Wage & Investment Reduce Taxpayer Burden (Notices) Meeting Minutes

July 28, 2004
Noon-ET

Participants (Panel Members):

• Mary Balmer
• William (Dick) Murphy
• David Robinson
• Thomas Seuntjens
• Eileen Shuman
• George Sullivan
• Virginia Symonds

Not Present:

• Phil Bryant
• Anthony DiMartino
• C. Morgan Edwards
• Charles (Skip) Eshelman
• Curtis Feese
• Robin Gausebeck
• John Hollingsworth
• R. Jeana Warren

Staff Members:

• Sallie Chavez (Recorder)
• Nancy Ferree — DFO

Guests

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

Welcome
Committee Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman welcomed everyone.

Roll Call
Program Analyst/Recorder Sallie Chavez took the roll call and quorum was not met.

DFO Nancy Ferree clarified that this only means that the committee can not approve anything. The June meeting minutes will be approved at the next meeting (August).

Review/Approve Prior Meeting Minutes
Committee Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman asked if there were any corrections to the minutes. There were none. The June and July meeting minutes will be approved at the August meeting in Pittsburgh.

Face-to-Face Meeting in Pittsburgh

TAP Program Analyst Sallie Chavez clarified attendance at the face-to-face meeting. She will be sending the rooming list to the hotel tomorrow so everyone will get their hotel confirmation numbers by the end of the week. She advised the committee that the hotel offers a courtesy van from the airport to the hotel. She will get more information about this and send out an email.

Committee Member Tom Seuntjens stated that something has come up and that he will be unable to attend the meeting. He asked that his airline reservations be canceled. TAP Program Analyst Sallie Chavez assured him they will be canceled.

Committee Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman asked if everyone had reviewed the DRAFT Agenda for the Face-to-Face Meeting. She asked if there were any changes. Committee Member Tom Seuntjens stated that he had asked all the chairs to create a subcommittee to prepare the Committee’s Annual Report. He said the subcommittee should consist of the chair and two (2) other committee members. He wants to make sure that all the activities of the committee are captured in the report. He would like the staff to reconstruct all the activities from the meeting minutes. The Committee’s Annual Report is due on October 15 with a verbal report at the Annual Meeting in November. Committee Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman asked if there was a format for the report. Committee Member Seuntjens stated that there was a format for both the area and issue committees and that was provided to the chairs. TAP Program Analyst Sallie Chavez advised that she had the format and would provide it to all committee members.

Sub-Committee Report

Language Standardization
Committee Member Virginia Symonds said she received a response from Andrea Law from the comments her sub-committee provided on the Language Standardization Guide. Andrea Law replied to every issue the committee commented about. She would like the entire committee to have a copy of this response. TAP Program Analyst Sallie Chavez will provide this response to the entire committee. Committee Member Tom Seuntjens said he would like Committee Member Virginia Symonds to prepare a cover letter to go with the response to the issue committee members.

DAT
No report.

SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano will follow-up and see if there are other notices that are going to be worked soon that can be scored.

NPIIT Report
No Report.

SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano said that he will need to get his response back to the committee on their report. He said some of the information from the report may be changed by Congress when they get back in session.

SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano said that this sub-committee may want to consider working on the Penalty and Interest issue that Liz Williams discussed at the last meeting. TAP Program Analyst Sallie Chavez advised the committee that Liz Williams has asked the committee for some assistance and that she and DFO Nancy Ferree were trying to contact her to clarify some things and get a deadline for the response she needs. This will be an item on the agenda for the Face-to-Face meeting next month.

Recommendation
Committee Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman asked about the recommendation to have the DAT use the spreadsheet created by Committee Member John Hollingsworth. Committee Member Tom Seuntjens stated that he would like Committee Member John Hollingsworth to participate in the preparation of this recommendation. He would like this to be a recommendation out of the area committee and not the issue committee. He is going to recommend that this be written and proposed by Committee Member John Hollingsworth’s Area 5 committee. He will write up a recommendation acknowledging Committee Member John Hollingsworth and the Notices Committee and present it to both the Notices and Area 5 Committees for review and approval at a future meeting.

Comments from SPOC Representative
SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano said he was trying to finalize the Notice Elimination NPIIT. There are no resources to do this.

The CP5XX NPIIT will conduct usability testing. TAP Program Analyst Sallie Chavez said that she had been attempting to find volunteers. Committee Member Mary Balmer has volunteered to go to the testing in Virginia. There are four (4) other locations. The locations are Chicago, Montgomery, Austin and Oakland. She asked if anyone wanted to volunteer to attend one of these sessions. Committee Member Virginia Symonds stated she would like to attend. TAP Program Analyst Chavez said she would contact Committee Member Symonds after the call. There were no other volunteers. She said anyone who wanted to volunteer could contact her but please do so by tomorrow (July 29).

SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano said that Phase 2 of the Notice Elimination NPIIT was going to consist of correspondex letters. He did not think that Small Business/Self Employed would be involved with this so it would only include Wage and Investment taxpayer letters. He thinks this will start in October with a requirements meeting in September. This requirements meeting would most likely be by conference call.

He reported that the Notice Standardization Guide has been posted to the IRS intranet site but it is still not finished.

Liz Williams and her penalty and interest issue is going to be taking place in the next couple of months.

There are many issues coming up in the next years however there has been cuts in the budget. Most of the funds are going to the Notice Elimination and CP5XX teams.

The SPOC planned to do 13 DPTs this past year. That didn’t happen. There are different strategies for this year. The Commissioner has reported on his 5-year strategy. Of these strategies is the use of email to contact taxpayers and clearer and faster Revenue Ruling.

Committee Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman asked how the IRS would get a taxpayer’s email address. Would a line be added to the Form 1040? SPOC Representative Jim Cesarano stated that this was just a strategy guide. Large and Midsize Business has a Revenue Agent on site and they have email for those taxpayers. It could be a line on Form 1040. Since IRS wants to go paperless in the future, there is only speculation about moving notices to email. Committee Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman stated that that would be a great cost savings.

SPOC Representative said that the IRS is now moving toward compliance issues.

There were several questions concerning the IRS budget. SPOC Representative discussed these budget cuts.

Meeting Close
Committee Vice-Chair Eileen Shuman asked for any other comments. There were none. She said the next meeting is scheduled for August 13 & 14, 2004 in Pittsburgh.

Meeting was adjourned.