BEFORE THE CALIFORNIA STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION 450 N Street, Room 121 Sacramento, California REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT JANUARY 26, 2010 CUSTOMER SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATIVE EFFICIENCY COMMMITTEE Reported by: Beverly D. Toms No. CSR 1662 1 1 2 P R E S E N T 3 4 For the Committee Bill Leonard of Equalization: Chair 5 Jerome E. Horton 6 Member 7 Betty T. Yee 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 Olson Chief, Board 14 Proceedings Division 15 Board of Equalization Staff: Anita Gore 16 Deputy Director External Affairs Department 17 Todd Gilman 18 Taxpayers Rights Advocate 19 Kari Hammond Manager, Outreach 20 Services Division 21 22 ---oOo--- 23 24 25 26 27 28 2 1 Sacramento, California 2 January 26, 2010 3 ---oOO--- 4 MS. OLSON: Our next item on the agenda is 5 Customer Services and Administrative Efficiency 6 Committee. 7 Mr. Leonard. 8 MR. LEONARD: Thank you. 9 Happy New Year, Board Members. We've got a 10 couple of presentations and catch-up reports for you 11 this morning, from Ms. Gore and Mr. Gilman. 12 MS. GORE: Thank you, Chairman and Members. 13 I'm Anita Gore, Deputy Director of the External Affairs 14 Department. And I have with me today the Taxpayer 15 Rights Advocate, Todd Gilman, who will present his 16 annual report. 17 MR. GILMAN: Good morning. Thank you Committee 18 Chair Leonard and Members of the Board. Todd Gilman, 19 Taxpayers Rights Advocate with the Board of 20 Equalization. 21 This year's report highlights our 22 accomplishments this past year, describes our 23 involvement in new projects to assist taxpayers, 24 identifies current issues we are working on and contains 25 examples of cases illustrating the services our office 26 provides. 27 In addition, I would also like to thank the 28 staff of the Taxpayers Rights Advocate's office for 3 1 their dedication and unwavering commitment to upholding 2 and protecting taxpayers' rights. 3 I would also like to thank the staff of the 4 Sales and Use Tax Department, Property and Special Taxes 5 Department and our Legal Department for assisting in 6 developing this year's report. 7 If you have any questions I'd be happy to 8 answer them now. Thank you. 9 MR. LEONARD: Any questions, Members? 10 Mr. Gilman, I just want to commend you and your 11 staff. I -- I think I'm speaking for all Members. I 12 heavily rely on your office, not just intervene and -- 13 and do those things that I know you can do, but for 14 creative ideas on how to assist taxpayers in meeting 15 their obligations and in a way that keeps them in 16 business and keeps going, and I really appreciate that. 17 MR. GILMAN: Thank you. Thank you, Members. 18 ---oOo--- 19 MR. LEONARD: Next. 20 MS. GORE: Joining me now is Kari Hammond, the 21 Manager of the Outreach Services Division. And we are 22 here today to offer an update on the effort to provide 23 on-line educational products to our taxpayers as an 24 alternative or enhancement to in-person seminars. 25 I'm happy to announce that we've completed our 26 task of making all materials or classes available on 27 line. We would like to unveil to you now the new web 28 pages where this information will be provided after this 4 1 meeting today. 2 If you go to our web site and click on the 3 "Meetings and Seminars" tab, you'll see that on-line 4 seminars and in-person seminars are the first two links 5 provided. Under on-line seminars you'll see that the 6 information is broken down for business owners and for 7 nonprofit exempt and faith-based organizations. And 8 this is the information that they receive at the 9 in-person seminars based on powerpoints that are 10 available. 11 Some of the information is available in video 12 form, some audio and then many additional materials are 13 also on the site. 14 If you click on the on-line seminars "Starting 15 your Business" tab it shows you what items are 16 available, gives a short description and shows you 17 whether or not you want to go to an audio or video slide 18 show. 19 "Growing your Business" is similar, same sorts 20 of descriptions of the items that are available. And 21 then if you click on a video you'll see that the video 22 can start on line and at the bottom there is a line up 23 there that says, "Specific Sales or Use Tax Questions, 24 Send Us an E-mail." So, you have an opportunity to 25 e-mail your question, and we have made a commitment to 26 forward that information on and get a response back to 27 the person within 48 hours. 28 On the business owner resources tab there's 5 1 information from other government organizations and 2 other organizations that are materials that would be 3 helpful to business owners. 