SBSE Issue Committee Meeting Minutes

June 10 and 11, 2005
Philadelphia, PA

June 10, 2005

Opening of the Meeting
Nagel opened the meeting and welcomed all the members. All participants introduced themselves. In the absence of a quorum, Nagel announced that the May meeting minutes could not be approved. DFO Ramirez further explained the legal implications of lacking a member quorum. She explained that decisions on issues would have to be postponed until a quorum of members was present.

Roll Call

Panel Members Attending

• Bill Bly, Wayne, PA
• Paul Brubaker, York, PA
• Paul Duquette, Amherst, WI
• Donna Hafer, Burlington, KY
• Bradley Moore, Decatur, GA
• Paul Nagel, Glen Cove, NY, Chair
• Owen Oatley, Holly Hill, FL
• Howard Perkins, Suisun City, CA

Panel Members Absent

• Margaret Balcom, Concord, CA
• Aaron Bell, Kenmore, NY
• Charlotte Cassady, Talbotton, GA
• Robert Forst, Encino, CA
• Steven Hoffman, Columbus, OH
• Stanley Miller, St. Louis, MO
• Steve Rue, Mechanicsville, VA
• Mary Suther, Dallas, TX
• William White, St. Joseph, MO

Quorum was not met.

TAP and IRS Attendees

• Helene Bayder, SB/SE Program Owner
• Michael Chessman, TAP SBSE Liaison
• Bernie Coston, TAP Director
• Ruth Garner, Research, Analysis &Stats Analyst
• Chris Hess, Research, Analysis &Stats Analyst
• Marisa Knispel,TAP Program Analyst
• Lisa McLane, Office of Taxpayer Burden Reduction Analyst
• Sandra Ramirez, DFO

National Office Report
Coston talked about the ongoing recruitment of TAP members. He said that recruitment was successful and over 400 applications for membership were received. TAP Managers and Senior Analysts had recently met in Milwaukee to rank the applications and identify the best qualified applicants for interviewing. The interviews will be conducted by a panel composed of a TAP Manager, a TAP member and a Local Taxpayer Advocate. They will be conducted via telephone. The candidates selected will be referred to the IRS Commissioner Everson and to Secretary of the Treasury Snow for final decision. He added that next year’s recruitment process will be focused on those states where TAP members are needed.

Coston explained that a small group of TAP members also had the opportunity to meet recently with the IRS Commissioner to discuss the closing of the IRS’ Taxpayer Assistance Centers (TACs). Among the IRS representatives present at this meeting were Wage & Investment Commissioner Dalrymple and NTA Advisor Ken Drexler. SBSE Committee Member Paul Brubaker, who was present at this meeting, provided a synopsis. A major success, Brubaker explained, was that Commissioner Everson has invited the TAP to meet with him twice a year to discuss issues. Another success was the Commissioner’s pledge to consider the TAP members’ opinion on the issue of the TACs closings prior to making the final decision.

Coston also announced that SBSE Member Paul Duquette was selected to travel to Atlanta and work with SPEC (Stakeholder, Partnership, Education and Communication) Director Mark Pursley to rewrite the instructions of Tax Wise (this software is used by the VITA Program).

Coston spoke about this year’s TAP Annual Meeting and promised to allot time at this meeting for the various TAP Committees to meet and plan their year.

Brubaker suggested that the TAP Communications Issue Committee address the issue of outreach by creating a TAP marketing package to be used by TAP members in outreach events. Duquette suggested that the TAP members should receive a monthly update about the TAP Communications Issue Committee just as it is done about the Joint Committee at each Area committee meeting.

Bayder informed the Committee that Leonard Steinberg of Area 2 was selected to give testimony on Capitol Hill regarding the issue of the tax gap.

Program Owner Presentation
Bayder thanked the Committee for the invaluable input and feedback on the SBSE issues that were presented to them. She summarized the Committee’s recommendations on these issues and informed the members that some of their recommendations have been accepted and will be implemented by the IRS. Examples of these are: 1) the recommendation to include a statement about the Disability Act on Form 4868, 2) the recommendation to indicate the amount of time given with the individual extension (6 months) on the title of Form 4868, 3) and some of the recommendations that were made on the instructions of the various forms that the Committee has studied.

