Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP)
IRS Notice Improvement Issue Committee
Meeting Minutes
June 18, 2008 at 12:30PM EST

Designated Federal Official (DFO)
Sallie Chavez, Acting TAP Program Manager, Plantation, FL

Members Present
Carolyn Adams-Dodds
Ben Chapman
Joe Hurr
David Jones
David Meister
Neil Mitchell
Max Scott
Lee Stieger
Chuck Tice
Norma Woodard

Members Absent
Steve Fulkrod
Howard Stahl
Edward Uhrig

Staff Present
Anita Fields, Secretary
Jim Cesarano, IRS Program Liaison
Sidney Gardner, IRS Program Owner
Ann Gelineau, IRS Program Owner

Guest(s) Present
Kevlyn Painter, Ogden, UT

Welcome & Roll Call/Quorum
Lee Stieger opened the meeting and welcomed everyone. 

Approval of Meeting Minutes
Minutes were approved by consensus with the correction of Jim Cesarano, IRS

Inserts Project—from Program Owner (Kevlyn Painter)
Kevlyn said there are 13 notices that we want you to look at, and Jim has a handout he will be forwarding.  The insert effectiveness team identifies 13 notices to find a process to remove inserts if they are not needed by the taxpayer or they don’t find them useful.  We want you to look at instances where some of the information can be combined into the notice.  Kevlyn is interested in getting the view point of the taxpayer’s perspective of the 13 notices and their related inserts.  If they read them, find them useful, help relieve their burdens or are we sending them things they don’t need.  They chose the inserts that was not mandated so they were more informational.  We are trying to develop a process to run the notices and inserts through and the information we are sending is useful.  We don’t want to do anything to increase taxpayer burdens.

Lee Stieger asked Kevlyn what exactly do you want us to report back to you on and how do you want the report.  There was a rough draft on the report out of the three notices we reviewed at our face to face.  Lee asked Sallie to forward the report she received from Ben to Jim and Kevlyn for them to let us know how they would like to have the feedback.  Lee stated to Kevlyn, feel free to make any changes to the format of the form that will give you the information you want.

Comments from the Program Owner
Sidney thanked everyone for doing the DAT scoring.  He also informed the committee that they are in the process of forwarding Publication 3498A for you all to score. Jim Cesarano said that there’s a lot of new news.  One relates to Kevlyn’s team.  It is different than acting as an external stakeholder and it is different those notices she wants you to look at.  The team is working with a contractor and the contractor is in their research phase and they want to interview someone that worked with the direct marketing project.  They are looking to talk about insert effectiveness, and direct marketing.  It will last approximately 45 min to 1 hour and will be directed.  The hours are between Monday-Friday 1-4 pm EST.  If you have someone interested give the name to Nancy and she will get it to Jim to schedule the interview.  Joe Hurr volunteered to do the interview the week of June 30, 2008. 

Publication 3498 has been re-written and the team would like for stakeholders to comment on it as an external stakeholder on whether it help or hurt the taxpayer, what you want to see, what you don’t want to see, what changes you like and what changes you don’t like.  The changes need to be in by the 24th of June.  Jim also mentioned that he would like to get a DAT scoring of the re-written Pub 3468.  Dave Jones asked if a Pub 1 would go out with the form also, he stated that a lot of the same info is covered in Pub 1.  Jim mentioned if it is going out with Pub 1 then it doesn’t need all the information that is contained in the 3468.  

Sallie stated that she will put a team of three or four people together along with Chuck and get the Pub 3498 DAT scored.

Jim announced a pilot program during a branch meeting he had at the end of May.  This program is for their reviewers when they are reviewing correspondence and letters to have a short comment period where they can get comments from TAP.  Jim wants to set up a committee to discuss the logistics of this pilot program.  The program is called Notice Review Subcommittee.  There is a tentative meeting schedule for the Notice Review Subcommittee for next week the date and time to be determined.

Jim has another new project.  Charmayne Johnson is a Notice Writer.  She is starting changes in her program.  She thinks the changes are going to affect about 30 letters that she has responsibility for.  She would like DAT scores for the letters that have not been scored yet.  These letters will have priority over the priority letters.  Jim and Sallie will go over the list to determine what letters have already been scored.  Sallie and Chuck will meet and put some teams together to score these letters.

Insert (Stuffer) Project
Sallie stated that stuffer project is going to be put on hold until Kelvyn gets back to us with her thoughts on the CP 161.

Form 886H-HOH
Dave Meister stated that the 886H-HOH is complete.  He sent in the completed DAT score worksheets to Sallie on Monday.

FAT Update
Max stated he only received comments from Ben and Chuck and he will fold that into the FAT and send that in.  He is still waiting on the call with Bob Erickson to discuss if there is anything else that need to be included.  He will get the revised FAT out to the committee before the next meeting.

Meeting Close
Dave Jones requested to receive an updated list of the committee and the subcommittee lists.  Lee Steiger closed the meeting by thanking everyone for attending and being involved with the call.  Meeting was adjourned at 1:50pm.

Next Meeting is a teleconference on July 16, 2008 at 12:30pm EST.

*Certification:  These minutes were approved by the committee by consensus on July 16, 2008.