1 BEFORE THE CALIFORNIA STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION 2 450 N STREET 3 SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 4 5 6 7 REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT 8 OCTOBER 6, 2009 9 10 CUSTOMER SERVICES AND 11 ADMINISTRATIVE EFFICIENCY COMMITTEE 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Reported by: Juli Price Jackson 21 No. CSR 5214 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 1 1 2 P R E S E N T 3 4 For the Board Bill Leonard of Equalization: Chair 5 Betty T. Yee 6 Member 7 Jerome E. Horton Member 8 Michelle Steel 9 Member 10 Marcy Jo Mandel Appearing for John 11 Chiang, State Controller (per Government Code 12 Section 7.9) 13 Diane G. Olson Chief, Board 14 Proceedings Division 15 16 17 ---oOo--- 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 2 1 450 N STREET 2 SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 3 OCTOBER 6, 2009 4 ---oOo--- 5 MS. OLSON: Our next item on the agenda is 6 Customer Service and Administrative Efficiency 7 Committee. 8 Mr. Leonard is the Chair of this committee. 9 Mr. Leonard? 10 MR. LEONARD: Good morning, Members -- good 11 morning. 12 The Board asked Anita Gore to come back and 13 give us an update on your on our outreach and some of 14 the questions that were raised by Board Members in the 15 meeting before last regarding some of the budgeting on 16 outreach and, in particular, issues dealing with our 17 in-person seminars and the outreach that we all very 18 much enjoy doing and sponsoring and the efforts to grow 19 the virtual seminars and the outreach that we do through 20 the internet to taxpayers in getting them the same 21 information. 22 Ms. Gore? 23 MS. GORE: Thank you, Mr. Leonard, Committee 24 Members. 25 I'm Anita Gore, Deputy Director of External 26 Affairs. And with me is Kari Hammond. She is the 27 manager of the Outreach Services Division. 28 When we were here last month, the Committee 3 1 Members asked several questions related to in-person 2 seminars and the virtual seminars that we're creating. 3 You've been sent materials that address the 4 questions of attendance and use, cost, most common 5 seminars and benefits of in-person seminars and online 6 seminars. 7 Attached to that information are a transition 8 plan and a marketing plan. It's our goal to create a 9 virtual seminar and business fair, each in their 10 entirety, by the end of the calendar year. 11 We demonstrate how we'll create the virtual 12 experience with one of the documents you've been given 13 that is an agenda taken from one of the events and how 14 we're going to replace each of those agenda items 15 through an online method and a timeline for doing that. 16 The goal is to replicate the in-person events 17 through the web in some form. In some cases the agenda 18 items will be addressed through a fully produced video, 19 like we showed you last time. In some cases a power 20 point presentation with audio will be available. And, 21 at the very least, written materials will be available. 22 Right now what I'd like to demonstrate to you 23 today is the very short composite of a voice-over power 24 point on the issue of AB 71 regarding cigarette tax 25 enforcement. 26 It will magically appear before you. 27 "Welcome to the Board of Equalization's 28 presentation on retail sales of cigarettes and 4 1 sill tobacco products. 2 As a retailer of cigarette and tobacco 3 products, you can expect the Board of 4 Equalization to stop in for a routine 5 inspection of your store. 6 The top two reasons the Board has seized 7 cigarettes in the recent years have been for 8 counterfeit stamped cigarettes and unstamped 9 cigarettes. The most common violation can be 10 avoided by keeping 12 months of valid purchase 11 invoices on the premises. 12 There are two levels of appeal. The first is 13 conducted by a Hearing Officer of the Excise 14 Taxes Division. 15 Thank you for taking the time to review this 16 online information. 17 We hope the presentation has been both useful 18 and informative." 19 MS. GORE: That's one example of an online 20 presentation of a power point with audio. And we plan 21 to do more of those as time goes on. 22 We're working with our partners also and the 23 other participating agencies to place materials that we 24 don't own -- that are the materials of those other 25 agencies --onto our virtual seminar website. 26 We'll also include links to appropriate 27 publications. So that all of those materials are handed 28 out at the in-person seminars will also be available 5 1 online in one location. 