05/02/1997 03:52 PM Senate RES

          SB 184 DEC & ADFG ACCESS TO FISH TAX RECORDS                        
                                                                              
  CHAIRMAN HALFORD  announced SB 184 to be up for consideration.               
                                                                               
  MR. PAUL DICK,  Department of Revenue, said this bill is essentially         
 the culmination of three agencies work, ADF&G, DEC and Department             
 of Revenue, on recommendations by seafood processors as part of the           
 Governor's marketing Alaska initiative.  Their recommendations                
 strongly suggest that they simplify the reporting and application             
 procedure for seafood processors and he thought the agencies had              
 been very responsive in doing that.                                           
                                                                               
 The next thing they want to do is consolidate the fishery business            
 tax return with an annual report that's submitted to ADF&G into one           
 booklet.                                                                      
                                                                               
 MR. DICK said with development of their data base they would                  
 restrict access so that ADF&G would have access to only fish tax              
 data.  DEC wants this information so they can set up their                    
 application fees by looking at the values that are being reported             
 by the processors.                                                            
                                                                               
  SENATOR LEMAN  said that although he trusted DNR, he had seen some           
 breaches in that trust the other departments.  He applauded their             
 consolidating forms, but he was concerned about the two departments           
 getting tax returns unless there's some way of removing the tax               
 payer's identity.                                                             
                                                                               
  SENATOR TORGERSON  asked if either one of the departments has                
 something now that they consider confidential.   MR. DICK  replied            
 that he thought the commercial operators annual report had some               
 bounds of confidentiality.                                                    
                                                                               
  SENATOR TORGERSON  said he didn't think DEC had anything that was            
 confidential.  They can't keep anything secret for more than five             
 minutes and they run faster to the press than anyone he has ever              
 seen.                                                                         
                                                                               
  MR. DICK  said that DEC gets all the value information which is the          
 basis of their tax and they are recording that value on the                   
 commercial operator annual report.  If they wanted to go an                   
 additional step and multiply those values out times the rate, they            
 would essentially have the tax by the taxpayer.  He would envision            
 only working with DEC to give them data and not associate that                
 information with the taxpayer and that would only be on a need to             
 know basis.                                                                   
                                                                               
  SENATOR TORGERSON  asked if that information was used to levy a fee          
 on someone based on how much money someone is making.   MR. DICK              
 replied that they would set up some schedule rate and they have               
 already done this.                                                            
                                                                               
  SENATOR TORGERSON  sad he didn't favor this proposal.                        
                                                                               
 Number 176                                                                    
                                                                               
  CHAIRMAN HALFORD  said he didn't hear a motion and adjourned the             
 meeting at 5:03 p.m.