Facts and Procedural History:

On October 12, 2006, IPAD received an email, dated same, from Eileen Wells, Mankato City Attorney. In her letter, Ms. Wells asked the Commissioner to issue an advisory opinion regarding the classification of certain data that the City of Mankato maintains. IPAD required additional information and clarification, which Ms. Wells provided on October 23, 2006.

In a letter dated October 25, 2006, IPAD invited the Minnesota Department of Revenue to provide comments. In a November 17, 2006, email, Richard Walzer, Attorney in the Legal Services Section, responded.

A summary of the facts is as follows. In her opinion request, Ms. Wells wrote, The City of Mankato has an ordinance prohibiting smoking in public places and places of work. There is a provision for a hardship exception.

Ms. Wells provided a copy of the ordinance language. The relevant section states that businesses seeking an exception must provide the following information to the City:

. . . 2. Sales Tax statements prepared by a licensed certified public accountant comparing sales receipts for at least a three month period of compliance under this Section and the same time period in the year prior to compliance, or other periods acceptable to the City Managerhellip;

Ms. Wells wrote:

The ordinance took effect July 1st of this year and we have now granted 14 exceptions. . . . Before granting the exception the City has required that each establishment provide a letter from a CPA comparing gross sales receipts for July, August and September 2005 to July, August and September 2006 and copies of the Sales and use tax filings to the Minnesota Department of Revenue for the same period. The information has been provided to the City by the businesses requesting the exceptions, not the Department of Revenue. The City has now received a request for the information used in determining eligibility for the exceptions. The City believes that the sales and use tax filings are confidential and unobtainable from the Department of Revenue.

Issue:

Based on Ms. Wells' opinion request, the Commissioner agreed to address the following issue:

Discussion:

Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes, section 13.03, subdivision 1, government data are public unless otherwise classified.

In his comments to the Commissioner, Mr. Walzer wrote, in part:

It is true that Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 270B protects sales and use tax return information filed directly with the Department of Revenue.

Additionally, there are various provisions in that chapter authorizing tax information to be shared by the Department with other government entities for one purpose or another. In such cases, the data is protected by the entity receiving the data to the same extent that it is protected by the Department. However, in the situation presented here, the data is furnished by the taxpayers themselves directly to the City of Mankato. Consequently, it is the city's data, and its classification is governed by whatever data practices laws are applicable to Mankato. The data is not protected under the tax disclosure laws of Chapter 270B.

The Commissioner appreciates having received comments from Mr. Walzer and is in agreement with him that the data in question are not protected by Chapter 270B. As the Commissioner is not aware of any other law classifying the data as not public, they are public pursuant to section 13.03, subdivision 1.

Opinion:

Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issues that Ms. Wells raised is as follows:

Signed:

Dana B. Badgerow
Commissioner

Dated: November 30, 2006