Are charges for a company's service of retrieving individual police accident reports from local police departments and delivering copies to an auto insurer subject to New York sales tax?

Plain-English summary

State Farm, a New York auto insurer, uses two outside companies to fetch copies of individual police accident reports from local police departments whenever a State Farm regional office needs one to process a claim — figuring out what happened, who was involved, whether anyone was hurt, which hospitals treated them, whether citations were issued, and other claims-processing details. These companies don't pull the reports from any purchased database or computer hookup — an employee physically requests and picks up (or mails for) each specific report, one at a time, directly from the relevant police agency.

New York taxes "information services" — collecting, compiling, or furnishing information to others — but excludes information that's uniquely "personal or individual" and not meant to be incorporated into reports for other people. Relying on an established Appellate Division precedent involving DMV records, the Department found that furnishing copies of a public record obtained from a single government source is still a taxable information service, and that the "personal or individual" exclusion refers to genuinely private information, not records like police reports that are public and equally available to any requester (illustrated by the fact that every insurance company involved in a multi-car accident could separately request and get the identical report). Being sourced from a government agency doesn't make the service exempt either. So the companies' charges to State Farm for retrieving and providing these reports are taxable information services, and — critically — the taxable amount is the ENTIRE charge to State Farm: the company can't subtract out what it separately paid the police agency as a copying fee (that's treated as a nondeductible business expense), and any separately stated delivery charge is taxable too.

What this means for you

Records-retrieval and document-fetching businesses serving insurers, law firms, or other clients

Fetching a public record — even one obtained one at a time, in person or by mail, from a single government source rather than a database — is a taxable "information service" in New York. The information doesn't need to come from a compiled database or multiple sources to count; furnishing any collected report to a customer for a fee generally falls within this taxable category unless a specific exclusion applies.

Insurance companies and law firms purchasing document-retrieval services

Expect sales tax on your entire invoice for this kind of service, including any portion that's really just the vendor passing through the government agency's own copying fee — that fee doesn't get carved out of the taxable receipt just because it's really a reimbursement rather than profit for the vendor.

Businesses claiming the "personal or individual information" exclusion

This exclusion is narrow — it protects genuinely private, uniquely personal information not meant to be shared in reports to others, not public records like police reports, court filings, or other government records that any requester could obtain. A public record's availability to multiple requesters (as in a multi-party accident where every involved insurer gets the same report) is strong evidence it doesn't qualify for the exclusion.

Common questions

Q: Is a service considered a taxable "information service" only if it aggregates data from multiple sources into a database?
A: No — even fetching a single specific public record from a single government source, one request at a time, counts as furnishing an information service under this ruling.

Q: Does the "personal or individual" information exclusion protect data pulled from government records?
A: Not when the record itself is a public record available to any requester, like a police accident report — the exclusion is meant for genuinely unique personal information, not public records simply about a person.

Q: Can a vendor exclude the government agency's own copying fee from its taxable charge to the customer?
A: No — that fee is treated as a nondeductible business expense of the vendor; the customer's entire payment, including any pass-through fee or separately stated delivery charge, is part of the taxable receipt.

Citations and references

Statutes and rules:

• Tax Law § 1101(b)(3) (receipt definition; nondeductible expenses)
• Tax Law § 1105(a), (c)(1) (retail sales tax; information services tax, with personal-information exclusion)

Case law relied on:

• Allstate Insurance Company v. State Tax Commission, 115 AD2d 831 (1985) (single-source government record retrieval is a taxable information service; personal-information exclusion limited to uniquely private data)
• Matter of Hooper Holmes, Inc. v. Wetzler, 152 AD2d 871 (government-sourced information not automatically exempt)

Source

• Landing page: https://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/advisory_opinions/sales_ao_2004.htm
• Opinion: https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/advisory_opinions/sales/a04_29s.pdf

Original ruling text

New York State Department of Taxation and Finance

Office of Tax Policy Analysis
Technical Services Division

TSB-A-04(29)S
Sales Tax
December 28, 2004

STATE OF NEW YORK
COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION AND FINANCE
ADVISORY OPINION

PETITION NO. S011214A

On December 14, 2001, the Department of Taxation and Finance received a Petition for
Advisory Opinion from State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., One State Farm Plaza,
Bloomington, IL 61710.
The issue raised by Petitioner, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., is whether
the charges for the service of retrieving copies of specific, individual police reports from local
police authorities and providing such copies to an insurance company are subject to sales or
compensating use tax.
Petitioner submits the following facts as the basis for this Advisory Opinion.
Petitioner is engaged in the automobile insurance business in New York State. Petitioner
is the customer of two companies, both of whom provide the service of retrieving individual
copies of police reports from local police authorities requested specifically by Petitioner’s
regional offices and providing such copies to the requesting regional office. The police reports
are requested by Petitioner for use in claims processing in order to determine:
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the facts of the loss in a particular event;
the damage to the vehicles in a particular event;
the parties involved in the accident;
any injuries sustained in a particular event;
whether anyone was taken to the hospital;
the names of hospitals used to treat any injuries sustained in a particular event;
addresses of the parties involved for contact and underwriting reviews;
identification of insurance companies involved in the claim;
whether any parties involved have received citations, tickets, or were arrested;
whether the police were at the scene or witnessed the accident; and,
the timeliness of reporting the loss to the police.

