Discovery of Federal Tax Returns Limited
The Tyler Court of Appeals recently confirmed that individual federal tax returns are discoverable to the extent they are relevant and material. In this case, the tax returns were relevant to the claims and the court found that the parties had agreed to the production of the returns. But that was not the end of the matter. The court of appeals also found that not all of the information contained in the tax returns was relevant. Thus, the court of appeals held the trial court abused its discretion by ordering the tax returns produced in their entirety when only portions of the returns dealing with specific income were relevant. Accordingly, the court of appeals conditionally granted the petition for writ of mandamus and ordered the trial court to vacate its order that the party to produce all individual tax returns from 1999 to the present in their entirety. The court's opinion in In re Guniganti can be found at this link.
