March 26, 2003
Noon-EST

Participants (Panel Members):

• C. Morgan Edwards, Acting Chairperson
• Sallie Chavez (Designated Federal Official)
• Anthony DiMartino
• Charles (Skip) Eshelman
• Curtis Feese
• Glenn Hall
• William (Dick) Murphy
• David Robinson
• Eileen Shuman
• Virginia Symonds
• R. Jeana Warren

Staff Members:

• Inez E. De Jesus (Recorder)
• Nancy L. Ferree (Program Manager)

Not Present:

• Phil Bryant
• Ivan Cotman
• Robin Gausebeck
• Thomas Seuntjens
• George Sullivan

Guests/Program Owner:

• James (Jim) A. Cesarano, Program Analyst, Wage & Investment, Single Point of Contact

Welcome and Announcements/Roll Call
Committee vice-chair, C. Morgan Edwards will be facilitating this meeting during the absence of Chairperson Phil Bryant.

Committee vice-chair Edwards requested that DFO Chavez send the panel's condolences to Committee chair Phil Bryant on the loss of his wife's sister's husband.

Program Analyst/Recorder Inez E. De Jesus took the roll call and quorum of 11 was met.

Review/Approve Minutes of February 21, 2003
The minutes were accepted by consensus.

Topic of Meeting

Follow-up on Face-to-Face Meeting/February 21, 2003/Austin, Texas
Committee members expressed positive comments regarding the coordination and efforts by the TAP Staff in orchestrating this event.

Appreciation was also extended to Management Assistant Jenny Reyes for making the travel arrangements for all the members.

Report on meeting in Washington, DC-March 6, 2003
Committee member Eileen Shuman attended with Designated Federal Official (DFO) Sallie Chavez, the Wage & Investment Notice Strategy Quarterly Meeting held in IRS New Carrollton office in Lanham, MD on March 6, 2003. (The program owners made this invitation to the committee.)

Committee member Eileen Shuman, DFO Chavez, and Jim Cesarano all shared the following experiences with the rest of the committee members:

• Out of 50 Notices, half were reviewed. The remainder will be reviewed during the next meeting.
• Committee member Shuman has created a matrix, which reduces 64 pages to 3.
• Committee member Shuman was impressed with the Program Owners, and management's engagement and interest in the work that the Issue Committee is doing regarding the improvements to Notices.
• Program Owner Cesarano mentioned that the next step would be to prioritize the order in which the next group of notices will be addressed. The IRS uses the Balanced Measures approach, which is broken down to Employee Satisfaction, Customer Satisfaction, and Business Results. Due to budget restraints, most likely it will take an additional 2-3 years to complete the entire process of reviewing Notices.

There will be a follow-up/continuation meeting on April 9, 2003 at the same location. Committee member Shuman and DFO Chavez will attend this meeting

Contact was made with an individual from IRSAC-Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council.

Acting Chair Edwards expressed his concern regarding RAL (Refund Anticipation Loan) notices that go out to taxpayers that indicate 29 days that taxpayer has to repay the loan. Action item: Program Owner Cesarano requested additional information and he will elevate this matter. These specific notices (RAL) are not in the package of those currently being reviewed.

New Business
Committee member Anthony DiMartino shared with all that recently he has seen a change for the better in the notices that are being generated by the IRS.

Questions regarding the reassignment of Designated Federal Official (DFO) from being the role of the Program Analysts to the Program Managers, effective April 1, 2003, were addressed. Beginning April 1st, Program Manager Nancy L. Ferree will be the DFO of this committee, and she expressed that she is looking forward to be working with this group, and Program Analyst Sallie Chavez will be taking the minutes.

Comments from Program Owners
Next steps in the process: once rating process is complete within the next 6 weeks or so, the most recent rewritten notices will be available for review by the committee.

DFO Chavez requested that the Program Owner share with the committee the criteria for the upcoming Dynamic Project Teams, but this information is not available at this time.

Meeting Closing Remarks
DFO expressed appreciation to Program Analyst Inez E. De Jesus for taking the minutes of this committee for the last several months.

Next meeting date: Wednesday, April 23, 2003, Noon EST, Dial-in number and pass code remain the same.