Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP)
Area 3 Committee
Face-to-Face Meeting Minutes
May 20-21, 2010

Thursday, May 20, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010

Members in Attendance
Charles Armstrong—absent on the 21st
Justin Axelrod
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
None

Staff in Attendance
Shawn Collins, TAP Program Director
Anita Fields, TAP Secretary
Donna Powers, TAP Program Analyst
Nancy Ferree, TAP Program Manager
Rose Browne, DFO

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Welcome/Announcements
Lou Kapugi started the meeting by welcoming everyone to the meeting. Lou gave kudos to the IRS staff and talked about all the good work and support that is given to the panel.

Nancy Ferree welcomed everyone to the meeting as well. She stated that she appreciates the sacrifices everyone made to be here.

Shawn Collins thanked everyone for being here. She said that the commitment and passion is outstanding and the work the panel is doing is making a tremendous impact. She shared that the staff reviewed and ranked 550 application packets. The interviews will begin in June and hopes to have them completed by the end of June.

Collins shared that the annual meeting is scheduled for the first week of December at the Capital Hilton, Judi Nicholas is going on a 60-day detail and Bill Mezger is going to backfill for her, and Steve Berkey was just selected for the Senior Management Readiness Program.

Rose Browne stated that she has enjoyed her two years being the DFO and she discussed what her roles are as DFO.

Roll Call
Quorum was met.

Introductions of Guests
Deidra Jackson

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

2009 TAP Annual Report Review
Susan DaCorte reported that they are finding new ways of getting the annual report out quicker. They are now in the final draft stages and will post to TAP Space for comments. They are hoping to have this completed by early July.

Review of Joint Committee Meeting
Tommy Thompson gave an overview of the Joint Committee Meeting (JC). Thompson shared what the JC does. In April,’s meeting the JC discussed 11 or 12 issues and elevated seven or eight of those reviewed. One of the missions/focus of the JC for 2010 and beyond is tracking the IRS responses and implementation of the issues elevated.

There was discussion amongst the group about how the IRS takes up to two to three years to implement issues elevated.

Introduction to New Orleans/2009 NTA Report to Congress
Carolyn Lewis the LTA for Louisiana gave an introduction to New Orleans. She showed a film to welcome the panel members to New Orleans.

Lewis discussed what the NTA talked about in her Annual Report to Congress. She touched on the toll-free line, return preparer strategy, and correspondence audits. She shared that the NTA’s biggest success will be when she gets Alternative Minimum Tax (ATM) on board.

Lewis also discussed Low Income Tax Clinic (LITC) and their mission. She also shared how they apply to get grants from the IRS. Lewis told the panel that the LITC is her portfolio and assigned area of expertise.

New Orleans LITC
Mark Moreau, the Director of the LITC in Louisiana discussed what his office does. He discussed the work the South Eastern legal services do in the state of Louisiana. He gave background on all the programs the IRS implemented through the years to help the low-income community.

He got started in this about ten years ago with a hard working single mother. The IRS denied her earned income credit and the lawyers came in, saved her and won the lawsuit.

Lynn asked Mr. Moreau, in his dealings with taxpayers when and if he receives a suggestion on how to reduce taxpayer burden and improve IRS customer service, how it is dealt with. Moreau stated that they are encouraged using the Systematic Advocacy Management System (SAMS).

Recruitment & Interview Process
Nancy Ferree informed the committee that we would be coming out to solicit help to interview new potential panel members. Once the interview process is complete, the next step is the selection.

Issue Process
Susan Lynn explained the issue process from conception to implementation. She suggested that when you talk to a taxpayer and they are complaining about the IRS, if it is not a personal tax problem, they write-up the issue for them.

The process begins with the issues coming in; Donna logs it into the database. Then the screening committee reviews them and makes a recommendation. Next, on the full committee monthly call they vote to accept the screening committee’s recommendation. Lastly, it is assigned a subcommittee to work or placed in the parking lot to work when time permits.

She proposed setting up standing subcommittees to work issues.

Screening Committee Report
The screening committee met and discussed:

Issue 17722, Release of Federal Tax Levy. The screening committee recommends working this issue and assigning a subcommittee.

Issue 17723, Power of Attorney-Delay in Processing—the screening committee recommends working this issue. The problem is tax professionals’ fax in power of attorneys and the service is nine weeks behind in processing power of attorneys. This is a problem for practitioners to service taxpayers. A subcommittee is assigned to this issue. The subcommittee consists of Karie Davis-Nozemack, Liz Mossad and Luis Fuentes.

Issue 17263, Late Penalties for LIC Partner—the screening committee reviewed this issue and recommends not working, because this is a legislative issue.

Issue 17261, Over 65 Automatic Figures for Deduction on 1040—the screening committee reviewed this issue and recommends reviewing this issue to see if it needs to be worked.

The committee agreed by consensus to all recommendations from the screening subcommittee.

Elevated Issue Response
Issue 309-5831, TIN Name Mismatch—The committee accepted the IRS response and closed the issue as closed rejected. Lynn made a note that she plans to revisit this issue.

Active Subcommittee Reports
Issue 16589 (old Issue 5499)—Phone # on Notice 3172 Not Correct—Susan Lynn recommends this issue be dropped because this is no longer an issue.
Issue 16596 (old Issue 5849)—Erroneous Information from IRS Employees— Elizabeth Mossad said this issue is similar to an issue Area 1 is working also. She stated that they decided to take this in a different direction and the subcommittee will work on it during this face-to-face meeting. The final decision of the committee was to place this issue back in the parking lot, and wait to see what the outcome is on the Area 1 issue. The analyst will monitor the parking lot.