Mail-Out Strategy
Lisa McLane of the Office of Taxpayer Burden Reduction made a presentation on the IRS’ mail-out strategy. This strategy originated from a study of the number of Forms 940 that were mailed to the public. The number of forms was compared to the number of Form 940 that was actually filed. The objective of the mail-out strategy is to measure the number of forms and notices that the IRS mails out and compare this number to those completed by the taxpayers and received by the IRS. The purpose is to determine how taxpayers want to receive tax information in order to meet filing and tax requirements. The IRS organizations of OPERA (Office of Program Evaluation and Risk Analysis) and OTBR (Office of Taxpayer Burden Reduction) are evaluating this initiative. OPERA Analyst Chris Hess indicated that IRS has been studying more effective ways for taxpayers to receive tax products over the last years at the same time, reducing the amount of paper forms that are mailed. This has been accomplished in part by e-filing.

Analyst Chris Hess and Ruth Garner, both of the OPERA organization, proceeded to use the Committee as a focus group on the mail-out study. A series of questions were asked of the members and their responses were recorded. The analysts explained that the survey was also presented to other public groups and to other advisory committees to the IRS such as IRSAC and IRPAC.

Following the mail-out presentation and the survey, the members discussed the issue of mailing out various IRS forms and publications such as Package X, which the IRS will discontinue mailing out.

Form 940, Unemployment Tax Form
Lisa McLane spoke about the redesign of Form 940 which started in May 2004 following the Form 941 redesign. The effort is led by the OTBR with a team of cross-functional subject matter experts and partners from the Department of Labor and the Department of the Treasury. The objective of the redesign is to convert the form and its instructions to a plain language format thereby reducing taxpayer burden and hopefully increasing voluntary compliance. The team working on the Form visited the Cincinnati and Ogden IRS Campuses and several state offices to study the processing of this tax return and gather feedback for the redesign. The team concluded that Form 940 and Form 940EZ should be combined and that the instructions should be simplified and placed on the Form, not separately. The worksheet that appears on the Form’s instructions was also revised. The team’s deadline is set for September, 2005 and they hope to rollout to the public the new Form 940 by 2006.

Subcommittee Reports

Prioritization of Notices — this team led by Owen Oatley reported that they have not concluded their study. A problem is that not much data exist that measures the standard factors that must be considered in establishing a methodology to prioritize the review and revision of IRS notices. Among these factors are: taxpayer burden in cost and time, taxpayer satisfaction, IRS burden and impact to IRS operations. Oatley suggested considering other factors such as volume, revision date, etc to weigh into the standard and to average the results. Knispel suggested that the group meet with James Cesarano, Wage & Investment Notices Program Owner for the TAP Issue Committee, to discuss the methodology used by this other IRS organization in prioritizing their notices for review and revision. The team has agreed to this in order to continue their work on the issue.

Exam Field Notices — this team continues to work on reviewing the notices that are sent to taxpayers in preparation for an audit. They have requested from Analyst Jenkins samples of Form 4564, Information Document Request that have actually been sent to taxpayers. The subcommittee’s next teleconference is scheduled for June 23rd.

Closing Assessment
Vice Chair Moore thanked all the presenters and participants and opened the floor for comments. Meeting closed at 4:57 PM ET.

Public Input
None.

June 11, 2005

Roll Call

Panel Members Attending

• Paul Brubaker, York, PA
• Paul Duquette, Amherst, WI
• Donna Hafer, Burlington, KY
• Bradley Moore, Decatur, GA
• Paul Nagel, Glen Cove, NY, Chair
• Owen Oatley, Holly Hill, FL
• Howard Perkins, Suisun City, CA
• Mary Suther, Dallas, TX
• William White, St. Joseph, MO

Program Owner Presentation
Chesman said he was very grateful to all the SBSE Committee members for their willingness to work on the issues presented to them and for their enthusiasm and committment. He explained that the IRS occasionally meets with practitioner groups and with taxpayers to discuss the tax system. However, these meeting should occur more often.

Chesman spoke on various issues: the IRS budget, the reorganization of the IRS through the years, the influence of politics in the tax system, etc.

He explained that the issue of Rounding Off is a legislative issue and it may take long for its consideration and implementation. The OTBR (Office of Taxpayer Burden Reduction) has scheduled September, 2005 as the deadline to conclude their report to Congress on this issue.

Survey
TAP Director Coston presented the group with a survey on the Privatization of Debt Collection. (Confidential information)

Closing Assessment
Following another subcommittee breakout to offer the members more time to work in their respective subcommittees and also following a round robin for comments, the meeting closed. Chair Nagel thanked all the presenters and participants.

Action Items:

• Jenkins will mail samples of Form 4564, Information Document Request, to the members of the Exam Field Notices Subcommittee.

• Knispel will contact W&I Notices Program Owner to establish a date and time for a teleconference with the Prioritizing Notices Subcommittee.

Next Meeting:
A teleconference will be held on July 7, 2005 at 3:00 PM ET.