Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP)
Joint Committee Teleconference Minutes
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
3:00 – 4:30 PM Eastern Time

Designated Federal Official
Shawn Collins TAP Director (DFO)

Members Present
Sabby Jonathan Chair

Vice Chair
Cheryl Morse - Chair, Area 1
Mary Jean Potenzone - Chair, Area 2
Louis Kapugi - Chair, Area 3
Ann Spiotto - Chair, Area 4
Daniel Fretheim - Chair, Area 5
Herbert Bohrer - Chair, Area 6
John Kim - Chair, Area 7
Josefina Villarreal - Chair, EITC
Ernest Miller - Chair, Notice Improvement
Susan DaCorte - Chair, Communication
Harlan Barnett - Chair, Small Business Self Employed (SBSE)
Stephen Vanderver - Chair, VITA
Lev Martyniuk - Chair, Tax Forms and Pubs/MLI
Dean Conder - Vice Chair, TAC
Susan Lynn - Vice Chair, Area 3

Members Absent
Tommy Thompson - TAC

Staff Present
Anita Fields - Note Taker
Susan Gilbert - Senior Program Analyst
Ellen Smiley - Program Analyst
Patti Robb - Program Analyst
Lisa Gabriel - Program Analyst
Roy Block - Program Manager
Judi Nicholas - Program Manager
Nancy Ferree - Program Manager
Louis Morizio - Program Manager
Steve Berkey - Senior Program Analyst
Linda Rivera - Senior Program Analyst

Guests

Welcome/Announcements/Review Agenda
Jonathan Sabby welcomed everyone to the Joint Committee (JC) meeting.

Roll Call
Quorum was met.

John Kim asked that we don’t go later in the month, because it created a problem this year.

TAP Chair Report
Sabby Jonathan welcomed everyone to the first JC meeting as well. Jonathan thanked the staff for their input on creating a database to track issues from inception through implementation or to the grave. Whichever is applicable? Judi Nicholas is heading up that team to get this completed.

There was a suggestion for TAP to meet with Nina Olson, National Taxpayer Advocate, mid year to discuss matters surrounding taxpayer’s issues that don’t always fit the normal criterion for issues. This meeting will be non-formal with no written reports. Collins is going to follow-up on that.

Jonathan discussed creating a strategic plan. The purpose of the strategic plan is to address issues and concerns surrounding TAP,that includes looking at outreach and addressing systemic IRS issues. Jonathan asked the committee how they feel about developing a strategic plan for TAP.

Cheryl Morse, Mary Jean Potenzone, Tom Walker, John Kim, and Herbert Bohrer volunteered to work on a subcommittee to look at a strategic plan. Louis Morizio also volunteered to work with this subcommittee, with Morse as the lead. Steve Berkey volunteered to provide some historical data to help with this task; he will pull some information together to assist the team in getting started.

Susan DaCorte mentioned that the Communication Committee has some things outlined and she will have Morse link up with members on that committee to see what they may already have.

Jonathan mentioned that there is a new requirement being proposed by the Commissioner to report uncertain tax positions by business taxpayers. There is a request for comments by the public. Jonathan would like to prepare a response on behalf of TAP. He will have it ready for the committees to review on next call.
The deadline to submit the response is May. Mary Jean Potenzone and Tom Walker volunteered to assist with the legal aspect of the response.

The minutes were approved by consensus.

Quality Review Process
Tom Walker reported a subcommittee put together a draft of the new QR Process. One big change is that all Areas should heavily QR their documents before coming to the JC QR team. If it comes to JC with a myriad of changes, it will go back to the Area to make corrections.

Herb Bohrer showed concern that after it goes back to JC QR the second team will take a different look and cause a back and forth between the JC and the Area. Walker assured him that he has taken a look at that and the intention is not to create a back and forth between the two.

The committee agreed by consensus to accept the recommended QR process.

Annual Meeting Debrief
Susan Gilbert reported that the Annual Meeting went very well. We are in the process of consolidating the evaluations. The roll up should be available for the February meeting.

