The law-"right to know"
CHAPTER 1 PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS
Section 101. Short title.
This act shall be known and may be cited as the Right-to-Know Law.
Section 102. Definitions
The following words and phrases when used in this act shall have the meanings given to them in this section unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:
"Administrative proceeding." A proceeding by an agency the outcome of which is required to be based on a record or documentation prescribed by law or in which a statute or regulation is particularized in application to individuals. The term includes an appeal.
"Agency." A Commonwealth agency, a local agency, a judicial agency or a legislative agency.
"Aggregated data." A tabulation of data which relate to broad classes, groups or categories so that it is not possible to distinguish the properties of individuals within those classes, groups or categories.
"Appeals officer." As follows:
* (1) For a Commonwealth agency or a local agency, the appeals officer designated under section 503(a).
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* (2) For a judicial agency, the individual designated under section 503(b).
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* (3) For a legislative agency, the individual designated under section 503(c).
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* (4) For the Attorney General, State Treasurer, Auditor General and local agencies in possession of criminal investigative records, the individual designated under section 503(d).
"Commonwealth agency." Any of the following:
* (1) Any office, department, authority, board, multistate agency or commission of the executive branch; an independent agency; and a State-affiliated entity. The term includes:
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o (i) The Governor's Office.
o
o (ii) The Office of Attorney General, the Department of the Auditor General and the Treasury Department.
o
o (iii) An organization established by the Constitution of Pennsylvania, a statute or an executive order which performs or is intended to perform an essential governmental function.
* (2) The term does not include a judicial or legislative agency.
"Confidential proprietary information." Commercial or financial information received by an agency:
* (1) which is privileged or confidential; and
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* (2) the disclosure of which would cause substantial harm to the competitive position of the person that submitted the information.
"Financial record." Any of the following:
* (1) Any account, voucher or contract dealing with:
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o (i) the receipt or disbursement of funds by an agency; or
o
(ii) an agency's acquisition, use or disposal of services, supplies, materials, equipment or property.
* (2) The salary or other payments or expenses paid to an officer or employee of an agency, including the name and title of the officer or employee.
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* (3) A financial audit report. The term does not include work papers underlying an audit.
"Homeland security." Governmental actions designed to prevent, detect, respond to and recover from acts of terrorism, major disasters and other emergencies, whether natural or manmade. The term includes activities relating to the following:
* (1) emergency preparedness and response, including preparedness and response activities by volunteer medical, police, emergency management, hazardous materials and fire personnel;
* (2) intelligence activities;
* (3) critical infrastructure protection;
* (4) border security;
* (5) ground, aviation and maritime transportation security;
* (6) biodefense;
* (7) detection of nuclear and radiological materials; and
* (8) research on next-generation securities technologies.
"Independent agency." Any board, commission or other agency or officer of the Commonwealth, that is not subject to the policy supervision and control of the Governor. The term does not include a legislative or judicial agency.
"Judicial agency." A court of the Commonwealth or any other entity or office of the unified judicial system.
"Legislative agency." Any of the following:
* (1) The Senate.
* (2) The House of Representatives.
* (3) The Capitol Preservation Committee.
* (4) The Center for Rural Pennsylvania.
* (5) The Joint Legislative Air and Water Pollution Control and Conservation Committee.
* (6) The Joint State Government Commission.
* (7) The Legislative Budget and Finance Committee.
* (8) The Legislative Data Processing Committee.
* (9) The Independent Regulatory Review Commission.
* (10) The Legislative Reference Bureau.
* (11) The Local Government Commission.
* (12) The Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing.
* (13) The Legislative Reapportionment Commission.
* (14) The Legislative Office of Research Liaison.
* (15) The Legislative Audit Advisory Commission.
"Legislative record." Any of the following relating to a legislative agency or a standing committee, subcommittee or conference committee of a legislative agency:
* (1) A financial record.
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* (2) A bill or resolution that has been introduced and amendments offered thereto in committee or in legislative session, including resolutions to adopt or amend the rules of a chamber.
* (3) Fiscal notes.
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* (4) A cosponsorship memorandum.
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* (5) The journal of a chamber.
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* (6) The minutes of, record of attendance of members at a public hearing or a public committee meeting and all recorded votes taken in a public committee meeting.
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* (7) The transcript of a public hearing when available.
