LMSB update. (Recent Activities).

TEI and IRS representatives met recently in Detroit as part of a joint audit planning task force to develop an issue-focused plan that encourages audit efficiency. The task force, led by Jack Schroeder, LMSB Director of Field Operations for the Heaving Manufacturing and Transportation Industry Group, is scheduled to issue its report by the end of the year. The group's next meeting is November 5.

TEI representatives on the task force are Denise Lukowitz of Schneider National, Inc., Victoria McInnis of General Motors Corporation, Christopher Riley of Archer Daniels Midland Co., Mark Silbiger of Lubrizol Corporation, Robert Zysk of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., and Mary Lou Fahey of TEI's legal staff.

TEI members also responded to an IRS survey on ways to streamline the audit process. The survey, which follows up on a survey conducted by the IRS in May, focused on the issue of materiality in the audit and the pitfalls of a numeric standard. The consequences of not abiding by an agreed upon issue-focused examination were also explored. The responses to the IRS survey are reprinted in this issue, beginning on page 439. (Responses to the initial survey were reprinted in the May-June 2002 issue of The Tax Executive.)

Finally, TEI worked with LMSB throughout the summer to clarify Announcement 2002-63, relating to IRS requests for tax accrual workpapers. TEI representatives met with LMSB Commissioner Larry Langdon, Division Counsel Linda Burke, and other IRS officials in August to discuss the change in policy, as well as to review an IRS draft of Qs&As that seeks to clarify and expand upon the announcement. (The Institute's comments on the announcement were reprinted in the July-August 2002 issue of The Tax Executive.).