Taxpayer Advocacy Panel member will hold information meeting in Cape next week

A Taxpayer Advocacy Panel member will be in Cape Girardeau soon to share information about the group and seek suggestions to share with the Internal Revenue Service to improve service.

Stephanie Campbell, a Taxpayer Advocacy Panel representative for Missouri, will be at the Cape Girardeau Public Library, 711 N. Clark Ave., from 4 to 8 p.m. Oct. 15.

It will be an informal event, she said, and will include a presentation with information on the panel. Attendees also are welcome to take home forms to be filled out later and mailed to the panel.

The Taxpayer Advocacy Panel, also known as TAP, consists of about 80 volunteers representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Panel members are appointed by the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and serve for three years.

Campbell is in her final year with the panel and said she feels like it has notched several accomplishments in her time. For example, she has worked on the IRS website in the past couple of years to help make it more accessible and easily navigable.

But those adjustments can be made only if people step up and voice their concerns, she said.

"Ideas, issues, anything they think can make the IRS serve better, or improve it," Campbell said.

Whether its online services or the tax forms themselves, the panel accepts the suggestions. The next step is to follow up with research and, if it is determined to be an issue the group can work on, formulate a recommendation to the IRS.

Campbell can relate to the frustrations people may experience when filing taxes. It's actually part of what led her to join the panel. She was participating in a voluntary income tax preparation event coordinated by the East Missouri Action Agency for the elderly and those with low incomes.

"I made the remark to the director that, 'You know, it just shouldn't be this hard,'" she said.

The director had recently received a notice about a need for panel members and shared the information with Campbell. It's an extensive application process that includes interviews and background checks, and those who are named to the panel are placed in a subcommittee. Campbell serves on the communications committee.

While she's hosting the Cape Girardeau informational event, she said she's also hoping to speak to some people interested in filling the spot she will leave vacant once her third year is complete. It's not necessary to have a tax background to serve, she said, "just an interest."

Campbell is an economics professor in Farmington, Missouri. She spent several years in Cape Girardeau as a student at Southeast Missouri State University and continued living and working in the city after graduation, until deciding to continue her education at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

She said she hopes people take advantage of the Oct. 15 event and looks forward to sharing information with as many people as possible.

"It's just a really important part of what we do as citizens," Campbell said. "Having to pay taxes is something we all have to do ... so it's important we have a voice in that."

More information about the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel is available at improveirs.org.

srinehart@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3641

Pertinent address:

711 N. Clark St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.