2 To address the issue of a question and answer 3 capability, we plan to have an e-mail address listed 4 with the seminar materials so that taxpayers can ask 5 their questions and we'll commit to forwarding those 6 questions to the appropriate person within 48 hours. 7 Our goal is to create a taxpayer experience 8 that is the next best thing to being there. The virtual 9 seminars are a cost effective alternative. There are 10 some, however, who will prefer the in-person experience. 11 But for those who would like to listen to the materials 12 at their leisure and convenience, we plan to offer this 13 virtual alternative. 14 The virtual materials will also serve to 15 reinforce the seminar experience, as well as enhance the 16 breadth of information shared. 17 We'll keep you updated on our progress. 18 The next item planned for completion is the 19 Taxpayer Rights Advocate presentation and we plan to be 20 able to demonstrate that for you at the November Board 21 meeting. 22 Following that addition, we plan to create the 23 Sales and Use Tax nonprofit seminar power point 24 presentation with a voice-over. 25 And that's my presentation for today. And I'll 26 be happy to answer any questions that you may have. 27 MR. LEONARD: Members, question? 28 MS. YEE: Mr. Leonard? 6 1 MR. LEONARD: Ms. Yee? 2 MS. YEE: Thank you very much. 3 And thank you, Ms. Gore for the comprehensive 4 report following up on our questions. 5 I just wanted to point out this is very 6 astounding statistic in terms of the use and watch of 7 the online tutorials -- in the last five months over 8 5000 actually viewing the online tutorials. 9 I just want to compliment the staff that have 10 developed those tutorials. I think they are very 11 concise and I like the fact that they aren't cluttered, 12 it's just, you know, very much to the point. And I 13 think that is definitely the way to go. 14 And I certainly appreciate the efforts at 15 looking at transitioning into more of the online 16 capability and hope that as we get word out more to our 17 taxpayers that we will continue to see that 5000 number 18 increase. 19 Thank you. 20 MS. GORE: That's our goal. Thank you. 21 MR. LEONARD: Very well. 22 Ms. Mandel? 23 MS. MANDEL: I just had had a question that I 24 don't remember getting an answer to. 25 The 5000 views, do we know if that's -- is a 26 page view necessarily watching the video? Is it the 27 same thing? 28 And did we -- it is a good number, but did 7 1 we -- are we able to distinguish how much of -- whether 2 it was external or internal BOE or we can't tell. 3 MS. GORE: We don't know. We know that each 4 one is a hit. We don't know if they sat through the 5 whole tutorial. We don't know if it's a person coming 6 back again to see the educational product that we have 7 available. 8 We envision that some people hear information 9 at the in-person seminars and still have questions and 10 come back to the website. Or if they start to fill out 11 a form, they would go bank to the website for 12 reinforcement of what they think they know. 13 But in terms of whether it's an internal or an 14 external view, we don't have that information. 15 MS. MANDEL: Okay. 16 MR. LEONARD: Good question. 17 Ms. Steel, did you have one? 18 MS. STEEL: Well, I want to thank you too 19 staff, that they've been working really hard. I know 20 it's very cost effective and we've been saving lot of 21 money and I know we are going right directions, but I 22 was dividing up with, you know, how much cost for each 23 seminar that we did for 5400 per each event -- actually, 24 currently, we've been doing work in my district that we 25 have actually 3 to 500 people every seminar that we 26 have. People showing up. 27 So, even if we divide by 300 it's only $18 per 28 person at this point and it's one shop -- one stop shop. 8 1 You know, that they can come in and they can get a lot 2 of informations. 3 Plus they can ask person to person questions 4 and they get assistance at that point instead of waiting 5 for 48 hours for e-mail answers, you know, from the 6 computer sites that we set it up. 7 So, we are going right directions, but until 8 that happens, I think we still have, you know, few 9 seminars in my district, especially my district somehow, 10 you know, overwhelmingly, that, you know, taxpayers 11 showing up. And not just that, some people we really 12 have to turn them back to, you know, ask them to come 13 back for next seminar. 14 So, it's been very effective. And people 15 actually stopped working all day trying to listen for 16 six, seven hours seminars in our district. 