updated version will be available November 2003. The revised publication will indicate which clinics service LEP's and the specific language that is available. In addition, email addresses are not available at this time due to constant changes in personnel and addresses of LITC's.
• *Program Analyst De Jesus will be mailing out updated publication to the entire committee as soon as she receives updated version of Publication 4134.
• *Program Analyst De Jesus has since this meeting shared with the committee, that if they need any assistance when dealing with their local LITC's, to please bring them to her attention and she would elevate to the Office of the Director, LITC

There was further discussion on why IRS cannot and does not recommend which clinic or accountant to go to. (This was discussed during the TAP Conference- general session on the previous day).

Committee member Delford Jones shared that he had contacted Immigration in Indiana inquiring about what system they had in place specifically with the test that they conduct for citizenship. What quality controls are in place for LEP's?

Committee member Linda Bader informed everyone that there is no LITC in St. Louis.

1. ESL Initiative

Committee member Bader addressed the committee with the “Outline of Proposed ESL (English as a Second Language) Tax Curriculum” which she has drafted with the assistance of Sally Sandy, Teacher, Program Director, Parkway Area Adult Education and Literacy in St. Louis , MO.

Committee agreed that they should partner with SPEC (Stakeholder, Partnership, Education & Communication). What does the IRS want to get across? Who owns it, the Board of Education or State? Research is also needed to find out about the funding of Adult Ed Classes.

Action item: Program Owner Cross supports this initiative and made a commitment to get someone from SPEC to work with Ms. Bader.

The committee and Program Owner agreed that the next step would be to prepare a “test pilot” (best practices) in order to test the waters.

Goal/Action: Linda Bader will coordinate with the teacher in St. Louis , MO, to test the curriculum with the assistance of the local SPEC

Vice-Chair Elizabeth Brodbine Ghoniem reminded everyone that Bentley College currently is doing something similar.

Program Owner Cross suggested the following guidelines for the MLI committee:

What: What do you want to communicate? What will it cost? (consistent information- what needs to be communicated?)

How: How will information be communicated?

Other related discussion by the committee:

• How do you determine the curriculum?
• What is the best method to teach?
• Regarding LITC's surveys- find out what LITC's are doing.
• Ask Ms. Sally to work this curriculum into her class and train instructors.
• The trust issue of where LEP's might want to go is very important.
• Test effectiveness of the course by creating a test.
• While Ms. Bader meets with Ms. Sally, an “exit test” at least with 5 questions needs to be created. Action: Elizabeth Brodbine Ghoniem will obtain a copy of what Bentley College uses.
• Find out from LEP-LITC's if they have such a program and if so, do they give a test to the LEP's students.
• Find out if the LITC's have any brochures they are willing to share. (Committee agreed that request should be made in 2 separate emails)

2. Vital Documents

Committee member Linda Bader shared with everyone a Voter's Guide pamphlet entitled “Your Voice, Your Vote” that she had obtained from the Elections Division in Jefferson City , MO. This publication is written half in English and half in Bosnic, and it is sponsored by the Secretary of the State and by Verizon Wireless.

Chair Lassar distributed to all copies of Executive Order 13166- “Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency” dated August 11, 2000. In essence, each agency has to develop a plan for the translation of all vital documents and each agency has to identify vital documents for translation. Example, the Health and Human Services has a consent form in different languages.

Also, Chair Lassar distributed to all copies of Federal Register Notice dated March 7, 2001, Department of the Treasury- Guidance to Federal Financial Assistance Recipients on the Title VI Prohibition Against National Origin Discrimination Affecting Limited English Proficient Persons-

On page 13833- (2) Translation of Written Materials- is required by Law.

*”As part of its overall language assistance program, a recipient must develop and implement a plan to provide written materials in languages other than English where a significant number or percentage of the population eligible to be served or likely to be directly affected by the program needs services or information in a language other than English to communicate effectively.”

Question arose: “Does that include every tax form?”

Chair Lassar shared that the Department of Justice recently issued a guidance on same subject matter and there was a period of re-publication for comments on the Treasury's initial guidance; this period has expired. The committee decided to draft comments on the Treasury guidance. (Action item-Lassar will prepare first draft)

Committee also discussed the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA's) Report #2003-40-163- which recently conducted a study on how IRS executes Executive Order 13166.

Accordingly, in the report, the “1040” was recommended to be translated.

Recently the National Women's Law Center sent a letter to Commissioner Everson and Chair Lassar shared that she had the opportunity to converse with an individual from this organization. The letter called for the Commissioner to spend money targeted for the EITC pre-certification program on speeding up the translation of vital documents instead. The organization based their recommendation on the TIGTA report, not independent information.

On October 2, 2003 , at the TAP Conference in D.C., Commissioner Everson had shared that he does not agree that translation of all forms is the best way to serve LEP's. Committee decided to draft a letter to the Commissioner regarding the committee's views on reaching LEP taxpayers. (Action item- Panel Members Meissner and Twomley to edit draft)

The letter was circulated and edited by committee members via email during the week following the meeting. The final version was prepared on October 10 and mailed on October 13, 2003.

New Business/Report from Program Owner
Program Owner Cross expressed her gratitude to the committee for their efforts this past year and is looking forward to their continual partnership in addressing the needs of LEP's. 

Election of Chair/Vice-Chair
Since Chair Lassar had previously announced that she would be stepping down as Chair, separate elections by ballots were performed for both the Chair and Vice-Chair positions. Election results:

• New Chair- Bruce Twomley
• Vice-Chair- Elizabeth Brodbine Ghoniem (no change) 

Scheduled Meetings for 2003/2004
Committee agreed to the following:

Dates - Times - Via Telephone/Face-to-Face

• 11/21/2003, 1:00-2:00 PM EST, Teleconference
• 12/19/2003, 1:00-2:00 PM EST, Teleconference
• 01/15 & 16/2004, to be determined, Face-to-Face (Florida TAP Office-Plantation, FL)
• 02/20/2004, 1:00-2:00 PM EST, Teleconference
• 03/19/2004, 1:00-2:00 PM EST, Teleconference
• 04/16/2004, 1:00-2:00 PM EDT, Teleconference
• 05/21/2004, 1:00-2:00 PM EDT, Teleconference
• 06/03 & 04/2004, to be determined, Face-to-Face- St. Louis, MO
• 07/16/2004, 1:00-2:00 PM EDT, Teleconference
• 08/20/2004, 1:00-2:00 PM EDT, Teleconference
• 09/17/2004, 1:00-2:00 PM EDT, Teleconference

Teleconference Meetings- Dial-in number and participant's code will remain the same for now. 

News from the Staff
None

Public Input
None

Closing Assessment
The committee expressed their gratitude to Sharon Lassar for bringing structure to the MLI issue committee, as well as for her leadership skills and hard work.

Also, appreciation was expressed to DFO Romito for filling in as Designated Federal Official, and welcome to the new Chair and Vice-Chair.

Next meeting
Teleconference call on Friday, November 21, 2003 at 1:00 PM EST. (Same dial-in number and participants' code)