February 2000

Committee Holds Final Visit with IRS Manhattan District Director

Restructuring Replaces Districts with New Territories and Divisions

The NYSSCPA Relations with the IRS Committee, chaired by James Brennan, held its final meeting with the Manhattan district director on January 20. Under the current IRS restructuring, there will no longer be district directors. In the future, the committee hopes to arrange meetings with the senior IRS executive in Manhattan, currently expected to be the territory manager of the large and medium-sized business division, and other top IRS officials from other divisions.

"The decades-old practice of joint meetings with IRS personnel has been an important vehicle to encourage improved communications between the tax-collecting agency and the CPA profession," Brennan said.

These meetings occur at both the chapter and the state level. In the Nassau Chapter, for example, chapter member Eugene Winston, who also serves on the statewide Relations with the IRS Committee, worked to improve profession-IRS relations with the processing center, formerly service center, in Brookhaven, N.Y. Winston championed these meetings for over a decade, growing the CPA representation from two CPAs to two meetings attended by 70 CPAs in August 1999.

"The purpose of these meetings is to discuss issues from the mundane to the systemic," said Fred Slater, who managed the Manhattan meetings for the Society committee from 1997 until last year. "We avoid discussion of specific taxpayer questions. The ability to talk with the different IRS personnel is a huge time-saver. To be able to pick up the phone and reach the right personnel to resolve an issue is invaluable."

Gerard I. Borod, who assumed the responsibility of managing the meetings this year, organized the January 20 Manhattan meeting.

"I'm sure these meetings will continue with the new IRS organizational structure," Borod said, "although the planning is likely to be much more involved from the IRS's perspective."

The Relations with the IRS Committee also met with representatives from the IRS service center in Andover, Mass., for the first time last October. New Yorkers residing north of New York City file their tax returns in Andover. Slater organized the Andover meeting for the committee.

Meetings include written questions posed by the CPAs and answers prepared by the IRS. See the committee's forum on www.nysscpa.org for questions and answers from the recent January meeting with the Manhattan district director and a meeting held last August with the Brookhaven service center. Members wishing to submit questions for future meetings should contact Brennan at (212) 773-3209 or james.brennan@ey.com. *