Area 4 Committee Meeting Minutes
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Teleconference 1:00 CST

Designated Federal Official

• Martin, Betty Nashville, TN Designated Federal Official

Committee Members Present

• Adams-Dodds, Carolyn - Detroit, MI - Member
• Buschmann, Ray - Lake Forest, IL - Member
• Kosanovich, Matt - Columbus, OH - Member
• Mackie, Wayne - Frankenmuth, MI - Member
• Mull, Bob - Ann Arbor, MI - Member
• Oetken, Todd - Louisville, KY Vice - Chair
• Rhyan, Joyce - Cleveland, OH - Member
• Spiotto, Ann - Lincolnwood, IL - Chair
• Turner, Dianne - Knoxville, TN - Member
• Vanderver, Stephen - Evansville, IN - Member
• Werner, Mary Jo - La Crosse, WI - Member

Committee Members Absent

• Akbar, Sandra - Chicago, IL - Member
• Granger, Jackie - West Bend, WI - Member
• Martyniuk, Lev - Cincinnati, OH - Member
• Monnier, David - Indianapolis, IN - Member
• Taylor, Rita - Cincinnati, OH - Member
• Wingard, Kelly - Decatur, IL - Member

TAP Staff

• Block, Roy - Milwaukee, WI - Manager
• Smiley, Ellen - Milwaukee, WI - Analyst
• Gabriel, Lisa - Milwaukee, WI - Secretary

Welcome/Roll Call/Review Agenda (Spiotto)
Quorum met.

Area 4 Chair Report (Spiotto)
On the January Joint Committee call it was announced the Annual Meeting is scheduled the week of December 5th.

Also Commissioner Shulman has recommended new reporting of uncertain tax position by corporations. Sabby Jonathan is preparing a draft on behalf of TAP which will be discussed on the next Joint Committee call. The Area 4 panel members that volunteered to have input on this report are Marilyn Young and Mary Jo Werner.

Recruitment for TAP takes place March 15 to April 30. Roy Block noted that the Milwaukee office is moving the current alternates up to Panel Member positions for the 2011 year.

Ann Spiotto noted there has been a major step forward in the Taxpayer Assistance Center (TAC) offices based on recommendations from TAP. A pilot program is now available in 10 TAC offices allowing appointments for tax return preparation to be made online.

DFO Report
Block filled as DFO for Betty Martin (who joined the call later). Block noted from his observations the inventories of the TAS offices have leveled off. Each employee now has an average of 50 open cases.

New and Parking Lot Issues Report (Werner)

Issue 5736 – IRS should recommend change in EFTPS software
Description: Correct EFTPS. The teleprompt needs additional description for fiscal taxpayers that have tax years ending in a different year than the current year that the electronic estimated payment is being made.

Recommendation: TAP is not able to make recommendations to EFTPS. The issuance of CP 108 is a courtesy to prevent misapplication of payments. The taxpayer should be notified to contact his Senator as they have the ability to raise issues to all Treasury Agencies.
ITEM DROPPED.

Issue 5813 – IRS Toll-Free referring calls to TAP instead of TAS
Description: IRS employees need to be educated on the difference between TAS and TAP.
Recommendation: Ellen Smiley advised on February 11. 2010, Steve Berkey requested an alert sent to all employees explaining the difference between TAS and TAP. Berkey also requested a modification to the script for the TAP Aspect Toll-free Line to include TAS standard language to direct the taxpayers qualifying for TAS assistance to the National Taxpayer Advocate Case Intake line.
ITEM DROPPED.

Issue 5857 – Tax Practitioner Hotline Availability
Description: The wait time on the Tax Practitioner Hotline is increasing. Last time this practitioner called it resulted in a 20 minute wait time before someone was available to assist. In anticipation of more people having issues with delinquent accounts and IRS notices, is it possible that we need more man/woman power to answer the Tax practitioner hotline?
Recommendation: Calls are increasing and service is decreasing. Recommend: active - medium priority. The subcommittee members opting to work this issue are Steve Vanderver (lead), Bob Mull, and Mary Jo Werner.

Issue 5926 – Form 8925, Report of Employer-Owned Life Insurance Contracts
Description: On Form 8925, Report of Employer-Owned Life Insurance Contracts, the form is not clear on what is required and in what format written notification providing consent should be.
Recommendations: Active - low priority. The subcommittee members are Dianne Turner (lead) and Carolyn Adams-Dodds.

Issue 5927– Turn around time for additional documents
Description: As soon as a return is received by IRS, there should be a quick review and a request sent out immediately if more supporting documents are needed.
Recommendations: For IRS to have a triage department to go through returns would be more costly than the process currently being used. ITEM DROPPED.

