Tax-Code Provisions

A commissioner of revenue may release names and addresses of businesses licensed in the locality. Information cannot be withheld just because it is going to be used for solicitation purposes.

a list of delinquent real property taxpayers with parcel ID, legal description, and owner's name with mailing address is a public record under FOIA. If government maintains a record on a computer disk, a requester can agree to receive a requested record in that form and pay a reasonable cost for it, not to exceed the actual cost. Government has five days to make an intitial response to a FOIA request. FOI Advisory Council opinions are advisory only.

A commissioner of revenue may provide remote Internet access to the names of businesses licensed to do business in a locality.

There is no blanket exemption preventing the Commissioner of Revenue from releasing any information; the legal name of a business on the commissioner's tax roles is subject to disclosure.

Lists of businesses to whom licenses have been issued or lists of individuals or businesses on a locality's tax rolls are available under FOIA if they exist.

The release of local license taxes assessed against any person, firm or corporation is prohibited by the Tax Code.

property appraisal cards containing the calculations and methodology used in arriving at individual assessments are available through FOIA.

Though the fact of tax delinquency based on gross receipts is public, the amount, name and address of the delinquent taxpayer is exempt from FOIA by section 58.1-3.

The custodian of the records may place the burden for copying the records on the citizen making the request if the custodian has no system or computer database available that is capable of producing the copies.