Taxpayer-Initiated Joint Audits

Taxpayer's Request for a Joint MTC Audit

Taxpayers may request in writing a joint audit conducted on behalf of participating states by the Multistate Tax Commission. This request will be submitted to the MTC Audit Director. The Audit Director will submit this request to the MTC Audit Committee at its next scheduled meeting.

The MTC Audit Committee will consider adding this taxpayer to the Audit Program’s audit inventory. The decision to place an audit in the MTC Audit inventory is the sole discretion of the Audit Committee. This is accomplished through a vote of the members of the Audit Committee. If the taxpayer is selected for the MTC audit inventory, the MTC Audit Director will schedule the taxpayer for audit. Each state will then be sent an audit authorization form which gives each state the final opportunity to participate in the joint audit. States desiring to participate in the audit will return the signed audit authorizations to the MTC Audit Director. The taxpayer is then contacted by the MTC to schedule a field audit appointment.

Preference will be given to requests from taxpayers that:

Have Nexus with ten or more states participating in the MTC Joint Audit Program, and

Meet one or both of the following criteria:

Present tax issues that would benefit from a consistent determination of tax liability among a group of states.
Has recently registered with at least ten states participating in the MTC Joint Audit Program, has never been audited by those States, and seeks the guidance and education on tax filing responsibilities that arise from an audit.

In deciding whether or not to place the requesting taxpayer in the program’s audit inventory, the MTC Audit Committee will consider these factors:

Whether or not the taxpayer meets or exceeds the preference criteria above.

The availability of audit staff resources within the MTC Joint Audit Program.

A determination that the taxpayer is of sufficient size and geographic scale of operations to justify the use of MTC Joint Audit resources for an audit.

The willingness of at least seven states to participate in the audit.