Neither of the companies that provides copies of police reports to Petitioner obtains the
reports from a purchased database or via a computer terminal hookup. Upon receipt of a request
for copies of police reports from one of Petitioner’s offices, the companies obtain copies of
specific police reports individually. Reports may be obtained in person, or by mail, by
completing a request form and submitting it to the appropriate police agency.
Applicable law and regulations
Section 1101(b) of the Tax Law provides, in part:

TSB-A-04(29)S
Sales Tax
December 28, 2004

2

When used in this article for the purposes of the taxes imposed by subdivisions
(a), (b), (c) and (d) of section eleven hundred five and by section eleven hundred ten, the
following terms shall mean:
*

*

*

(3) Receipt. The amount of the sale price of any property and the charge for any
service taxable under this article . . . valued in money, whether received in money or
otherwise, including any amount for which credit is allowed by the vendor to the
purchaser, without any deduction for expenses or early payment discounts and also
including any charges by the vendor to the purchaser for shipping or delivery . . .
regardless of whether such charges are separately stated in the written contract, if any, or
on the bill rendered to such purchaser and regardless of whether such shipping or delivery
. . . is provided by such vendor or a third party . . . .
Section 1105 of the Tax Law provides, in part:
On and after June first, nineteen hundred seventy-one, there is hereby imposed
and there shall be paid a tax . . . upon:
(a) The receipts from every retail sale of tangible personal property, except as
otherwise provided in this article.
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(c) The receipts from every sale, except for resale, of the following services:
(1) The furnishing of information by printed, mimeographed or
multigraphed matter or by duplicating written or printed matter in any other
manner, including the services of collecting, compiling or analyzing information
of any kind or nature and furnishing reports thereof to other persons, but
excluding the furnishing of information which is personal or individual in nature
and which is not or may not be substantially incorporated in reports furnished to
other persons, and excluding the services of advertising or other agents, or other
persons acting in a representative capacity, and information services used by
newspapers, radio broadcasters and television broadcasters in the collection and
dissemination of news, and excluding meteorological services.
Opinion
In Allstate Insurance Company v. State Tax Commission, 115 AD2d 831 (1985), the court
held that the furnishing of New York State Department of Motor Vehicle records by Hooper
Holmes, Inc. to Allstate was the furnishing of an information service even if the information was
collected from a single source. Additionally, the court held that the exclusion from tax for

TSB-A-04(29)S
Sales Tax
December 28, 2004

3

information which is personal or individual in nature refers to uniquely personal information and
does not apply to information filed with a governmental agency as a public record to which there
is unlimited public access.
The furnishing of copies of records obtained by a company from a police agency's files is
the furnishing of an information service and is not a delivery service even though the information
is collected from a single source. See Allstate Insurance Company, supra. Such information is
not the type of uniquely personal information referred to in the exemption for personal or
individual information. Furthermore, in a multi-party accident, the different insurance
companies each separately representing the various parties would each request and obtain the
identical police reports for such incident. This service is not exempt merely because the
information may have been generated from a governmental source. See Matter of Hooper
Holmes, Inc. v. Wetzler, 152 AD2d 871, lv denied 75 NY2d 706.
Accordingly, the sale of this information service by a company to Petitioner is subject to
sales tax under section 1105(c)(1) of the Tax Law.
Section 1101(b)(3) of the Tax Law defines receipts for purposes of determining the
amount of taxable sales as, "The amount of the sale price of any property and the charge for any
service taxable under this article...without any deduction for expenses...."
Accordingly, when a company is required to collect sales tax on its sales of information
services to Petitioner, it must collect sales tax on the entire amount charged to Petitioner. It may
not reduce its taxable receipts by the amount it paid as a fee to the police agency. Such fee is
deemed an expense for which no deduction is allowed. Any separately stated charge for delivery
of the document is likewise subject to sales tax. See section 1101(b)(3) of the Tax Law.

DATED: December 28, 2004

NOTE:

/s/
Jonathan Pessen
Tax Regulations Specialist IV
Technical Services Division

The opinions expressed in Advisory Opinions are
limited to the facts set forth therein.