| NOVEMBER 2008 TSCPA Liaison Meeting - IRS Submitted on Friday January 2, 2009 Minutes TSCPA - IRS Liaison Meeting October 27, 2008 TNSEA Board members present: Don Elsea, Jean Locke, Bruce Thomas, • John Houston, CPA Moderator from Chattanooga welcomes the • Craig Crews, IRS Stakeholder Liaison, discussed the importance of the partnership of IRS with the practioner's organization. • Hot Issues: New IRS identity protection specialized hot line number 1-800-908-4490 • IRS will increase the number of Form 1040-ES voucher mailings this filing season after numerous representative complaints. • IRS has added a "Where is my stimulus payment?' toolbar to IRS.GOV. • MYIRSACCOUNT is scheduled to start in 2009 and will allow taxpayers to access their own income tax information for the present year and three previous years. • Ellen Dolby, Director SB/SE Gulf States discussed collection issues. • Doug Shulman is the new Commissioner and he emphasizes both service and enforcement. • 5 year Strategic plan (1) improve service to make voluntary compliance easier. (2) Enforce the laws to make sure everyone meets their tax obligations. Emphasis on timeliness, effective tax lien filings, trust fund penalty assessments, and use of appropriate enforcement actions. • Carolyn Jackson and Teresa Webb, Memphis Campus discussed the challenging 2008 filing season, which had overwhelming number of telephone calls relating to the stimulus check questions. IRS is hiring 2000 new customer service representatives for 2009. • CAF Inquiry line 1-901-546-4176. • Stephania Russell, Examination said that first contact is established on a new examination case by sending Letter2205-A or by a cold call. John Lee, Territory Examination Manager, prefers the cold call. • John Lee prefers that the examination occur at the place of business. • Craig Crews (615) 250-5791 can get the name and telephone number of any IRS employee's supervisor. • Allen Bissell, Campus Compliance Services discussed universal call routing; their 80% level of service goal; 12% inventory level assigned to Nashville; the predictive dialer and the Brookhaven ACS Large Dollar center which is made up of three teams with 45 people who handle income tax liabilities between $100,000 and $1,000,000. • Kimberly Sanford, Appeals explained that penalty appeals cases are handled by the Ogden Campus. She stated that you have the right to a face-to-face appeals hearing even though their trend is towards telephone conferences. • Betty Martin, Taxpayer Advocate explained the challenges that their office faces with increased inventory, decreasing staff and the need of IRS to collect money to run the government at the same time understanding the taxpayer's problems with the bad economy. The TAO systemic advocacy program at IRS.GOV has been enhanced. • Howard Levine, Chief Counsel Criminal tax counsel, discussed parallel proceeding where IRS can be proceeding with civil collection on a taxpayer while working on a criminal prosecution. • Christopher Pikelis SAC Nashville (615) 250-5301 explained that there are two options is a criminal tax case, an Administrative Conference with the SAC or the Grand Jury process. Nancy J. Wells TNSEA Secretary Nancy J. Wells |