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* (8) Executive nomination calendars.
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* (9) The rules of a chamber.
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* (10) A record of all recorded votes taken in a legislative session.
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* (11) Any administrative staff manuals or written policies.
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* (12) An audit report prepared pursuant to the act of June 30, 1970 (P.L.442, No.151) entitled, "An act implementing the provisions of Article VIII, section 10 of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, by designating the Commonwealth officers who shall be charged with the function of auditing the financial transactions after the occurrence thereof of the Legislative and Judicial branches of the government of the Commonwealth, establishing a Legislative Audit Advisory Commission, and imposing certain powers and duties on such commission."
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* (13) Final or annual reports required by law to be submitted to the General Assembly.
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* (14) Legislative Budget and Finance Committee reports.
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* (15) Daily Legislative Session Calendars and marked calendars.
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* (16) A record communicating to an agency the official appointment of a legislative appointee.
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* (17) A record communicating to the appointing authority the resignation of a legislative appointee.
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* (18) Proposed regulations, final-form regulations and final-omitted regulations submitted to a legislative agency.
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* (19) The results of public opinion surveys, polls, focus groups, marketing research or similar efforts designed to measure public opinion funded by a legislative agency.
"Local agency." Any of the following:
* (1) Any political subdivision, intermediate unit, charter school, cyber charter school or public trade or vocational school.
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* (2) Any local, intergovernmental, regional or municipal agency, authority, council, board, commission or similar governmental entity.
"Office of Open Records." The Office of Open Records established in section 1310.
"Personal financial information." An individual's personal credit, charge or debit card information; bank account information; bank, credit or financial statements; account or PIN numbers and other information relating to an individual's personal finances.
"Privilege." The attorney-work product doctrine, the attorney-client privilege, the doctor-patient privilege, the speech and debate privilege or other privilege recognized by a court interpreting the laws of this Commonwealth.
"Public record." A record, including a financial record, of a Commonwealth or local agency that:
* (1) is not exempt under section 708;
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* (2) is not exempt from being disclosed under any other Federal or State law or regulation or judicial order or decree; or
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* (3) is not protected by a privilege.
"Record." Information, regardless of physical form or characteristics, that documents a transaction or activity of an agency and that is created, received or retained pursuant to law or in connection with a transaction, business or activity of the agency. The term includes a document, paper, letter, map, book, tape, photograph, film or sound recording, information stored or maintained electronically and a data-processed or image- processed document.
"Requester." A person that is a legal resident of the United States and requests a record pursuant to this act. The term includes an agency.
"Response." Access to a record or an agency's written notice to a requester granting, denying or partially granting and partially denying access to a record.
"Social services." Cash assistance and other welfare benefits, medical, mental and other health care services, drug and alcohol treatment, adoption services, vocational services and training, occupational training, education services, counseling services, workers' compensation services and unemployment compensation services, foster care services, services for the elderly, services for individuals with disabilities and services for victims of crimes and domestic violence.
"State-affiliated entity." A Commonwealth authority or Commonwealth entity. The term includes the:
* Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency and any entity established thereby,
* the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board,
* the Pennsylvania Game Commission,
* the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission,
* the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency,
* the Pennsylvania Municipal Retirement Board,
* the State System of Higher Education,
* a community college,
* the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission,
* the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission,
* the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority,
* the State Public School Building Authority,
* the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association
* and the Pennsylvania Educational Facilities Authority.
The term does not include a State-related institution.
"State-related institution." Includes:
* (1) Temple University.
* (2) The University of Pittsburgh.
* (3) The Pennsylvania State University.
* (4) Lincoln University.
"Terrorist act." A violent or life-threatening act that violates the criminal laws of the United States or any state and appears to be intended to:
* (1) intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
* (2) influence the policy of a government; or
* (3) affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.
"Trade secret." Information, including a formula, drawing, pattern, compilation, including a customer list, program, device, method, technique or process that:
* (1) derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use; and
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* (2) is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.
The term includes data processing software obtained by an agency under a licensing agreement prohibiting disclosure.