17 They really show up and are very overwhelmingly 18 getting positive feedback from taxpayers and specially a 19 lot of people get scared that, you know, attending tax 20 agency seminars, but they were very happy to meet person 21 to person, that these tax agents or tax collectors are 22 not having those horns on their heads, but they're very 23 nice looking people. So, that was very positive 24 actually response that we got. 25 And I'm very happy about it and I see Kari 26 smiles around all over with, you know, taxpayers and 27 that was very nice to see that. So, until that we 28 really completely, you know, too very convenient, people 9 1 get in and get answers right away for this -- for the 2 computer seminars, I think we should, you know, keep 3 going with, you know, person to person seminars for a 4 while. And we will try to save money in our district in 5 other ways, but we want to keep at least few until, you 6 know, we -- this computer seminar can be very effective. 7 Thank you very much staff. 8 MS. GORE: Thank you. 9 MR. LEONARD: Very good. 10 Ms. Yee? 11 MS. YEE: Do we know if these events -- do we 12 have weekend events? Do we have whole weekend events? 13 MS. HAMMOND: No, we have not had a Saturday or 14 a Sunday event. 15 MS. YEE: So, most of these are during the 16 course of the work week and workday? 17 MS. HAMMOND: Yes. 18 MS. YEE: And, is there -- I think I am going t 19 answer my own question when I ask it, is there a 20 potential as we transition more towards the online 21 tutorials to look at possibly recasting the scope of the 22 in-person seminars? 23 Or do we think that it's going to remain the 24 same? 25 And I appreciate that there are some areas that 26 are still going to have access issues with respect to 27 the online. 28 MS. GORE: I think we have greater flexibility 10 1 once we create more of these materials that are 2 available. So that we could actually -- rather than 3 send a body down to make to presentation, teach someone 4 how to facilitate the showing of the video or other 5 material that we had. So that we can sort of create a 6 hybrid, where we have an in-person experience, we have 7 people there to answer questions, but not necessarily 8 take the staff time of the person who has to leave their 9 work and go and make the presentation at the event. 10 It's a possibility. 11 MS. YEE: Okay. 12 Okay, and I only ask that because in my 13 decision to discontinue seminars in my district it 14 really was a workload issue. We were taking time away 15 from our auditors to do their regular work to be at 16 these seminars and certainly prepare for them. 17 But if there can be, I guess, just some 18 recognition that as we get more online capability that 19 we kind of just have a regular review as to whether the 20 in-person events need to be recast as to scope and 21 content. 22 MS. GORE: Absolutely. 23 MR. LEONARD: Mr. Horton? 24 MR. HORTON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 25 The 5000, I guess, is people who accessed the 26 web. Is there any way to tell what percentage of the 27 total taxpayers that represents? 28 MS. GORE: Well, if we have 800 -- 890,000 11 1 taxpayers, the percentage is small. There are -- the 2 total of persons attending the in-person seminars is 3 less than that. 4 I am sorry, I was looking for that number. 5 In-person seminars were attended by 3400 people last 6 year and in five months the basic Sales and Use Tax 7 tutorial was viewed by 5000 people. 8 MR. HORTON: Okay. 9 MS. GORE: Certainly we have -- it is our 10 intention to do broader outreach and we have included in 11 your materials the marketing plan and how we intend to 12 make more information available to our taxpayers about 13 the availability of these materials. 14 MR. HORTON: Is it possible for the taxpayer to 15 be selective in their view? 16 Let's say, for example, they come to a seminar 17 and they are only interested in one particular area, can 18 they tap into that? 19 MS. GORE: Absolutely. And we have different 20 tracks for different people and different agendas to 21 meet different needs of taxpayers. 22 And certainly if a taxpayer only had a half day 23 to spend, they could spend a half a day or they can stay 24 for the full seminar, depending on what their needs are. 25 The online versions, of course, offer the 26 flexibility of watching it 24-7, at your leisure. 27 MR. HORTON: Can they access the same material 28 on the existing website? 12 1 MS. GORE: They would have to seek it out. And 2 they don't necessarily get talked through a process. 3 We do have multiple hundreds of publications 4 available online, where people can go read about the 5 information -- but certainly not in a presentation form. 6 And that's our goal, is to ultimately have all 7 of the information that is presented at the seminars 8 available in a similar format on the web, in one 9 location. 