David:
Please read the mail below about the I R S. NFB has experience in advocacy. I
wonder if it is time to mont some electronic campaign to put pressure on the
IRS?
I'd appreciate any ideas or reactions you might have.
Norman Coombs
nrcgsh@rit.edu
From: IN%"raman@crl.dec.com" 27-NOV-1994 10:42:26.48
To: IN%"NRCGSH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu" "Norm Coombs"
CC: IN%"raman@crl.dec.com"
Subj: IRS on the Internet, and they're inaccessible:
Hi Norm,
A while ago, I had alerted you and others interested in accessibility
to the fact that Adobe PDF was fast becoming a standard for distribution of
official government documents, and that this would be a disaster due to the
inaccessibility of this format.
The IRS is now unofficially on the net, (they will go official at the
beginning of the new year).
You can find them at :
http://www.ustreas.gov/treasury/bureaus/irs/irs.html
All of the tax forms are available in PDF format, and they also provide
pointers to where people can download PDF readers for DOS, windows, Mac and
UNIX.
I don't know about the MAC or Windows versions, but the DOS version actually
draws bitmaps of all the characters on the screen.
So of course when you start it up any screenreader will see but a blank
screen.
I'm not writing this letter to say "I told you so", that is the farthest from
my mind.
The reason I am writing is that it may not yet be too late.
The WWW site seems to have gone online as a trial (they do not actually say
this), but all of the forms there are for 1992 and 1993.
I'm sure that as we speak the IRS is busy putting the final touches to the
forms for 1994, which will become available on the net the beginning of the
New Year. So we may just have enough time to at least make our concerns heard
on this issue.
I'd like your help in the following:
1) Place this message with any additional information on the various lists
(easi-l axslib-l etc) with a request to people to call the IRS and express
their concern
2) Perhaps get some kind of signature campaign going?
Looking forward to hearing from you,
--Raman
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Date: Sun, 27 Nov 1994 10:41:13 -0500
From: raman@crl.dec.com
Subject: IRS on the Internet, and they're inaccessible:
To: Norm Coombs <NRCGSH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu>
Cc: raman@crl.dec.com
Message-id: <9411271541.AA12217@arctic.crl.dec.com>
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