TEI-IRS liaison meeting.

March 11,2010

Agenda

On March 10, 2010, Tax Executives Institute held its annual liaison meeting with the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and other senior officials of the IRS National Office. The agenda for the meeting is reprinted below. Minutes of the meeting will be published in a subsequent issue.

Welcome and Introduction

Commissioner's Priorities

1. Tax Risk Management--Conversation with the Boardroom.

2. Transparency. Announcement 2010-9 represents the latest step in the IRS's continuing effort to better identify transactions and areas, of risk that should be the focus of its examination resources. In line with Forms 8275, M-3, and 8886, it is designed to assist the IRS to expend its resources examining--rather than searching for--transactions. TEI is in the process of preparing written comments on Announcement 20109, but we welcome the opportunity to discuss the Announcement and in particular, the following:

   * Effective date

   * Materiality threshold

   * Unknowable amounts--valuations, transfer prices, etc.

   * Permanent v. Temporary Differences

   * Current year v. cumulative

3. Other

   Program Priorities

1. Compliance Assurance Process. The Compliance Assurance Process (CAP) pilot was designed to reduce taxpayer burden and uncertainty while ensuring the accuracy of tax returns prior to filing, and thereby minimizing the number and scope of postfiling examinations. Since its initial roll-out, the program has grown to well over one hundred participants.

   As CAP enters its sixth year, we would like to address the following:

   * When will the determination be made regarding the permanent status of CAP?

   * With the growing population of participants, does the IRS have sufficient resources to support the size of the program?

   * How is the IRS considering leveraging CAP to general program examinations?

2. National Employment Tax Examination Initiative--Moratorium on Cell Phone Audit Pending Action on Obama Legislative Proposal. The Administration's Fiscal 2011 Budget includes a proposal to remove cell phones from the definition of listed property under section 280(F)(d)(4) and to treat an employee's personal use of an employer-provided cell phone as a de minimis fringe benefit. Commissioner Shulman said during a January 8, 2010, interview on C-SPAN's Newsmakers program, "We're quite hopeful Congress is going to act on this.... In the meantime, we're not doing anything special or moving forward with any initiatives. Our hope is that there will be legislation...