§ 54:45-3 — Commissioner's records; authentication; confidential character; use in court

The commissioner shall keep a record of all of his official acts and shall preserve copies of all decisions, rules, regulations and orders made by him. Copies of any rule, regulation, order or decision made by him and of any paper or papers filed in any office maintained by him in the administration of this subtitle may be authenticated under his official seal and when so authenticated shall be evidence in all courts of the same weight and force as the originals thereof. For authenticating any such copy he shall receive a fee of one dollar. The records and files of the commissioner respecting the administration of this subtitle shall be considered confidential and privileged and neither the commissioner nor any employee concerned with such administration or the custody of any such records or files shall be required to produce any of them for the inspection of any person or use in any action or proceeding in any court except in behalf of the commissioner in an action or proceeding under the provisions of this subtitle to which the commissioner is a party or in behalf of any party to any action or proceeding under the provisions of this subtitle when the reports or files or the facts shown thereby are directly involved in such action or proceeding. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to prohibit the delivery to a taxpayer or to his duly authorized representative of a certified copy of any report or other paper filed by him pursuant to the requirements of this subtitle nor to prohibit the publication of statistics so classified as to prevent the identification of particular reports and the items thereof nor to prohibit the inspection by the attorney general or other legal representative of this state of the reports or files relating to the claim of any taxpayer who shall bring an action to set aside or review any tax imposed hereunder or against whom an action or proceeding has been instituted in accordance with the provisions of this subtitle, nor to prohibit the examination of said records and files by the comptroller or auditor of this state or by their respective duly authorized employees, nor to prohibit the delivery to the United States Internal Revenue Department or the state commissioner of alcoholic beverage control of copies of any alcoholic beverage tax sales reports filed with the state tax commissioner nor to prohibit the exchange of any information disclosed by any alcoholic beverage tax sales reports by the commissioner with any official person or body of any other state concerned with the administration of any alcoholic beverage tax or control statute in that state.