VITA Committee Meeting Minutes

April 4, 2006

Designated Federal Official

• Sandy McQuin, TAP Manager

Program Owner

• Libby Blair, Chief, Oversight and Analysis, SPEC Field Operations, Communication, Assistance, Research, and Education (CARE)
• Elaine Beck, Chief, Education and Product Development Staff

Committee Members Present

• Paul Brubaker, Pennsylvania
• Paul Duquette, Wisconsin
• Elizabeth Colvin, Texas
• Harvey Epstein, New Hampshire
• Harold Gadon, Rhode Island
• Henry Mosler, Florida
• Steve Landauer, Iowa
• Steven Maisch, Washington
• Paul McElroy, North Carolina
• Ferd Schneider, Ohio
• Wayne Tanna, Hawaii

Committee Members Absent

• Bessie Moore, New Jersey
• Richard Rousseau, Texas
• Iris Sosa, California

TAP Staff

• Barbara Toy, Program Analyst
• Patti Robb, Secretary

Conference Call Attendees

• Nan Allen Fuller, Senior Tax Analyst

Visitors

• Gil Yanuck, TAP Member

Welcome
Paul Duquette welcomed everyone.

Roll Call
Quorum met.

Program Owner’s Report
Libby Blair will share the responsibility of the VITA committee with Elaine Beck since the focus is training materials. Blair agreed to combine Training Methods and Training Process into one subcommittee.

Face to Face Meeting
Travel Arrangements should be completed by Thursday, April 6, 2006. Members will need to be signed in as guests and will need picture identification to be issued a visitor badge to enter the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The meeting will be Monday and Tuesday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Robb will send out IRS office address and room number. Everyone should be coming from the same hotel which is only about three blocks from the IRS office. The full committee will meet then break out into subcommittees. Blair will ensure rooms are available.

Members will be met at the guard’s desk. Materials will be provided by the Atlanta folks. Blair will keep one room available on Wednesday for use for phone calls or finishing other business.

ACTION: Subcommittee chairs should send Paul Duquette an email on what they expect their subcommittee to accomplish at the face-to-face meeting by April 11, 2006.

ACTION: Beck, Blair, McQuin, Duquette, Rousseau, and Toy will meet to plan agenda on Thursday, April 13, 2006 at 12:30 TO 1:30 ET.

Subcommittees Report:

• Emerging Issue
  The subcommittee met in March to discuss the intake form. The IRS thinks this is a hot issue. The subcommittee agreed there needs to be better marketing to convince volunteers to use the form. The subcommittee discussed concerns about the timeliness of receiving materials and asked why some areas get their materials so much sooner than others? Ferd Schneider asked if the committee intended that Form 1040 Schedule C-EZ, Net Profit from Business, remain in the VITA program but doesn’t believe that the Form 1040 Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business is suitable to prepare at VITA sites. Decision: Committee reached consensus to return Schedule C-EZ to Area 2. Hal Gadon mentioned that the subcommittee would like to continue looking at Issue 3852, Self Select Pin. He is not ready to drop this issue yet. He recommends working toward using the self select pin. Blair suggested treating the self select pin issue through the Training Materials subcommittee because the IRS will continue to allow any of the signature methods. The solution will be in how it addressed in Training and other Materials.

• Training Process
  Elaine Beck joined the last subcommittee call and discussed materials for Process Based Training which is still in the developmental phase. She will send out samples of the materials before the face-to-face meeting. The whole file is too large but will be provided at the face-to-face meeting.

  The committee talked briefly about different approaches to Link & Learn and special training for experienced volunteers. Different sites have different needs but some level of standardization needs to be implemented because there is a tremendous gap in the training in some areas. Gil Yanuck said a lot of training is devoted to tax law. Eighty percent of returns are filed electronically at their VITA site in Arizona and volunteers want more hands-on experience.

  ACTION: Duquette asked that everyone please send back comments to the Taxwise survey which McQuin sent out on March 30.

  ACTION: Toy will resend McQuin’s email message asking for comments.

• Training Methods
  Rick Rousseau was not able to be on the call so McQuin addressed this subcommittee’s activities. Since it is very similar to Training Methods, it was suggested that the two subcommittees be combined. Blair agreed. She said another main objective is to identify some of the best practices used and asked that committee members bring examples to Atlanta.

  ACTION: All members should bring examples of best practices to Atlanta.

• Training Materials
  Paul Brubaker thanked all for responses on survey. The magnitude of material seemed to grow this year and there seemed to be some redundancy in the information provided. For example, the reference guide could be used for training instead of replicating the information in the student guide. Before we go any further though, the subcommittee needs to know the IRS’ goals. Beck responded that the goal of training is to teach Taxwise in a way that can be absorbed in a short amount of time, while enabling volunteers to produce accurate returns. IRS is looking for input on how the material can easily be presented. The IRS has introduced processed based training and needs to know if it is a better way to train volunteers. Brubaker suggested looking at the Form 1040 instruction booklet. Beck said the process based training follows the Form 1040 so it could be easily expanded to follow the 1040 instruction booklet. The Publication 678, Volunteer Student Guide, was originally developed to follow the Form 1040 but has migrated away since then. Link & Learn was created to reach out to those used to learning in an electronic manner. Volunteers also need specialized training for electronic filing. Yanuck said returning volunteers should have a class just on changes to tax law and then take the test; new people need personalized attention. When students work the problems, they don’t have the TaxWise software available or tax tables. Brubaker suggested looking at the Form 1040 instructions which are designed to guide those not familiar with taxes as a basis for volunteer training material. Is there still value in sending out the survey to all members and what information do we want?
  • How would you like to see training changed?
  • How much time are you willing to commit to training?
  • How much time are volunteers willing to commit to training for VITA?

  Brubaker asked if evaluations on VITA/TCE sites would be available for the face-to-face. The committee would like to know what errors VITA preparers make. Beck said IRS has a variety of reports which will be shared at the meeting.

• Staff News
  The VITA call for July is scheduled for the 4th of July, and needs to be changed. This will be addressed at the face-to-face meeting in Atlanta.

  Recruitment: TAP has more than 250 applications in final form and about 900 more in draft form.

Meeting adjourned.

Next meeting: Face-to-face in Atlanta, April 30 to May 3, 2006, (including travel dates).