Issue 16597 (old Issue 5896)—Deceased Taxpayer Information—Susan DaCorte reported that this issue is in QR.
Issue 16598 (old Issue 5899)—Virtual world Goods—Justin Axelrod reported that this issue is complete and ready for QR. The subcommittee is recommending that the IRS give guidance on how virtual world goods report their taxes.
Issue 16595 (old Issue 5839)—Form for Change of Business Name— Miya Burt-Stewart reported that her subcommittee proposed that the IRS prepare written instructions on the irs.gov website on how to change the business. The issue has been through the area quality review and ready to be elevated to JC.

Parking Lot Issues Moved to Active
Issue 16971, Amended Returns—Sue Tatum reported that her subcommittee had a call last week and has requested research from Donna Powers. Subcommittee consists of Tatum, Thompson, Kapugi, and Lynn.

Issue 17102, Form 5472 Attachments—Karie Davis-Nozemack reported that the biggest problem is that you have to file the form you have to send to two different places. Davis-Nozemack and subcommittee recommends dropping this issue because if you file electronically it satisfies the duplicate filing. This is a legislative issue and will be referred to SAMS. Lynn and Davis-Nozemack will help Powers to write-up and put into the SAMS.

Issue 17103, CAF Rep Change of Address Process—the committee decided by consensus to bring out of parking lot and make active. The subcommittee consists of Herb Hayes, Lou Kapugi, Charles Armstrong and Randee Head.

Issue 16972, Health Insurance Deductions for Subchapter S—the committee decided by consensus to bring out of parking lot and made active. The subcommittee consists of Moss, Axelrod, DaCorte and Lynn. Moss is the lead.

Issue 16599, Flexible Spending Account—the committee decided by consensus to bring out of parking lot and made active. The subcommittee consists of Hayes, Head, Kapugi, and Thompson. Hayes is the lead.

How to write and Issue
Lynn gave a brief overview on how to write an issue and complete the JC referral form.

Lynn suggested that the committee goes to standing subcommittees to help move issues along quickly. The committee agreed by consensus to have standing subcommittees. The subcommittees are:
Team A—Karie Davis-Nozemack, Miya Burt-Stewart, Herb Hayes, and Luis Fuentes
Team B—Justin Axelrod, Sue Tatum, Charles Armstrong, and Tommy Thompson
Team C—Eboni Moss, Liz Mossad, Randee Head, and Susan DaCorte

Lou Kapugi and Susan Lynn will oversee and fill-in when needed.

The committee agreed by consensus to the proposed standing subcommittees.

Project Committee Report-Out
Each member shared statuses of project their particular project committee is currently working.

Round Table/Close Out
Kapugi announced that group is meeting at 6:30 in the lobby for dinner. Lynn asked if anyone would like to tour the White House as a group before/after the Annual Meeting.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Welcome/Announcements
Kapugi opened the meeting with some administrative information.

TAPSpace Demonstration
Axelrod gave a TAP Space demonstration he also showed members how to upload bios and pictures. The discussion thread, email notification and other aspects of TAP Space was demonstrated.

Outreach
Powers encouraged the committee to get to know their LTAs. She said that they love to partner with TAP to do outreach. There were 48 outreaches with a total audience of 67,743.

SWOT Analysis
Kapugi gave an overview of some of the comments that were gathered during the SWOT Analysis. If you want to read the report, you can log onto TAP Space.

The committee discussed a process to close the loop on issues that the committee wants to re-work.

STRENGTHS
Diversity of backgrounds
Commitment level of members
Ability to reach people in remote areas.
Knowledge base of members
Knowledge base of staff
Staff Support
Ability to communicate with the IRS

Weakness
Davis-Nozemack shared that closing the loop on issues dropped or issues the committee wants to re-work, there is no process to track.
Tatum said that the new member handbook is a good resource. She feels that in the orientation classes, they should have done the exercises in the issue elevation workshop.
DaCorte finds it offensive that some members are not participating.
Kapugi—new member training.
Davis-Nozemack noted that an opportunity would be to place IRS offices ---See Karie.
Commitment of members
Remote/too thin geographically – disperse
Need more staff
Size – too many members
Budget Restrictions
Lack of authority/not enough power to make changes within the IRS
Lack of accountability of members
Rogue Member – Off message
Time commitments
Coordinate outreach opportunities
Travel Outreach budget
IRS details
Passing the torch to rotating panel members
Lack of Awareness/recognition within the IRS

Threats
DaCorte—a threat to the program is continuity of the program. The commitment should be extended beyond the three-year commitment.
Better partnerships
Lack of awareness with the public
Budget
Congress/Treasury
No Charter
Public Perception – We are the IRS
Need Applicants in specific areas
So many messages – ours get lost to the public.

OPPORTUNITIES
Emerging “hot button”
Better use of Technology
Program owners valuing TAP and giving more responsibilities
Use the knowledge of rotating TAP members

Kapugi asked that the members complete the forms and return to him.

Citizen Input
Deidra Jackson asked if she could attend the meeting in New Orleans. Ferree informed that they are open meetings and we encourage people to attend.

Collins shared that she enjoyed the meeting and she will be attending more. She also thanked everyone for the work they are doing.

Meeting Close
Kapugi closed the meeting and thanked everyone for attending.

Next Meeting is teleconference on June 14, 2010.

Certification: the Area 3 Committee approved these minutes, by consensus on June 14, 2010.