10 MR. HORTON: I haven't really had a chance to 11 look at this in a lot of detail, so, I would reserve any 12 judgment of it. 13 Thank you very much for all of the work you 14 have done. 15 But I would share that over the years I have 16 been a strong advocate for taxpayer seminars, either 17 within the district or seminars conducted by the Board 18 Members. 19 One of the premiere reasons has been goodwill, 20 increasing compliance, and the relationships that are 21 developed with the Board Member, the staff, as well as 22 the taxpayers who attend. 23 There is a development of goodwill that exists 24 that continues to advance this thing called 25 self-compliance that the Board is -- has always 26 historically done an excellent job, but I think this is 27 an excellent tool. 28 Whether or not it replaces the human touch, I 13 1 don't know. 2 MR. LEONARD: Thank you, Mr. Horton. 3 Any other comments or questions? 4 As for me, I want both. I have discontinued my 5 in-person seminars only to help balance the budget and 6 avoid employee layoffs. And I really look forward to 7 bringing them back. 8 I think there's a -- not only a value like you 9 talked about, Ms. Gore, of the interaction and asking 10 questions to the expert and getting a faster answer and 11 turnaround and even a feedback of refining the question. 12 But there's also a serendipity. Every time I 13 go and I wander to the tables of the other tax agencies, 14 or the local chambers or local cities and county 15 agencies that are there. And I learn something just 16 walking by. 17 So, I think we're all interested in that and 18 want to get back on that. But there's -- having all of 19 that information all that effort, as Ms. Yee points out, 20 done and then disappear is really not cost effective if 21 we can record it, which you have now started to do, and 22 make it available 24-7 on the internet for the other 23 millions of possible interested parties, is what -- 24 something we should do. 25 It also strikes me a hybrid might be this 26 webinair thing, where the expert doesn't leave their 27 desk, but has a video camera put in front of them. 28 There's an in-person seminar, I introduce them over the 14 1 internet, they speak and they can -- it's two-way, they 2 can handle live questions from the audience and also 3 have people in the room to help out, obviously, with 4 your good work, but that we could -- we could combine a 5 lot of those and try to cut this price down for those. 6 I also discovered, I think all of us have done 7 that, Mr. Horton, there is three audiences at the 8 general seminars -- there's registered taxpayers, 9 there's also people who have yet to start a business but 10 are smart enough to come to something like this to learn 11 what they need to know before they start, and there's 12 tax professionals, excuse me, that service a lot of 13 their clients and want to get the latest information. 14 And it's kind of -- it really is three 15 different audiences, three different interest levels. 16 And the more we can differentiate and provide 17 information that answers the issues of each of those 18 three, the better we serve. 19 Ms. Yee, Ms. Steel? 20 MS. YEE: Okay, thank you. 21 I guess on the issue of cost, a couple of 22 thoughts and, that is, I would hope that we're going to 23 continue to be cognizant of the costs, even when our 24 hard fiscal situation improves, but certainly I think we 25 all can be helpful Members in terms of trying to reduce 26 the cost of venues through, you know, memberships and 27 relationships we have with various organizations in our 28 districts. 15 1 With respect to travel and postage, postage -- 2 I mean, I am trying to convert most of our operation in 3 my district office to more kind of electronic and 4 e-mail, kind of getting the word out through our local 5 chambers and having a pretty good network of outreach 6 types of organizations. 7 And then travel, I mean one of the things that 8 has kind of struck me about these online tutorials is 9 that it's a great training tool for our own staff. So, 10 to the extent that we can kind of have a program without 11 training the trainers and that we're not having to send 12 people all over the state to do these seminars and we 13 can actually have them closer by to the venues where we 14 are going to have an in-person seminar might be not 15 only, 1, a good staff development tool, but, 2, makes 16 sense with respect to reducing travel costs. 17 MR. LEONARD: Good point. 18 Ms. Steel? 19 MS. STEEL: Just a question, about how about 20 other languages online seminars? 21 MS. GORE: Right now, we are working toward 22 English only. 23 Once we get a full seminar, we can evaluate 24 what the other needs are and how we can best meet the 25 needs of the taxpayers. 