Issue 16706 – Disclosure of Taxpayer Information by Preparers
Description: Urge IRS to widely publicize these new provisions to make taxpayers aware their tax preparer may disclose their tax return data to third parties without their consent.
Recommendations: Active - high priority. Marilyn Young prepared a referral that will be discussed later in the active issue discussion.

SAMS II New Database
Smiley explained the TAP new database is called SAMS II, which is different that SAMS. SAMS is used for TAP issues that need immediate intervention or a TAP issue the Area wants to pursue that is a legislative issue. SAMS II contains all TAP issues.

Issue Discussion – Active Issues

Issue 16732 (aka 5569) – VITA/TCE Grant Applications (Vanderver)
Vanderver noted not sure what direction to take on this issue.
ACTION ITEM: Block will set up a conference call with the subcommittee to discuss further.

Issue 16730 (aka 5638) – Notices (Taylor)
Table for next month

Issue 16729 (aka 5855) – 1099-Q/Qualified Tuition Payments (QTP) (Wingard)
Spiotto advised after the subcommittee received additional information indicating the number of underreporter notices issued regarding 1099-Q is minimal, the subcommittee recommends to drop the issue.
ITEM DROPPED.

Issue 16728 (aka 5658) – Understanding Taxes (Turner)
Smiley contacted the Area 1 analyst on this issue as it is similar to this one. The Area 1 analyst agreed to drop their issue if Area 4 will include colleges, in addition to high schools, in their write up. ACTION ITEM: Block will work with Turner to write referral to have subcommittee review.

Issue 16727 (aka 5859) – Correspondence Audits (Adams-Dodds)
This subcommittee will be meeting via teleconference Saturday, February 20, 2010, and will report next month. ACTION ITEM: Block will share what data he has on this issue with the subcommittee.

Issue 16706 – Disclosure of Taxpayer Information by Preparers (Young)
The Issue referral was reviewed and discussed. Area 4 agreed by consensus to elevate. First send to Area 4 Internal Quality Review.

Approved Issue for Elevation

• Issue 16731, First Time Event Penalty Abatement (Martyniuk//Werner)

Werner will work with Martyniuk and report next month.

Status of IRS Response to Elevated Issues

• Issue 5434, Check Box for Form 1065 (Smiley)

Committee agreed to close as Under IRS Consideration. If no final response received by August 2010, analyst will follow up with the IRS Operating Division. If still no response, we’ll add to SAMS II and elevate again.

Status of Issue Referred to SAMS

• Issue 16695 (aka 5901), Tie Breaker Rules for Qualifying Child (Smiley)

TAP received clarification from Chief Counsel it is not mandatory to use the tie breaker rules for a qualifying child. This issue was sent to SAMS as an intermediate intervention as two different sites on www.irs.gov list different information. SAMS’ response is they agree the information on the web site linked to Publication 4012 is not clear, however, cannot change the web site until the publication is corrected. SAMS did alert VITA of this issue as well as Forms and Publication’s, however it is unlikely the corrections will be made this year. The committee agreed to close issue: Accepted.

Status of Issues Referred to Forms and Pubs

• Issue 5443, Release Date for Form 5227, Split Interest Trust Information (Mull) – The original proposal was rejected.
  ITEM DROPPED.
• Issue 5260/5664, Form 8863 Education Credits and Forms (Smiley) – no updates
• Issue 5561, Income Classification – The head of SPEC, Julie Garcia did respond back. The committee agreed the issue is Partially Accepted.
• Issue 5562, MFJ vs. MFS List of Items Affected – no update
• Issue 5563, Simplified Method Worksheet – The response back indicated an explanation will be put in the instructions; there will not be any changes to the worksheet. The committee agrees this issue is Partially Accepted.

Status of Elevated Issues

• Issue 4945, Tax Law Access – No response
• Issue 5471, IRS Identity Theft Advice Clarification – A response was received, but IRS may have missed the point. Subcommittee will respond to IRS. This issue is being tabled for next months call.

Outreach
Area 4 is doing well with outreach. Continue to provide your outreaches to Smiley.

Office Updates
Issue 5368 - Security of Taxpayer information on Form 8879 was an issue submitted by Ray Buschmann, however Area 4 dropped this issues. All issues are TAP issues, so Area 5 pursued it. The IRS has announced that effective beginning withfiling season 2010, sites/volunteers sending forms 8879 to their local SPEC Territory Office for storage must notify their local SPEC relationship manager by email when these documents are mailed. Upon receipt, the relationship managerwill reply to the email confirming receipt. Ray had a good issue and we wanted to say Thank You to Ray for submitting the issue.

Meeting Adjourned

Next Teleconference Meeting, March 16, 2010 at 1:00 pm CT