Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP) Joint Committee Teleconference Minutes Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Designated Federal Official
Steve Berkey - Acting TAP Director

Members Present
Sabby Jonathan - TAP Chair
Harlan Barnett - Chair, SB/SE
Herbert Bohrer - Chair, Area 6
Susan DaCorte - Chair, Communications
Daniel Fretheim - Chair, Area 5
Louis Kapugi - Chair, Area 3
John Kim - Chair, Area 7
Cheryl Morse - Chair, Area 1
Mary Jean Potenzone - Chair, Area 2
Todd Oetken - Vice Chair, Area 4
Stephen Vanderver - Chair, VITA
Josefina Villarreal - Chair, EITC
Thomas Walker - Vice Chair, TAP
Tommy Thompson - Chair, TAC

Members Absent
Ann Spiotto - Chair, Area 4
Ernest Miller - Chair, Notices
Lev Martyniuk - Chair, Forms and Pubs/MIL

Staff Present
Susan Gilbert - Senior Program Analyst
Kymberly Axtell - TAP Secretary
Bill Mezger - Program Manager
Roy Block - Program Manager
Audrey Jenkins - Program Analyst
Nancy Ferree - Program Manager
Tim Shepard - Program Analyst
Annie Haywood - TAP Secretary
Ellen Smiley - Program Analyst
Patti Robb - Program Analyst
Lisa Gabriel - Program Analyst

Staff Absent
Shawn Collins TAP Director

Guests
Marilyn Young Area 4 TAP Member
Rita Taylor Area 4 TAP Member
Justin Axelrod Area 3 TAP Member
Susan Lynn Area 3 TAP Member

Welcome/Announcements/Review Agenda
Steve Berkey opened the meeting.

Roll Call
Quorum was met.

Minutes were approved with two changes, correcting Justin Axelrod’s area on the first page and deleting the words annual meeting from the next meeting statement on the last page.

Project Committee Review
Notices
Project #17396—Review of Ltr. 4516-Notice Improvement—Ernest Miller reviewed the project briefly for the committee. Pre-reads were presented to the committee in the previous months meeting. The Project was previously postponed from the April Joint Committee meeting.
DECISION: The committee consented, to approve the project.

Area Issues for Review
Area 1—Issue #17559—Free File “Bait and Switch”— Cheryl Morse reviewed the issue for the committee. The issue pertains to the taxpayers’ ability to file at no charge through the IRS website, using a third party. The recommendation is to have a disclaimer before leaving IRS website and going to a third party site.
DECISION: The committee, by consensus, approved the referral with modifications to the Proposed Solution, Background, Research and Analysis paragraph and the Benefits and Barriers. Changes were also included that would Impact the Proposed Change section.

Area 2—Issue #16721—Request to Speak to a Specific IRS Employee—Mary Jean Potenzone reviewed the issue for the committee. The issue pertains to the taxpayer’s ability to speak to the same IRS employee after finishing a conversation. The recommendation is to have a voice recorded statement alerting the taxpayer that they would not be able to get the same agent once the call has ended.
DECISION: The committee, by consensus, approved the referral with modifications to the Proposed Solution section to include having the statement on both the website and the phone system prior to the taxpayer reaching an IRS employee.

The Committee decided to hold a conversation at the Joint Committee Face to Face meeting regarding working several of the same issues or combining those same issues and elevating them at the same time.

Area 4—Issue #16706—Taxpayer Notification of Third Party Disclosure Rules—Marilyn Young reviewed the issue for the committee. The issue pertains to the IRS’ ability to communicate to taxpayers that a tax preparer is using their information without consent. IRS should also encourage public knowledge that their consent is needed
DECISION: The committee, by consensus, approved the issue for elevation to the IRS.

Issue #16730—Refer for Preparer Advice—Rita Taylor reviewed the issue for the committee. The issue pertains to adding a statement on notices to taxpayers advising if their return was prepared by a third party tax preparer, the taxpayer may want to contact that individual prior to talking to the IRS.
DECISION: The committee, by consensus, approved the issue for elevation to the IRS.

Steve Berkey reported that TAP concluded the final Town Hall Meeting. Although successful, with Town Halls, the National Taxpayer Advocate, Nina Olson, has indicated this would be the final year for Town Halls. He also reported that the project and issue numbers for the annual report are higher than the previous two years.

Sabby Jonathan reported that the face to face is coming up in Chicago in July and that there had been a task force to assist in developing the agenda. He also asked everyone to start thinking about the annual meeting and that another task force has been developed to start working on that. He invited anyone who wanted to join to email him.

Jonathan requested the committee’s opinions of creating a subcommittee to strictly work correspondence issues. The committee decided to leave the issues that the areas have already in place and allow those committees to continue working them. Any new issues would also be left in the areas to be worked by that area. However the subcommittee in Area 7 would develop a more global solution and address the broader issues with correspondence audits.
DECISION: The committee agreed to allow the Area 7 subcommittee to function as the correspondence audit subcommittee for the time being. Sabby invited anyone from other areas to email him if they wanted to join.

Strategic Plan Taskforce
Cheryl Morse reported they are gathering information and the analysis is moving forward.

Issue Tracking Taskforce
Mary Jean Potenzone reported that the tracking system is working and they will continue tracking the issues on a monthly basis via a report that will show the status of the issue within the IRS, and the proposed implementation date. Potenzone suggests that the report be provided monthly to the Joint Committee. Jonathan announced this would conclude the life of the Issue Tracking Taskforce.

2009 Annual Report
Susan DaCorte reported the final draft will be posted to TAP Space and a message will be sent out to all Area and Project Committee Chairs and 2009 panel members who assisted with the report to ensure corrections can be addressed and corrected. The report is almost ready to be sent to Steve and the production team.

Suspension of Surveys
DaCorte stated that the Communications Committee proposed the surveys be suspended due to issues being brought up and no action would be taken.

Interaction Plan
DaCorte reported the committee would like to introduce the plan and the issues from the surveys at the upcoming face to face and would like to add a block of time for that.

TAP Website Database
DaCorte stated that the committee is now tracking, through staff the number of successful times that TAP members are able to post the link to improveirs.org to any website.

Recruitment
Steve Berkey reported that ranking was completed the previous week in DC by staff. All the managers have spoken with TAP Director, Shawn Collins about whom and when they will be interviewing. Interviews will be conducted the month of June. There appears to be an increase in preparer applications from offices such as H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt. This may be the result of increased distribution of the TAP announcement in their offices.

Annual Meeting
Susan Gilbert reported that there has been a task force assigned to develop the agenda for the annual meeting being held the week of December 6th in Washington, Dc.

Gilbert also reminded everyone the cut off for submitting issues for inclusion on the agenda is five business days before the monthly Joint Committee meeting. This ensures that everything is correct and posted properly.

Area/Issue Committee Activities
Area 1—Cheryl Morse requested the committee’s approval on the Area’s decision to send public input to the IRS in response to their solicitation for input. The committee approved Cheryl’s response.

Public Input
No public input.

Closing
Berkey closed the meeting.

Next Meeting: June 22, 2010