(a) A person to whom a written opinion
pertains may petition the department for further segregation of some or all of
the information in the written opinion that the department proposes to
disclose. The petition shall be submitted in writing to the department's
technical review office within thirty days after the notice of intention to
disclose is mailed.
(b) The
petition shall contain:
(1) Information
identifying the written opinion for which additional segregation is
sought;
(2) An indication of the
information the department did not segregate but the petitioner believes should
be segregated; and
(3) For each
item of information described in paragraph (2), an explanation of why the
petitioner believes that the item of information should be
segregated.
(c) No
special form shall be required for the petition. A letter addressed to the
technical review office, department of taxation, shall be a sufficient petition
under this section if the letter complies with subsections (a) and
(b).
(d) The thirty-day period in
subsection (a) may be extended by the department for good cause shown. The
department may refuse to extend the thirty-day period if the extension would
leave the department an unreasonably short time to consider the petition before
the written opinion must be disclosed under section
18-231-19.5-06(b)
(one-hundred-eighty days from the date the notice of intention to disclose was
mailed).
(e) Within thirty days
after receiving the petition, but not more than one-hundred-eighty days from
the date the notice of intention to disclose was mailed, the department shall
mail its final determination to the petitioner.
(f) A petition for further segregation shall
be denied, in whole or in part, if the department determines that the
petitioner does not have a material interest in maintaining the confidentiality
of the disputed information.
Example: Taxpayer Kimo Arnold is a shareholder of
Rosie's Inc., a corporation. Rosie's Inc. has two other shareholders, Rose
Machado and Louis Michel. Mr. Arnold requests, on his own behalf and not on
behalf of either Rosie's Inc. or any other shareholder, a written opinion from
the department regarding a partial redemption of his stock in Rosie's Inc. The
written opinion, as the department proposes to disclose it, begins,
"Corporation C has one class of stock which is owned as follows: T, with 100
shares; U, with 400 shares; and V, with 150 shares." The part of the written
opinion that the department proposes to segregate identifies Mr. Arnold as T,
Ms. Machado as U, Mr. Michel as V, and Rosie's Inc. as C. Mr. Arnold petitions
for further segregation of the numbers "400" and "150" in the sentence quoted
above, only on the ground that those numbers are personal privacy information
as defined in section
18-231-19.5-04(d).
Because the numbers "400" and "150" represent the holdings of people other than
Mr. Arnold, the department may determine that Mr. Arnold would not be
specially, personally, and adversely affected by the disclosure of the numbers
"400" and "150" in the written opinion, and thus may deny his petition because
he does not have a material interest in maintaining the confidentiality of that
portion of the opinion sought to be segregated.
(g) If the determination of the department
under this section is partly or wholly adverse to the petitioner, the
department shall notify the petitioner of the appeal rights under section
231-19.5(f),
HRS, at the same time it notifies the petitioner of its determination on the
petition.
