NESTOA WORK GROUP STRATEGY MEETING

MAY 1-2,2000

HARTFORD, CT

MINUTES OF MEETING

Attendance: See attached attendee list.

1. Welcome

Joe Thomas, NESTOA Work Group Coordinator, opened the meeting:

· Welcomed all attendees

· Asked attendees to introduce themselves and give their job function

· Gave a brief history of the genesis of the NESTOA work groups

· Stated the purpose and goals of this meeting

· Reviewed the agenda items

2. Status Review of Existing Work Groups

States with responsibility for current Work Groups were asked to give the group an update on their work group activities:

Personal Income Tax (New York) - Bob Robertaccio (NY) was unable to

attend the meeting so John Kutsukos (CT) gave the update:

· Currently working on an update of the NESTOA Domicile Guidelines and Information Brochure

· Discussed the status of the Report on Telecommuting prepared at their last meeting

· Mentioned Harley Duncan's interest in our telecommuting project

· The possibility of training between states was brought up by Greg Skotnicki (PA)

Corporation Tax (Connecticut) - George Boyajian(CT) gave the update:

· Work Group continues to meet on a yearly basis

· Gave a report on last October's meeting

· Maurice Gilbert (NH) gave an update on the activities of the subcommittee created to review Electricity Deregulation :

1. Subcommittee has been meeting monthly in Providence

2. Currently working on nexus issues (due by August 1) with plans to meet with industry representatives to discuss issues

3. Final draft report due by NESTOA annual meeting in October with the final report to be presented at the Commissioner's annual winter meeting.

Discovery (New Jersey) - Dave Gavin (NJ) was unable to attend the meeting

so Dave Lepri (CT) gave the update:

· Dave handed out draft of NESTOA Guide for Transient Vendors brochure

· Dave handed out sample of Promoter database being created

· Question was posed by Joe Thomas(CT) of whether we should expand the focus of the work group to all sales tax issues rather than just Discovery; Maurice Gilbert(NH) suggested we keep the work group as Discovery but then create subcommittees for other sales tax issues that arise

· Dave handed out attendance list at the 1997 Discovery meeting and asked that all states be represented at future meetings

Human Resources (Delaware) - Jim Cagle (DE) gave the update:

· Jim described the first HR work group meeting held last September in Delaware

· While Delaware will retain responsibility for this work group, New York has volunteered to host the next meeting at their location

· Kiaran Johnson (NY) and Deb Dammer (NY) presented their plans for a future meeting; they would like to open this up to all states throughout the country to make it a national work shop possibly charging a registration fee. It was decided that there could be a benefit to this but that the Commissioners would have to decide whether they wanted the work groups to expand beyond NESTOA.

3. Work Group Reporting Requirements

The group agreed that there should be standard requirements for reporting the work of the various work groups.

· Each Work Group meeting will require a full report (as detailed and long as the work group thinks necessary)

· Each fullreport will include an executive summary which would include:

· List of attendees

· Bullets of highlights of work group meeting

· List of recommendations from work group

· Next Actions of Work Group (commissioner's response requested)

· Contact list including telephone, fax, and e-mail

· Plans for next meeting (where, when)

· The work group's report should be completed within 45-60 days of the meeting (a draft of the report should be circulated within 30 days to all attendees for comments prior to completion).

4. Scheduling of Work Groups

All work group meetings will be coordinated through the NESTOA Work Group Coordinator to avoid conflicts of scheduling. It was agreed that work groups should meet at least once a year. Each work group will be asked to pick a time of year when they would normally schedule their meeting, again to avoid conflicts. For example, Corporation Tax has regularly scheduled their annual meeting for late October or early November.

5. Creation of a NESTOA Directory

It was agreed that NESTOA should have a directory. This directory would identify for each state their:

· NESTOA Coordinator - a person designated by each state as the contact person for all NESTOA matters; all mailings, announcements and other information would be sent to that person and it would be that person's responsibility to make sure that the proper people within their agency receives it

· NESTOA WORK GROUP MEMBERS - each state would be required to identify a representative for each work group that they wish to be involved with; a state may send as many people as they wish to the meetings but only one person will be the official representative.

· Organizational Chart - it was suggested by Joe Thomas(CT) that our directory include an organization chart of each agency (including names and numbers); the widely varying agency organization structures are not known to other states and can be confusing when attempting to contact someone.

· Creation of a technical training catalogue - if each state could provide a list of technical training that they do within their own agency, other states might be able to take advantage of this information by attending the training, bringing the trainer to their state or using prepared training materials (This may be a project handed to the Human Resource Work Group).

6. Creation of a New Work Group - Computer Technology

The Commissioner's, at the Philadelphia meeting, authorized the creation of a fifth work group to address technology issues. It was recommended that this work group be known as a Technology Work Group instead of Computer Technology. We identified three areas for this work group to concentrate:

· Sharing of information capabilities - it was suggested that we create a NESTOA web-site (nestoa.org is available); this site would include copies or our reports, directories, created brochures, links to states' home pages, meeting information and other items; we would look into the possibility of having the site open to the public but, also, with a password protected area for confidential matters.

· User Work Group - have a yearly meeting to share technology problems and solutions; this meeting would be for both techies and users who would probably meet separately.

· Creation of policies and project development - states could share ideas (for example creation of audit workpapers, automated billing systems)

A concern was voiced that we don't duplicate what organizations such as FTA may already be doing.

7. Creation of a Regional Voluntary Disclosure Program

(At the January, 2000 Commissioner's meeting, New York City gave an update on the New York State/ New York City unified voluntary disclosure program. The Commissioners asked New York City to survey all NESTOA members and to see if a regional voluntary disclosure to include all NESTOA states could be created.)

Jonathan Robin (NYC) and Jessica Fattah (NYC) gave an overview of the NY/NYC program and how it is working. This system provides one place for a taxpayer to go and deal with to report back tax liabilities. The details as to how the program works were distributed to all attendees. NYC suggested that NESTOA address a regional voluntary disclosure plan for all participating states that models the plan used in NY. (A concern was raised as to whether this would be in conflict with the MTC's National Voluntary Program. Joe Thomas volunteered to contact the MTC to discuss this). It was felt that this program would be reaching out to smaller regional companies that operate in only two or three states unlike the companies that would approach the MTC.

The group felt the this project should be assigned to the Discovery Work Group for study and implementation.

8. NESTOA's Relationship With Other Regional Associations

This agenda item was included because it was felt that there exists a lack of communication between the four regional associations of the FTA (NESTOA, SEATA, MSATA and WSATA). We discussed ways to improve communications:

· Share annual meeting agendas

· Invite representation from other associations to our annual meetings (NESTOA has done this for the first time at the up-coming October meeting)

· Share work group agendas and minutes with other groups

· Invite participation in each other's work groups

9. Closing

Joe Thomas thanked all participants for their attendance and input. It was suggested that a strategy meeting such as this one should be conducted yearly but it was decided that "as needed" would be better. Minutes will be prepared and shared with attendees and Commissioners.