Wage & Investment Reduce Taxpayer Burden (Notices) Meeting Minutes

April 28, 2004
Noon-ET

Participants (Panel Members):

• Mary Balmer
• Phil Bryant
• Anthony DiMartino
• Charles (Skip) Eshelman
• Curtis Feese
• Robin Gausebeck
• John Hollingsworth
• William Murphy
• David Robinson
• Thomas Seuntjens
• Eileen Shuman
• George Sullivan
• Virginia Symonds
• Jeana Warren
• Nancy Ferree - DFO

Not Present:

• C. Morgan Edwards

Staff Members:

• Sallie Chavez (Recorder)

Guests:

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

Welcome
Committee Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman welcomed everyone.

Program Analyst/Recorder Sallie Chavez took the roll call and quorum was met.

Review/Approve Minutes of March 24, 2004
The minutes were approved by consensus.

There was some confusion concerning the call in number. The old number has been replaced. Committee Member Tom Seuntjens stated everyone should get the number off the top of the agenda.

Old Business
Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman asked if everyone had seen the pictures on TAPSpeak of the February meeting. She said to make sure to look at them. She thanked TAP Program Manager Nancy Ferree for taking them and TAP Program Analyst Sallie Chavez for putting them on TAPSpeak.

2nd Face-to-Face Meeting
TAP Program Analyst Sallie Chavez said that at the last meeting she suggested a vote on the location for the meeting. Based on the vote, Pittsburgh was chosen as the location with Charlotte and Orlando coming next. She has forwarded the cost estimate and is waiting for approval. DFO Nancy Ferree stated that she did not think there would be any problem with it and gave the approval to go ahead and plan it. She wanted to make sure that this was the location that was acceptable to everyone. No one spoke up with any disagreement so it has been finalized that Pittsburgh will be the location of the 2nd face-to-face scheduled for August 12-14, 2004 . TAP Analyst Sallie Chavez will start making arrangements for the meeting.

Comments from SPOC Representative
SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano stated there are lots of things going on. The demand series Dynamic Project Teams (DPT) will be starting. It's going to be set up into sub-teams. What they are going to include on the demand notices is still unclear. He talked to Sidney Gardner who is the SBSE SPOC. He has no problem with the committee scoring the notices. He would like the help. There is no lead selected yet for that team and they are still planning so the relationship that they want to have with the committee is still unclear. There are separate contacts. He stated that the TAP Staff might want to follow up with Michael Chessman about it.

The Notice Standardization team is working on the DRAFT Standardization Guide. It hasn't been finalized. The committee is working with Bonnie Babcock on that issue. He asked if committee got a copy of the Draft Standardization Guide. DFO Nancy Ferree confirmed it was received and forwarded to the sub-committee. Some members of the sub-committee made comments and these comments were forwarded to Bonnie Babcock.

On the Notice Elimination NPIIT, he wants to hold that for later. There are a lot of things happening there.

Dorothy Rucker is getting involved with the team that's involved in redesigning the CP09 and 27. There are people involved who are already working with an issue committee in TAP with EITC. They also want to involve this committee in terms of the written quality. DFO Nancy Ferree said she was glad he brought this up because there was some confusion about this committee's involvement. She's glad the committee is still going to be involved.

The other issue committee has been working with the EITC people for a long time on a number of EITC issues. They don't have credibility in terms of writing quality. They haven't received DAT training. They don't know as much about the notice process as this committee. They do want to keep this committee involved. There is an ongoing relationship between the EITC project office and the EITC issue committee. But this is also a writing task. However the two committees need to get together and organize and work out the boundaries. Since this is a writing team, we don't only want to only deal with operational issues. We want a good written product out. We go to this committee for that.

DFO Nancy Ferree said she did speak to Sandra Ramirez who is the DFO on the EITC committee. The point was made that this committee has the DAT. They don't. She is glad the committee will be involved with those documents.

SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano said, this group has been working with the notices and know the notice process. The committee will have to coordinate who does what in TAP. DFO Nancy Ferree said she and DFO Sandra Ramirez will speak with Dorothy Rucker and see if duties can be separated. SPOC Representative Cesarano said Dorothy Rucker is very open to involving TAP.

The Notice Elimination NPIIT Phase 2 will not take place until fiscal year 05 because of training budget issues. He is holding team together. They are having planning meetings. He doesn't have anything beyond the report he gave to the committee. There was only one change on the report he sent and that was on the CP523. The IRS managed to get really good numbers from a collection report that came out. The IRS was estimating a savings of $700,000 and the true amount of notices that could be eliminated indicated much more. If adopted it would be a savings of $6M.

A lot of the money that's been shifted around has gone from the Notice Elimination NPIIT to the planned DPT for the CP500 series, not because of what happened in the Notice Elimination NPIIT. It's just there's a high priority in compliance in the organization. The IRS is getting more formal responses now from various stakeholders, whether they concur or not.

The EITC office is going to take the lead on the CP09 and 27. They have agreed if the IRS can verify electronically the taxpayer is eligible, there is no need to send the paper notice.

Compliance division has agreed they need to set up a NPIIT to look at Automated Collection Site (ACS) letters.

The Penalty and Interest Office wants to take control on all the recommendations that relate to Penalty and Interest so they are working it. He hasn't heard any concrete planning sessions yet.

