Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP)
Area 3 Committee
Meeting Minutes
February 8, 2010

Members in Attendance
Charles Armstrong
Miya Burt-Stewart
Susan DaCorte
Karie Davis-Nozemack
Luis Fuentes
Herbert Hayes
Randee Head
Louis Kapugi
Susan Lynn
Eboni Moss
Elizabeth Mossad
Sue Tatum
Tommy Thompson

Members Absent
Justin Axelrod

Staff in Attendance
Sallie Chavez, TAP Program Analyst
Donna Powers, TAP Program Analyst
Rose Browne, DFO

Welcome/Announcements
Lou Kapugi welcomed everyone to the meeting. Kapugi requests that all members prepare for the meeting prior to the call.

Roll Call
Quorum was met.

Introductions of Guests
None present.

Review Meeting Minutes
Meeting minutes from December were approved by consensus.

Review of Joint Committee Meeting
Kapugi commended Tommy Thompson on the review of Joint Committee Meetings that he gave last year and asked if Thompson would continue to give report this year. Thompson agreed.

Thompson recapped the Joint Committee Meeting. The JC discussed the meeting dates for the Annual Meeting (Dec 5-10, 2010), Recruiting Dates (Mar 15-Apr 30, 2010). TAP will have 29 vacancies this year. If you want to read the meeting minutes, they are posted to TAP Space in the Joint Committee folder.

Subcommittee Reports
Issue 16589 (old Issue 5499)—Phone # on Notice 3172 Not Correct—Susan Lynn reported that during the subcommittee call, she concluded that she was going to write-up the issue. Lynn noticed that the response to Issue 5498 has to do with the same letter as Issue 16589. Lynn asked Sallie Chavez to get the background information from Issue 5498 before she writes-up the issue.

Issue 16595 (old Issue 5839)—Form for Change of Business Name—Miya Burt-Stewart reported the subcommittee reviewed the issue and they are going to propose that the IRS include instructions on what to do if an individual or business wants to change a business name. It will be complete by the March meeting.

Issue 16596 (old Issue 5849)—Erroneous Information from IRS Employees—Liz Mossad had nothing to report. The subcommittee will meet and try to have something by March.

Issue 16597 (old Issue 5896)—Deceased Taxpayer Information—DaCorte reported did her research and will send the information out to the subcommittee members to review. DaCorte says she will have something ready for the full committee next month.

Issue 16598 (old Issue 5899)—Virtual world Goods—Lynn reported that this is an in-depth issue. Justin Axelrod was not on the call and she doesn’t know where he wants to go with this issue.

Responses on Area 3 Recommendations
Issue 4977—ITIN Deactivation Procedures—The IRS accepted items 2 and 3 of the recommendations. By consensus, the committee closed this issue as partially accepted.

Issue 5498—Phone Prompt Doesn’t Have Proper Options—The IRS came back with, they feel the phone prompts do have the proper options. Lynn wants Sallie to send her the information for this issue, so that they can write this up in conjunction with letter 3172, Issue 16589.

Issue 5831—ITIN Name Mismatch—Kapugi reported that the IRS did not any value in anything the committee recommended with this issue. Lynn asked if the SME could be contacted to discuss how she came up with these answers, because she would like to her to explain how to do what was written up in the referral form.

Outreach
TAP Analyst Sallie Chavez reported Area 3 has an excellent month of Outreach. Eleven members performed at least one outreach activity for the month of January. There were a total of 49 events that reach in excess of 1356 citizens. This number does not include the outreach done by Susan DaCorte. She did an interview with TV Channel 20 in West Palm Beach. We could not determine the viewership of this TV station. In addition, this interview is going to be put on YouTube which will be seen by even more taxpayers.

Citizen Input
None

Meeting Close
Kapugi closed the meeting and thanked everyone for attending and his or her vote of confidence.

Next Meeting is a teleconference March 8, 2010, 2:30pm EST.