Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Committee
Teleconference Meeting Minutes
November 7, 2006  3 p.m. ET

Designated Federal Official
Sandy McQuin, TAP Manager

Program Owner
Elaine Beck, Chief, Education and Product Development Staff
Cynthia McKinney, Senior Tax Analyst, Education and Product Development

Committee Members Present
Paul Brubaker, Pennsylvania
Paul Duquette, Wisconsin
Harvey Epstein, New Hampshire
Harold Gadon, Rhode Island
Paul McElroy, North Carolina
Hank Mosler, Florida
Richard Rousseau, Texas
Ferd Schneider, Ohio
Iris Sosa, California
Wayne Tanna, Hawaii

Committee Members Absent
Elizabeth Colvin, Texas

TAP Staff
Barbara Toy, Program Analyst
Patti Robb, Secretary

Visitors
Gil Yanuck, Panel Member
Emilio Cecchi, Panel Member

Quorum met.

Consensus to approve minutes. 
ACTION:  Toy will email minutes to Emilio Cecchi and Sandra Bland, new VITA Committee members.

Libby Blair talked to Sandy McQuin regarding the status of next year’s VITA Committee.  Blair met with the Wage and Investment (W&I) executives and provided them with a briefing paper on the work this committee has done and how hard the Committee has worked.  W&I will provide the direction for next year’s committee and identify a new Program Owner. 

Blair thanked everyone for their participation and spoke for Elaine Beck as well.  She enjoyed every minute spent with this committee and was impressed with the hard work, quality of work done, and the commitment and dedication.  The VITA Committee made a great contribution.  

Paul Brubaker asked if the Process Based Training will be a continuing program.  Blair said she will include this as a recommendation to Mark Pursley, Director, Customer Assistance, Relationships, and Education (CARE), who will be making the decision. 

McQuin mentioned one item on today’s agenda has to do with the VITA face-to-face meeting and trying to establish dates for this coming year and asked Blair what time of year is recommended?  Blair responded that the last week in April would be the earliest and it’s best to wait until after April 15.  The final decision will be determined at the annual meeting and will depend on the direction provided by the new program owner.

Gil Yanuck said it has been an interesting year and he wished he could be on more than one issue committee.  He is looking forward to using the new test and other materials the Committee worked on this year.

Hal Gadon wanted to make recommendation that volunteer sites not be required to retain any signature documents or information reporting forms.  Barbara Toy pointed out that this rule applies to all electronic filers.  Gadon would like to see VITA as an exception to that rule.  Gil Yanuck added that volunteers don’t have room to retain paperwork.  This suggestion has already been elevated by an area committee.  For the last two years, volunteer sites have been given an exception to the record retention requirement for electronic filers using the Practitioner Personal Identification Number (PIN). 
ACTION:  McQuin to verify who is responsible for making the decision on not extending the record retention waiver for volunteer sites using the Practitioner PIN option. 

AARP Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) has already determined that using the Practitioner PIN will be AARP TCE’s recommended method for signing an electronically filed return. 

Paul Duquette reiterated that he heard rumors that offices will not be retaining the paperwork for volunteer sites.  The Committee should flesh out a recommendation that SPEC continue retaining the paperwork for VITA.  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has determined that volunteer sites have to retain paperwork for three years and that presents a big problem to volunteers.  Practitioners have permanent offices and files so do not have a problem retaining the paperwork; however this is not true for volunteers.  Self-select Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) is great for practitioners but this committee needs the issue from the volunteer standpoint.  McQuin said first the Committee needs to know what guidance has been given to SPEC offices for record retention.  Each year, the SPEC National Office provides guidance through a program letter.  The Committee should find out what the national policy is.  If individual offices are not following the advice, it needs to be addressed as a separate issue.   
ACTION:  McQuin will check with Blair to see if the program letter for 2007 is done and if it has been sent and what the policy for record retention is.  She will also check what Publication 3189, Volunteer e-file Handbook, states regarding record retention.  She will send the information to the Committee via email.

Duquette intended to comment on the VITA test, however Paul Brubaker and Elizabeth Colvin are in travels status.  Ferd Schneider took the VITA test but failed because the test asked for specific page numbers and he didn’t have Publication 4012, VITA/TCE Resource Guide.  He has been doing volunteer return preparation for seven to eight years now and suspects there will be a high failure rate this year, although he was very impressed with the test.  With the old version, the volunteer could be careless and still pass; with this version, the volunteer can’t afford to be sloppy.  Schneider had the draft 1040 instructions so was able to use the 2006 tables.  The bookmark feature worked great.  The only thing Schneider did not like was the program did not tell the testee which questions were answered incorrectly. 

Duquette completed the basic test using dial up and it took about six seconds between screens; but downloading the package of forms took about thirty minutes. 
ACTION:  Duquette will send the new link to the test to all committee members.

The Joint Committee discussed committees meeting every other month rather than every month.  The full committee would meet six times (every other month), and the subcommittees would meet the opposing month.  Since the committee doesn’t know what direction it will be heading, the decision should wait until December at the annual meeting.  Schneider said the Committee was very busy in May, June, and July, and then activity tapered off.  If VITA had skipped one of those meetings, the Committee would not have been productive.  Duquette said maybe it is best to say the Committee will meet as necessary.  McQuin agreed; sometimes the Committee does not need to meet every month; this decision should be giving the Committee direction on how often to meet. 

McQuin suggested putting dates on the calendar to hold that spot open.  Atlanta would be the logical city to have the face-to-face meeting since the program owners are there.
DECISION:  Consensus was reached to meet on May 2-4, 2007, or May 21-23, 2007, in Atlanta, GA.

Schneider asked Duquette if he would be interested in continuing as VITA chair.  Duquette said he would very definitely be interested. 

The next meeting will be at the annual meeting in Washington, DC, December 11-14, 2006.  Paul McElroy and Wayne Tanna will be changing issue committees next year and we certainly thank them for their hard work and input this past year.