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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Smith

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/2/06

HB

SHORT TITLE Disclosure of Personal Income Tax Info

SB 537

ANALYST Earnest

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY06

FY07

NONE

NONE

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Duplicate HB 537.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 537 would amend Section 7-1-8 NMSA 1978 – "Confidentiality of Returns and

Other Information" – to allow the Taxation and Revenue Department to provide personal income

tax (PIT) information to:

•

the Bureau of Business and Economic Research and the earth data analysis center at the

University of New Mexico and

•

law enforcement agencies conducting joint investigations with the Taxation and Revenue

Department.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

No fiscal impact

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

According to TRD, the new recipients of taxpayer information authorized by this bill will not be

subject to penalties for releasing confidential information.

Penalties for violating the confidentiality of taxpayer information (section 7-1-8) are specified in

section 7-1-76. Violating the confidentiality statute is a misdemeanor and is punishable by a fine

Senate Bill 537 – Page 2

of $1,000 and one year of imprisonment, as well as prohibition from state employment for five

years following conviction. If the intent is to apply the same penalties to persons receiving in-

formation as proposed the statute should be amended accordingly.

TRD further notes that proposed paragraph (NN) specifies that the Bureau of Business and Eco-

nomic Research "shall not release the data in any form other than as statistics that protect tax-

payers identity...". The phrase probably should be reworded to specify something on the order of

"shall not release personal income tax data in any form that would reveal identity of taxpayers".

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

Depending on the number of requests for taxpayer information, there could be substantial admin-

istrative impact on the Taxation and Revenue Department.

COMPANIONSHIP

Senate Bill 537 and House Bill 387 are duplicate measures.

BE/mt