Editor’s Note: Sunshine Request makes no claim as to the veracity of any statements or information contained in any of the requests, or public records, we receive.
Editor’s Note 07/12/24: The submission above has been marked as “Completed”. As written, it is unclear what specific, searchable public records the sender would like to receive, and to what specific government entity the request should be sent:
– Unless we’re mistaken, our understanding is that you don’t need to register a business with the City or the County at this point. In the past you had to register with the City for a “privilege tax” (I.E. the privilege of doing business), but the NC Legislature removed their ability to do that at some point. As a result, it is our understanding that the City may have stopped collecting the registrations at all.
– Additionally, we believe that this kind of request would have to be submitted to the NC Secretary of State. Essentially, asking them if they can produce a list of businesses in Buncombe County that are photography businesses, if that’s even possible.
– Regarding sales tax … we aren’t certain, but this seems like a separate question for the NC DOR (Department of Revenue) asking if they can give you a list of businesses that have applied and received a sales tax ID. That is different than asking for their sales tax returns (which we do not think are public). However, we don’t know if they’d be willing to provide that information to you either.
We recommend that the sender checks to see if the responsive info is already publicly available on the entities’ websites. If not, please feel free to revise and submit a new request through our website. If you would like to make a request to multiple entities, please submit each new request separately through our site. Please clearly indicate any specific details, subject, message, dates, record types, City / County / State, etc. about the exact public records that are being requested, and to what entity the request should be sent.
Sunshine Request will not fulfill the following types of requests:
☀️ Requests that are only informational questions, and requests that are not addressed to government entities.
Sunshine Request is a site built to make requests for public records to the government — Public records are recorded information such as documents, government emails, and data sets.
In the interest of preserving our team’s time to focus on the high volume of requests on our site, as well to respect the staff time of government entities fulfilling records requests, Sunshine Request will no longer fulfill “requests” that are just informational type questions for government entities to answer.
We also will not fulfill requests made to non-government entities.
It’s the requester’s responsibility to write the request in a manner that clearly specifies a record that is being requested, and to what government entity it should be sent.
☀️ Requests that are incomplete, non-specific, or vague.
While we do proofread requests we receive for general spelling and clarity, we may choose not to fulfill the request if it is incomplete, or it is unclear what specific information the requester hopes to receive. In this case, the sender may rewrite and resubmit the request.
It’s the requester’s responsibility to write the request in a manner that clearly specifies a record that is being requested, and to what government entity it should be sent.
☀️ Please be specific:
It is important that what you are requesting is specific and reasonable, and is an actionable records request. Please specify the exact type of records you’d like to receive, rather than any “possible” or “potential” info that could be searched. Remember that the larger your request, the more time it usually takes to fulfill. Specificity will often help reduce the amount of time needed to process the request.
It is important that a request has a clearly written and complete Subject and Message, and also specifies the Government Entity (or entities), City and/or County, and State to which the request should be sent. If applicable, please also include any responsive timelines for the info that should be requested.
While we do proofread requests we receive for general spelling and clarity, we may choose not to fulfill the request if it is incomplete, or it is unclear what specific info the requester hopes to receive, or if it violates our policies.
Before submitting a request, please take a moment to review our tips for How to write and make a successful request. If you have additional questions about our site or how to make requests, please check out our FAQs or Policies page.
☀️ Code of Conduct: Please do not use Sunshine Request or any of the results of public records requests to harass government entities / employees, businesses, private citizens / individuals, or otherwise.
☀️ Please note that we cannot pay any fees / associated costs related to any of the requests on our site. If it is not possible for a Government Agency to process our request without incurring fees, then it is the responsibility of that Agency to let us know what the potential costs may be — at which point we will ask that they cease processing the request. We will mark the request as “Completed” on our site, and the sender can contact the Government Agency directly, should they wish to further pursue a request.
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