Judge denies open records lawsuit against Gov. Haslam

Bill Haslam
Bill Haslam
photo Bill Haslam

NASHVILLE - A Nashville judge has ruled against a tax attorney's lawsuit demanding the release of records from Gov. Bill Haslam's administration related to a $350,000 analysis of business-tax collections in Tennessee.

Tax attorney Brett Carter had filed the lawsuit in chancery court alleging a "willful" violation of the Tennessee Open Records Act over the state finance and revenue departments' refusal to disclose details about how they decided to draft the "the "Revenue Modernization Act" that Haslam has proposed to lawmakers this year.

Haslam announced last year that he was commissioning a study of Tennessee's revenue system to try to explain the volatility of business-tax collections, but his lawyers said no single study was produced by the analysis, and that other records were protected by an open-records exemption.

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