Recruitment Update—Plans for 2010
Berkey reported that we are getting geared up for the upcoming recruitment, March 15 thru April 30, 2010. The initial analysis shows we have 29 vacancies to fill. Right now we are at 101 members which is full contention. Berkey is looking at similar numbers as last year, but it hasn’t been finalized yet.

Minor changes were made to the interview questions and the application. Some first year members have agreed to go through mock interviews before we go live with the new questions. We will also put sample questions on TAPSpace for members to review and try to catch any changes that need to be made before we go live.

SAMS II/Reports
Morizio reported that we are now in the process of moving all active issues over to SAMS II. We are also placing all new issues into the new database. Morizio suggested that all Area analysts develop a spreadsheet cross referencing the old issue numbers from the Contact Database to the new issue numbers generated in SAMSII.

Area Issues for Review
None

Meeting With President’s Economic Recovery Board, December 18, 2009
Jonathan reported this meeting was a ‘feather in our cap’ as TAP was asked to present comments. To top that, TAP was asked to appear and present our comments in person.

Area/Project Committee Activities
Area 1—Morse reported that she has revamped the way that Area 1 is doing things. They are re-energized and every single person is working on an issue.

Area 2—Potenzone reported that Bob McQuiston is superhuman. She stated that Area 2 is currently pushing issues through Quality Review and you should see them on next month’s agenda. Potenzone feels that Area 2 is going to have a very fruitful year.

Area 3—Lou Kapugi reported that Area 3 focus is to really get better on outreach this year as well as working and supporting each other.

Area 4— Ann Spiotto reported that they are focusing on issues. They have set up new issue committees and QR team’s. They are very collegial and work well together. Vanderver added that Area 4 referred two issues to the IRS and they have been accepted and implemented.

Area 5—Daniel Fretheim reported that Area 5 has two issues being elevated to the JC Q R within the next two months. He reported they also have two issues elevated to the IRS. One has been implemented and the other the IRS is trying to implement.

Area 6— Bohrer reported that all three of their subcommittees are working on issues and they should have some ready for the JC soon. Outreach is also a focus; they are trying to get the new members trained and up and running.

Area 7—Kim reported that you will be hearing from Area 7 in February. He stated that Area 7 didn’t have a call in January due to scheduling conflicts with the staff.

Communication—DaCorte reported that Communication has three very active groups: 1) working on ETAP issues (one internal and one external). The big issue that came out of the communication meeting this month is to do away with annual surveys. 2) working on the strategic plan and 3) completing the annual report.

EITC—Jo Villarreal reported that she just received a clear understanding of the two projects EITC is working on this year. One is volunteer preparer training and the second is EITC presentations. We received a Link and Learn link for the committee to use to see how that training can be supplemented.

Tax Forms and Pubs—Lev Martyniuk reported they had an emergency turn around in December for publication 5405, First Time Homebuyers. The committee did that over the holidays. During the first meeting the committee was assigned a number of projects.

Notice Improvement—Ernest Miller reported that they received a big project. The project is to test the new method on how the IRS sends out letters to taxpayers. Currently the committee uses DAT scoring, but they are changing that process.

SBSE—Harlan Barnett reported that SBSE has five projects this year. They are: 1) IRS tax calendar for SBSE, Pub 1518, 2) Solution Saturday Outreach for businesses, 3) Volunteer Agreement on TIPS, 4) Audit Technique Guides, and 5) Chore Payments. Barnett stated that each subcommittee has started working on their assignments.

TAC—Dean Conder reported that they received their projects in December. They have outlined the project plan and timeline. This consists of members of the committee visiting TAC offices again this year and observing the service.

VITA—Stephen Vanderver reported that they were assigned three projects during the Annual Meeting; 1) Financial Education and Asset Building, 2) Improving Quality of Returns, and 3) Training.

Jonathan thanked everyone and stated that in the future there may not be enough time for each chair to give a full report. He stated that as he listens he is very impressed and encouraged members to keep up the good work.

Public Input
None

Closing
Collins stated that this was a very good first meeting and look forward to next month. Jonathan thanked members for attending the meeting.