2.Value added tax (VAT)
Value added tax (VAT), or goods and services tax (GST) is a consumption tax (CT) levied on any value that is added to a product. In contrast to sales tax, VAT is seen as neutral with respect to the number of passages that there are between the producer and the final consumer whereas sales tax is levied on total value at each stage (though in the U.S. and many other countries, sales tax is charged only at the point of final sale to the final consumer, and a use tax only to the final user; there are no sales taxes paid at wholesale or production level). The result is a cascade (downstream taxes levied on upstream taxes). A VAT is an indirect tax, in that the tax is collected from someone who does not bear the entire cost of the tax.
Maurice Lauré, Joint Director of the French Tax Authority, the Direction générale des impôts, was first to introduce VAT on April 10, 1954, although German industrialist Dr. Wilhelm von Siemens proposed the concept in 1918. Initially directed at large businesses, it was extended over time to include all business sectors. In France, it is the most important source of state finance, accounting for 52% of state revenues.[1]
Personal end-consumers of products and services cannot recover VAT on purchases, but businesses are able to recover VAT on the materials and services that they buy to make further supplies or services directly or indirectly sold to end-users. In this way, the total tax levied at each stage in the economic chain of supply is a constant fraction of the value added by a business to its products, and most of the cost of collecting the tax is borne by business, rather than by the state. VAT was invented because very high sales taxes and tariffs encourage cheating and smuggling. Critics point out that it disproportionately raises taxes on middle- and low-income homes.
Principle of VAT
The standard way to implement a VAT is to say a business owes some percentage on the price of the product minus all taxes previously paid on the good. If VAT rates were 10%, an orange juice maker would pay 10% of the £5 per litre price (£0.50) minus taxes previously paid by the orange farmer (maybe £0.20). In this example, the orange juice maker would have a £0.30 tax liability. Each business has a strong incentive for its suppliers to pay their taxes, allowing VAT rates to be higher with less tax evasion than a retail sales tax. Behind this simple principle are the variations in its implementations, as discussed in the next section.
In India VAT replaced sales tax on 1 April 2005. Of the 28 Indian states, eight did not introduce VAT. Haryana had already adopted it on 1 April 2004. Due to the federal nature of the Indian constitution, the states do have the power to set their own VAT rate.
OECD (2008, 112-13) approvingly cites Chanchal Kumar Sharma (2005) to answer why it has proved so difficult to implement a federal VAT in India. The book says:
"Although the implementation of broad-base federal VAT system has been considered as the most desirable consumption tax for India since the early 1990s, such a reform would involve serious problems for the finances of regional governments. In addition, implementing VAT in India in context of current economic reforms would have paradoxical dimensions for Indian federalism. On one hand economic reforms have led to decentralization of expenditure responsibilities, which in turn demands more decentralization of revenue raising power if fiscal accountability is to be maintained. On the other hand, implementing VAT (to make India a single integrated market) would lead to revenue losses for the States and reduce their autonomy indicating greater centralization" (Sharma, 2005, as quoted in OECD, 2008, 112-13) [1]
Chanchal Kumar Sharma (2005:929) asserts: "political compulsions have led the government to propose an imperfect model of VAT" 'Indian VAT system is imperfect' to the extent it 'goes against the basic premise of VAT'. India seems to have an 'essenceless VAT' because the very reasons for which VAT receives academic support have been disregarded by the VAT-Indian Style, namely: removal of the distortions in movement of goods across states; Uniformity in tax structure. Chanchal Kumar Sharma (2005:929) clearly states, "Local or state level taxes like octroi, entry tax, lease tax, workers contract tax, entertainment tax and luxury tax are not integrated into the new regime, which goes against the basic premise of VAT, which is to have uniformity in the tax structure. The fact that no tax credit will be allowed for inter-state trade seriously undermines the basic benefit of enforcing a VAT system, namely the removal of the distortions in movement of goods across the states."
"Even the most essential prerequisite for success of VAT i.e. elimination of [Central sales tax (CST)] has been deferred. CST is levied on basis of origin and collected by the exporting state; the consumers of the importing state bear its incidence. CST creates tax barriers to integrate the Indian market and leads to cascading impact on cost of production. Further, the denial of input tax credit on inter-state sales and inter state transfers would affect free flow of goods." (Sharma,2005:922)
The greatest challenge in India, asserts Sharma (2005) is to design a sales tax system that will provide autonomy to subnational levels to fix tax rate, without compromising efficiency or creating enforcement problems.
