The Taxpayer Advocacy Panel, or TAP, is comprised of approximately 80 members from across the United States, including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and now an international representative, who volunteer to serve a three-year term.

Shelby Lyon is the new TAP member for international taxpayers and can be contacted at . Volunteers generally spend between 200 and 300 hours per year on member activities that further TAP’s mission to improve the IRS. The job of the volunteers is to listen to taxpayers, identify taxpayers’ issues and make suggestions for improving IRS service and customer satisfaction.

Although other areas of the organization deal with legislative and specific taxpayer issues, the TAP deals with issues that affect large groups of taxpayers in regards to existing IRS products and services (systemic issues). If you want more information on how to get help with an individual issue, have a look here: http://www.improveirs.org/taxpayer-resources/.

If you feel you have an issue that affects a large group of taxpayers, you can log it on the SAMS system. The SAMS system is used, in addition to items collected during the volunteers outreach efforts, for selecting issues for the TAP to analyse and then provide recommendations to the IRS for improvements.