Office of Information Practices

U Memo 20-1
August 28, 2019
Tax Revenue Estimate Records

Requester sought “the worksheets, assumptions, estimates, and calculations for tax revenue estimates” used by the State Department of Taxation (TAX) in its legislative testimony.  The recently issued OIP Opinion Letter Number F19-05 had concluded that under the Uniform Information Practices Act (UIPA), TAX could not withhold the underlying assumptions, source data and documents, and computations that it used to create revenue estimates presented in legislative testimony on the grounds that its disclosure would frustrate TAX’s legitimate function of producing objective and independent revenue estimates or on the grounds that the records were inchoate and draft working papers of a legislative committee.  See HRS § 92F-13(3) and (5).  In this new appeal involving similar records, TAX argued that since it had appealed OIP Opinion Letter Number F19-05 to the First Circuit Court, disclosure of similar records would be inappropriate.

As TAX asserted in its position statement, the request in this appeal was “substantially similar” to the request addressed by OIP Opinion Letter Number F19-05.  OIP’s in camera review of the records at issue likewise indicated no significant differences that would distinguish them from the records previously addressed by OIP.  OIP concluded that TAX’s pending appeal of OIP Opinion Letter Number F19-05 to the First Circuit Court did not bar OIP from following that opinion as its precedent and reaching the same conclusion.  Thus, OIP followed its precedent and concluded that TAX could not withhold the underlying assumptions, source data and documents, and computations that it used to create revenue estimates presented in legislative testimony on the grounds that its disclosure would frustrate TAX’s legitimate function of producing objective and independent revenue estimates or on the grounds that the records were inchoate and draft working papers of a legislative committee.  See HRS § 92F-13(3) and (5).