4 So that is the complete package that we have 5 available for a business seminar and then the nonprofit 6 is set up similarly -- similarly. 7 And we have begun the process of translating 8 the basic Sales and Use Tax powerpoint script 9 presentation into four languages: Spanish, Chinese, 10 Korean and Vietnamese. The translated presentations 11 should be completed by summer of 2010. As resources are 12 available, we'll work to translate other components of 13 the on-line educational products. 14 We also continue to market this new service to 15 our taxpayers. To date we have issued one news release 16 and have another ready to go. We've made a one-third 17 sheet flyer available for handout and mailing. It's 18 provided in all new registration packets and it goes 19 with materials for speakers bureau presentations. 20 We'll continue to work with our partners and 21 take advantage of every opportunity to get the word out 22 to taxpayers. Soon we'll have a facilitator's guide 23 available with instructions to our partners so that they 24 may use our products in their forms. 25 We'll continue to use list serve announcements 26 and provide information to permit holders who have 27 e-mail addresses on file with BOE. 28 According to our Technology Services Division 6 1 there are currently nearly half a million taxpayers who 2 have an e-mail address on record with the BOE and we're 3 working on ways to notify them regularly of relevant 4 updates. 5 Our efforts so far have been successful. We're 6 seeing more than 9,000 hits a month to access the 7 on-line seminar business for materials and now I would 8 be happy to answer any questions that you might have. 9 MR. LEONARD: Thank you so much. 10 Members, any questions? 11 MS. YEE: Mr. Chair. 12 MR. LEONARD: Madam Yee. 13 MS. YEE: Thank you very much. I just want to 14 applaud the staff for the progress that we're making in 15 terms of providing these on-line seminars. 16 I think they definitely will help us reach a 17 broader audience in addition to what we're doing with 18 the in-person seminars at this point. Thank you. 19 MR. LEONARD: Absolutely. 20 I would encourage Board members to get these 21 links and to put them on your outreach publications and 22 handouts at our live seminars because it's -- they can 23 take advantage of it later and do followups on that. 24 It also strikes me on -- on the 48-hour 25 turnaround on e-mail, which is wonderful, if a question 26 is asked more than once we might start building a 27 Frequently Asked Questions page. 28 MS. GORE: Absolutely. 7 1 MR. LEONARD: I just noticed trends there of 2 what we're missing. If it's asked more than ten times 3 or so we should consider putting another slide in the 4 powerpoint. 5 MS. GORE: Right. And that is the beauty of 6 having an on-line -- 7 MR. LEONARD: Right. 8 MS. GORE: -- option is that you can make 9 changes easily. 10 MR. LEONARD: The 500,000 e-mail address 11 holders of -- of e-mail addresses who are permit 12 holders, the remaining 400,000 or so that are not, do we 13 think they have e-mail addresses and we just haven't got 14 to them or do we think that they don't -- 15 MS. GORE: I don't know that that complete 16 analysis has been done. I do know that as we are 17 forcing people to register -- 18 MR. LEONARD: Right. 19 MS. GORE: -- with e-mail addresses as they 20 come in new and we have constant churn as -- 21 MR. LEONARD: New ones. 22 MS. GORE: -- as our older businesses swap out 23 the newer ones are encouraged. And then once we have 24 on-line registration and are completely e-filer, we 25 should have e-mail addresses. 26 MR. LEONARD: Clearly those. If we do any 27 mailings to the -- the whole file we should always ask 28 for e-mail addresses and tout the advantages of it, 8 1 instant communication from us to the permit holder. 2 Thank you. Any further questions or comments? 3 Great report. Thank you both very, very much. 4 MS. GORE: Thank you. 5 MR. LEONARD: Committee is adjourned. 6 ---oOo--- 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 9 1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE. 2 3 State of California ) 4 ) ss 5 County of Sacramento ) 6 7 I, BEVERLY D. TOMS, Hearing Reporter for the 8 California State Board of Equalization certify that on 9 January 26, 2010 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 9 pages 13 constitute a complete and accurate transcription of the 14 shorthand writing. 15 16 Dated: February 25, 2010. 17 18 19 20 ____________________________ 21 BEVERLY D. TOMS 22 Hearing Reporter 23 24 25 26 27 28 10