Mass. bill would publish publicly traded companies' state tax reports online

A bill filed Jan. 17, 2025, in the Massachusetts Legislature would require the state secretary to publish corporate tax reports filed by publicly traded companies in a searchable online database and would change timing and disclosure rules for those reports.

The bill, filed as Senate No. 2037 (Senate Docket No. 2291) and presented by Liz Miranda, proposes amending Section 83 of Chapter 62C of the Massachusetts General Laws to make all information in those annual reports publicly available online, to add a publicly available list of corporations that failed to file, and to remove an existing sentence that required the state secretary to expunge taxpayer names and principal-office addresses before public release.

If enacted as written, the state secretary would be required to: maintain an ongoing, searchable internet database of the reports; set charges that cover the cost of providing copies or computer-readable media of the full database for a calendar year; and provide hard copies of an individual corporation’s annual report on request. The bill also preserves a delay before public release: “No report for any corporation for a particular tax year shall be publicly available until the first day of the third calendar year that follows the calendar year in which the particular tax year ends.”

The filing also adds a requirement that the secretary publish “a list of any corporations required to file in the preceding year that failed to file a report in that year.” The text amends subsection (m) of Section 83 to include that list and replaces subsection (n) with the searchable-database requirement described above.

The statutory target of the amendments is Section 83 of Chapter 62C (the state tax reporting provision for filing corporations). The bill text references the existing statute and strikes and replaces specified sentences to effect the disclosure changes.

The measure was filed with the Legislature under the subject line "Revenue," indicating referral to the committee with jurisdiction over tax matters. The filing notes that similar matter appeared in the 2023–2024 session as Senate No. 1875.

Next steps: the bill must be considered by the Legislature and, if reported favorably, pass both chambers and be signed by the governor before becoming law. The bill text assigns implementation tasks to the state secretary, who would set any fees for database copies and carry out the public posting and recordkeeping requirements.