August 13, 2012

Mr. Michael B. Gary

Legal Counsel

Harris County Appraisal District

P.O. Box 920975

Houston, Texas 77292-0975

OR2012-12715

Dear Mr. Gary:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under the Public Information Act (the "Act"), chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 461975 (HCAD internal reference# 12-2136).

The Harris County Appraisal District (the "district") received a request for the vehicle identification numbers associated with a specified account for which outstanding taxes are due for the year 2008. You claim the requested information is excepted from disclosure under section 552.101 of the Government Code. We have considered the exception you claim and reviewed the submitted information.

Initially, we note the requestor is only seeking vehicle identification numbers, and therefore, none of the remaining submitted information is responsive to the instant request for information. This ruling does not address the public availability of non-responsive information, and the district is not required to release non-responsive information in response to this request.

Section 552.101 of the Government Code excepts from disclosure "information considered to be confidential by law, either constitutional, statutory, or by judicial decision." Gov't Code § 552.101. This section encompasses information made confidential by other statutes, such as section 22.27 of the Tax Code, which provides the following:

(a) Rendition statements, real and personal property reports, attachments to those statements and reports, and other information the owner of property provides to the appraisal office in connection with the appraisal of the property, including income and expense information related to a property filed with an appraisal office and information voluntarily disclosed to an appraisal office or the comptroller about real or personal property sales prices after a promise it will be held confidential, are confidential and not open to public inspection. The statements and reports and the information they contain about specific real or personal property or a specific real or personal property owner and information voluntarily disclosed to an appraisal office about real or personal property sales prices after a promise it will be held confidential may not be disclosed to anyone other than an employee of the appraisal office who appraises property except as authorized by Subsection (b) of this section.

(b) Information made confidential by this section may be disclosed:

. . .

(2) to the person who filed the statement or report or the owner of property subject to the statement, report, or information or to a representative of either authorized in writing to receive the information[.]

Tax Code § 22.27(a), (b)(2). You indicate the submitted information consists of confidential information provided to the district by a property owner for property tax purposes under a promise of confidentiality. See id. § 22.27(a). However, we note the requestor may be the authorized representative of the owner of the property at issue and thus may have a right of access to the responsive information that would otherwise be confidential under section 22.27. See id. § 22.27(b)(2). Therefore, we find if the requestor provides the requisite written authorization pursuant to section 22.27(b)(2) of the Tax Code, the district must release the requested information to this requestor. ⁽¹⁾ If the requestor does not provide the requisite written authorization under section 22.27(b)(2), the district must withhold the submitted responsive information under section 552.101 of the Government Code in conjunction with section 22.27(a) of the Tax Code.

This letter ruling is limited to the particular information at issue in this request and limited to the facts as presented to us; therefore, this ruling must not be relied upon as a previous determination regarding any other information or any other circumstances.

This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the governmental body and of the requestor. For more information concerning those rights and responsibilities, please visit our website at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/index_orl.php, or call the Office of the Attorney General's Open Government Hotline, toll free, at (877) 673-6839. Questions concerning the allowable charges for providing public information under the Act must be directed to the Cost Rules Administrator of the Office of the Attorney General, toll free at (888) 672-6787.

Sincerely,

Kathryn R. Mattingly

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

KRM/bhf

Ref: ID# 461975

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. We note that to the extent the information is released, it consists of information to which the requestor has a right of access. See Gov't Code § 552.023. Because such information may be confidential with respect to the general public, if the district receives another request for this information from a different requestor, the district must again seek a ruling from this office.

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