They are working on a lot of the stuffer recommendations to eliminate what his group started.

There is a general disbelief that taxpayers receive duplicate and repetitive letter. There is a disbelief that it's worth the cost of changing things so taxpayers don't receive two (2) or three (3) letters within a couple of weeks. Some of the responses have been there is no taxpayer benefit here. So it would be good to get another ear from the taxpayers' point of view. If we spend money to merge notices and to make notices clearer or to make sure the taxpayer doesn't receive two (2) or three (3) notices in a week or two is there a taxpayer benefit there? His team said yes there is. It's worth spending money to make notices clearer. It's worth spending money to synchronize processing so taxpayers won't receive two (2) or three (3) notices from different functions.

Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman asked if he would be able to work with Chairperson Skip Eshelman, TAP Program Analyst Sallie Chavez and herself to pull together a productive time for the committee to be together. He said yes.

Sub-Committee Report

Language Standardization
Sub-Committee Member Virginia Symonds stated she is waiting to hear back from Bonnie Babcock. DFO Nancy Ferree stated Bonnie Babcock had been out of the office for a while. She will check with her.

Committee Member Tom Seuntjens stated that subcommittee chairs should send short reports to the TAP Program Analyst before the meeting to attach to the agenda. Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman agreed and asked that this be done 10 days prior to the meeting.

Sub-Committee Member Virginia Symonds asked what the timeframe was to get back information. She wanted to know if she should contact Bonnie Babcock or ask the staff to contact her. DFO Nancy Ferree stated that the TAP Program Analyst should be the liaison and consolidate any information going to the IRS.

DAT
Subcommittee Chair Member Robin Gausebeck stated her subcommittee wants everyone to be involved in scoring these notices. They would like the group divided into groups of four (4) people. She asked TAP Program Analyst Sallie Chavez to send out blank copies of the DAT.

SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano stated that the DAT is only permitted to be used on notices and IRS products. It is for internal use only. It can't be publicized.

Sub-Committee Member Robin Gausebeck asked if there were any deadlines for having this scoring completed. SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano said the CP500 series planning session in the works for Spring/Summer. The CP09 and 27 is scheduled for the week of May 17th so that would be the priority. Sub-Committee Member Gausebeck stated they would shoot for a deadline of mid-June.

Quarterly Strategy Team
Committee Member Eileen Shuman stated that there was no activity during the past month. The previous month there was a conference call that lasted about an hour.

Referrals
Sub-Committee Chair Member John Hollingsworth stated he had no report. Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman asked about the outcome of the referrals they reviewed in Atlanta in February. Sub-Committee Chair Member Hollingsworth stated he thought she had them. Vice-Chair Shuman will forward to TAP Program Analyst Sallie Chavez.

NPIIT
Sub-Committee Chair Member Phil Bryant was no longer on the call. Committee Member Tom Seuntjens wanted to know what the purpose was for this committee. SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano stated he was waiting for response on the draft report and the penalty and interest survey. The committee had volunteered to assist in a survey on this issue.

DPT
Sub-Committee Chair Member Tony DiMartino stated he missed the face-to-face meeting and wanted to know the purpose of this sub-committee. Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman stated that it was based on experience. Members of this committee will participate and attend DPT meetings.

Sub-Committee Chair Member Tony DiMartino stated he sent his report on the previous DPT to SPOC Ann Gelineau. He will also submit the report to the sub-committee.

Sub-Committee Chair Member Tony DiMartino told the committee about a CP10 that he saw. It said at the bottom of the notice “mail this notice to the address at the top of the notice”. There was no address at the top of the notice. He will forward a copy of this notice to SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano.

DFO Nancy Ferree asked SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano if he will keep the TAP Staff advised as teams become available. SPOC Representative Cesarano will encourage the DPTs to use the committee but he can't guarantee it because they may not be Wage & Investment DPTs.

New Business
Committee Member Tom Seuntjens wanted to know how can the committee self-manage itself. SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano stated expectations can be developed. Committee Member Seuntjens also asked to develop timetables. SPOC Representative Cesarano said he would work with DFO Nancy Ferree for expectation and timetables.

Committee Chair Skip Eshelman requested something from committee members for his report to the Joint Committee Meeting next week.

Committee Chair Skip Eshelman asked TAP Program Analyst Sallie Chavez to send him everything via “snail mail” as he can't open the attachments to the email.

Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman asked how issue committees will be handled next year with new members. Committee Member Tom Seuntjens stated they are not sure. Vacancies will be refilled. He is sure this committee will continue. This will be done at the meeting in November.

Committee Chair Skip Eshelman asked if any of the committee members had done any outreach via the radio. He stated he was asked to participate in a radio talk-show. One of the callers started talking about tax responsibility. He tried telling the caller that wasn't the purpose of the TAP but he kept at it. Committee Member Tom Seuntjens stated he shouldn't have gone into that alone. He should have asked the Taxpayer Advocate to accompany him. Committee Chair Eshelman said he did and she was not available. Committee Member Seuntjens said this should be discussed at his area meeting.

Meeting Close
Committee Chair Skip Eshelman asked for any other comments. There were none. He said the next meeting is scheduled for May 26th at 12:00 noon EDT.

Meeting was adjourned.