Proposed bylaw changes would allow the Multistate Tax Commission to hold its annual business meeting "exclusively by telephone, videoconference, or similar technological means."
Executive Director Greg Matson is proposing the bylaw amendments, which the MTC's Executive Committee is set to take up at its April 23 meeting by teleconference. While committee and work group meetings have long been conducted by teleconference as well as in person, the MTC’s annual business meeting continues to require in-person attendance by representatives from member states.
“These proposed changes were prompted by concerns that restrictions on in-person meeting attendance resulting from the coronavirus pandemic may remain in place at the time when the Commission’s annual meeting is required to be held,” Matson wrote in a memo attached to the proposed bylaw changes. “Action on these proposed amendments is necessary to meet the requirements of Bylaw 12 so that the Commission may consider adopting the amendments at a future meeting.”
The MTC’s 2020 annual business meeting and conference is scheduled to take place July 27-30 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Matson said in an email to Tax Notes that should the Executive Committee approve the amendments on April 23, there would be just enough time for the MTC to amend its bylaws before this year’s annual meeting.
Here’s how it would work. After the Executive Committee approved the amendments, the MTC would provide 60 days’ notice of the proposed bylaw changes to member states. The MTC could then call a special meeting of the full commission by teleconference in late June to vote on the proposed bylaw changes. Such special sessions are relatively new and are the result of bylaw changes proposed in 2016 by Joe Huddleston, the MTC’s immediate past executive director; the changes eliminated the in-person requirement for a quorum so that the MTC as a body can vote on final adoption of recommendations before the annual in-person business meeting.
Should the full commission in late June adopt the proposed bylaw changes, the Executive Committee that same day could direct that the 2020 annual meeting be held by virtual means and provide 20 days’ notice of the format change.
“We hope to have our annual meeting at the end of July in Little Rock as planned and that this amendment need not be used,” Matson said in the email. “But we also recognize the flexibility to exercise such an option given how this pandemic is progressing is only prudent."