WASHINGTON – Telly J. Meier, an Indian tribal government specialist is replacing Allyson Belsome as head of field operations, the group responsible for muni audits in the Internal Revenue Service’s ITG/Tax-Exempt Bond office.
Belsome, in turn, has become manager of the office’s group that is responsible for the voluntary closing agreement program, technical support, and the development of ongoing outreach programs designed to identify, provide guidance to, and address the needs of customer groups that make up the tax-advantaged bond community.
Meier, who appears to have no municipal bond experience, has been an IRS senior tax law specialist in ITG since September 2011. He provided counsel and advice regarding ITG issues to both IRS management, field specialists and managers.
Before that he was an associate at Holland & Knight with a practice that specialized in tax, Native American, budget & appropriations, energy, and Medicare & Medicaid issues.
Belsome has been manager of TEB field operations for several years, with a brief stint as area manager for the Great Lakes region in exempt organizations, which dealt with charities, foundations and other entities not required to pay federal income tax.
The Indian Tribal Governments office merged with the Tax-Exempt Bond office in May as part of a reorganization of the IRS Tax-Exempt and Governmental Entities (TE/GE) division. The director of ITG/TEB is Christie J. Jacobs, who formerly headed the ITG office and had no muni experience when she took over the combined office.
IRS officials were unable to provide any information by press time.
