TAP C04-065

Language Standardization Guide—Layout Standards

Statement of Issue:

The IRS Language Standardization Notice Committee is developing a Language Standardization Guide for IRS notices. This guide helps notice writers understand what they need to do when changing or writing a notice. The W & I Notice Committee was asked to review and provide feedback on the draft Layout Standards of the guide.

Proposal:

The Committee had positive feedback for the excellence of the document and provided specific recommendations on various parts, including: use of birth date as an identification application, definition and application of TEGE and SBSE, time zone concerns, and future use of taxpayer's email address. The proposal also suggested an example of the notice using the templates as it is very difficult to picture the end result without an example.

The Notice Support Group thanked the committee for its positive comments and constructive feedback. The paper versions of the Language and Layout Standards are now complete. IRS is currently converting them into their final form - on-line tools located on the Notice Support Services intranet Web site. The on-line Web format was chosen for several reasons:

• The Web tools are immediately available to all IRS employees,
• The Web tools can be updated quickly and without the expense of paper publishing, and
• The Notice Support Services intranet Web site is the repository for all notice writing and Dynamic Project Team resources and tools.

Most of the Committee's feedback and suggestions were incorporated into the final product. The IRS further provided line by line responses to each of the Committee's suggestions.