An Act To Make Public Certain Tax Information Related to Municipal Valuation
Maine Legislature, Session 127, LD 0900
Committee: Taxation
Sponsors: FARRIN, WHITTEMORE, DUNPHY, GOLDEN, SKOLFIELD, STETKIS
Amends: 36 MRSA §706

Legislative Document 
No. 900 
H.P. 619 
House of Representatives, March 12, 2015 
An Act To Make Public Certain Tax Information Related to 
Municipal Valuation 
Reference to the Committee on Taxation suggested and ordered printed. 
ROBERT B. HUNT 
Clerk 
Presented by Representative FARRIN of Norridgewock. 
Cosponsored by Senator WHITTEMORE of Somerset and 
Representatives: DUNPHY of Embden, GOLDEN of Lewiston, McCABE of Skowhegan, 
SKOLFIELD of Weld, STETKIS of Canaan. 
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows: 
Sec. 1.  36 MRSA §706, 5th ¶, as enacted by PL 2013, c. 544, §5 and affected by 
§7, is amended to read: 
The assessor or assessors, chief assessor or State Tax Assessor may require the 
taxpayer to answer in writing all proper inquiries as to the nature, situation and value of 
the taxpayer's property liable to be taxed in the State or subject to exemption pursuant to 
subchapter 4-C. As may be reasonably necessary to ascertain the value of property 
according to the income approach to value pursuant to the requirements of section 208-A 
or generally accepted assessing practices, these inquiries may seek information about 
income and expenses, manufacturing or operational efficiencies, manufactured or 
generated sales price trends or other related information. A taxpayer has 30 days from 
receipt of such an inquiry to respond. Upon written request, a taxpayer is entitled to a 30-
day extension to respond to the inquiry and the assessor may at any time grant additional 
extensions upon written request. Information provided by the taxpayer in response to an 
inquiry that is proprietary information, and clearly labeled by the taxpayer as proprietary 
and confidential information, is confidential and is exempt from the provisions of Title 1, 
chapter 13. An assessor of the taxing jurisdiction may not allow the inspection of or 
otherwise release such proprietary information to anyone other than the State Tax 
Assessor, who shall treat such proprietary information as subject to section 191, 
subsection 1, except that the exemption provided in section 191, subsection 2, paragraph I 
does not apply to such proprietary information, or, when such proprietary information has 
the potential to reduce the valuation of a municipality by more than 5% due to a reduction 
in the property valuation of that taxpayer, the information may be shared in executive 
session of the municipal officers of the affected municipality, with the condition that such 
information remains confidential information exempt from the provisions of Title 1, 
chapter 13.  As used in this subsection, "proprietary information" means information that 
is a trade secret or production, commercial or financial information the disclosure of 
which would impair the competitive position of the person submitting the information 
and would make available information not otherwise publicly available and information 
protected from disclosure by federal or state law or regulations.  A person who knowingly 
violates the confidentiality provisions of this paragraph commits a Class E crime. 
SUMMARY 
This bill allows a taxpayer's proprietary information, which is considered confidential 
information exempt from the freedom of access laws, to be shared with the municipal 
officers meeting in executive session when such information has the potential to reduce 
the valuation of the municipality by more than 5% due to a reduction in the property 
valuation of that taxpayer.