26 We have some capability to do some translated 27 services through using our own staff. And we certainly 28 do have quite a few materials that are translated into 16 1 other languages and can refer any taxpayer to our 2 multi-language website page where all of the materials 3 are in one place in all of the languages that we 4 offer. 5 MS. STEEL: Thank you. 6 MR. LEONARD: Other questions? 7 Ms. Mandel? 8 MS. MANDEL: Just a follow-up on that. 9 If you happen to have an upcoming seminar in a 10 language, I don't know if you have any planned, if its 11 basic sales and use tax, would you be able to record it? 12 It might not be as -- 13 MS. YEE: We've tried. 14 MS. MANDEL: -- super-duper as the ones you're 15 producing right now, but if you, at least, recorded the 16 it the one that's presented and put the video up, would 17 that be of some value? 18 MS. GORE: Potentially. 19 MR. LEONARD: I think -- I think answer should 20 be there's a lot of value. 21 MS. GORE: There's a lot of value. 22 MR. LEONARD: I would encourage sending a video 23 camera out to that event. 24 MS. YEE: I think videos are tough. 25 We actually tried to do this in my Santa Rosa 26 office and I think to try to record a live seminar is 27 awfully tough. 28 And you want to respect, certainly, the 17 1 confidence of the people who chose to attend the 2 seminars and, so, the interaction, which where a lot -- 3 you get a lot of the information, is really tough to 4 capture given those limitations. 5 But I do think something like you just showed 6 us, where you've got a voiceover and language about the 7 basic sales and use tax concepts makes sense. 8 And we certainly should start there. 9 MS. GORE: Right. And prioritize by those that 10 are the most requested or most used. 11 MS. YEE: Right. 12 MS. GORE: And we'll work toward that end. 13 MS. YEE: Right. 14 MS. MANDEL: And just -- just to repeat it, but 15 Mr. Horton said it better than I did last time, it was 16 the kind of sense that we had for many years of the 17 in-person seminars as improving compliance and helping 18 save money for taxpayers and the Board on the back end, 19 so -- 20 MR. LEONARD: Absolutely. 21 MS. MANDEL: -- always cost effective and 22 efficiency in mind, but there is value potentially. 23 MR. LEONARD: Yeah, I think you are right. I 24 think we can make both work and work better and more 25 expansive to reach out to the entire population for all 26 of those purposes. 27 One request I do have -- and I think it's 28 through you, but if not tell me who -- I don't think 18 1 this Department should send out any mailing to anybody 2 without asking for an e-mail address. And we should set 3 up a capture. 4 When you told me the list served was as small 5 as it is, that's not good. We should -- if not make it 6 a requirement as part of the registration form, 7 certainly make -- put some kind of coupon or slip in 8 every publication we send out and every mailing we do 9 that requests it and let the people sign up for 10 publications and notices. 11 MS. GORE: Our list is growing and we're 12 working with partners to share lists through chambers 13 and small business organizations to do that. 14 MS. YEE: Do you have all of our lists from 15 each of our respective offices? 16 MS. GORE: We do not. 17 MS. YEE: I think we would be willing for 18 share, yes? 19 MR. LEONARD: You should ask. 20 Come visit. 21 Any other further questions or comments, 22 Members? 23 Ms. Hammond, Ms. Gore, thank you so much, 24 appreciate that. 25 Come back to me if there is any up tic you want 26 to report on. This Board is very, very interested in 27 talking to its constituents and its taxpayers and, so, 28 we want to know what you're doing. 19 1 And thank you and your team for all you do. 2 MS. GORE: Thank you. 3 MS. YEE: Thank you. 4 MR. LEONARD: Meeting adjourned. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 20 1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 2 3 State of California ) 4 ) ss 5 County of Sacramento ) 6 7 I, JULI PRICE JACKSON, Hearing Reporter for the 8 California State Board of Equalization certify that on 9 OCTOBER 6, 2009 I recorded verbatim, in shorthand, to 10 the best of my ability, the proceedings in the 11 above-entitled hearing; that I transcribed the shorthand 12 writing into typewriting; and that the preceding pages 1 13 through 20 constitute a complete and accurate 14 transcription of the shorthand writing. 15 16 Dated: February 11, 2010 17 18 19 ____________________________ 20 JULI PRICE JACKSON 21 Hearing Reporter 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 21