Taxpayer Assistance Center (TAC) Committee Meeting Minutes

April 4, 2006

Designated Federal Official:

• Judi Nicholas, TAP Manager

Program Owner:

• Estelle Tunely, Director, Field Assistance
• Shirley Washington, Analyst

Attendance:

• Jerry Fireman (Chair)
• Bill Matheny
• Jerry Melchior
• Jack Morrell
• Wayne Whitehead
• Doug Wilhelm
• Bruce Zgoda (Vice-Chair)

Absent:

• Kimberly Chowing
• Bob Haines
• Jim Tarpey

Staff:

• Dave Coffman, Analyst
• Marla Ofilas, Note Taker

Opening/Welcome, Roll Call:
Judi opened the meeting and Jerry welcomed the members. Jerry reminded everyone that the Joint Committee meets the 1st Wednesday of the month at 1:00 p.m. eastern time. He encouraged anyone who’s interested in tracking what’s going with other committees, both issue committees and area committees, to attend a meeting.

Dave took roll, a quorum was met.

Customer Experience Sub-Committee Report:
Jack reported there have been quite a few studies done on the TACs in the past. He wonders if there’s a different approach the sub-committee could take.

Jack suggests a starting point of looking at what the TACs can do and do well, instead of asking them to do everything that they’re allowed to do.

Judi explained that the documents Jack referred to were forwarded to the sub-committee to sort through and decide which direction the sub-committee may want to take. Once they have that direction they could report out to the full committee.

Judi explained that in the sub-committee’s first meeting there was a lot of discussion about developing a data collection instrument (DCI) that could be used as a survey. This survey could be used for both the taxpayers and the TAC staff. One of the next steps is to talk about the type of data that is needed. The committee will not have a DCI developed before the end of the filing season.

Publication Method Guide (PMG) Sub-Committee Report:
Estelle, the program owner, requested that the sub-committee look at industry best practices regarding knowledge management. What does the private industry use and how does it work? Kimberly has prior experience in this area and will be providing information to the sub-committee members in the form of a white paper. The sub-committee will decide which organizations to approach to get a better understanding of how they manage knowledge. The sub-committee also planned to see if someone from Kaiser Permanente (headquartered in Denver) might be able to come to the meeting and talk about the kinds of survey tools their employees use.

Taxpayer Assistance Blueprint (TAB) Report:
The TAB report should be out within two weeks. Estelle will ensure that the TAC committee members receive a copy of the report.

Face-to-Face Meeting
Judi gave an overview of the Face-to-Face meeting.

• Agenda and Pre-read materials will be distributed a week before the meeting.
• Meeting will start on the afternoon of Thursday May 4th
• Meeting will continue all day Friday, May 5th
• Meeting will conclude in late morning on Saturday, May 6th.

Judi requested the sub-committees to hold their regular monthly meetings and use that time to determine where they want to go in the face-to-face meeting. Sub-committees also must decide on the materials they’ll need for the face-to-face meeting.

Customer Experience sub-committee conference call is at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, Thursday the 13th.

The PMG sub-committee conference call is at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time on Tuesday the 18th.

Agenda, pre-read material and call in information will be sent out a week in advance of the conference call.

The next TAC conference call is scheduled for June 6th.

Comments:
The meeting was very informative and went well. It was one of the most productive meetings the members have attended.

Meeting closed.