Tennessee State Capitol. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Around 60,000 companies, including some of the state’s largest, received more than $1.5 billion in taxes from Tennessee, but the list of those companies will only be available on the state’s website until June 30th.

When lawmakers pass Republicans Refund Measurement In 2024, at Gov. Bill Lee’s request, House members were pushed back to senators who didn’t want the rebate’s recipients to be made public, requiring that the information be made public for 30 days.

“The transparency piece is a very important element of this, especially in light of the fact that some businesses forced us to make this. When the law was there, Rep. Ryan Williams, a Cookville Republican, said: It is being discussed.

Open Records supporters have questioned the transparency of the law, but leading Republicans have said he is happy with it.

“I believe in transparency, and so do Republicans,” said House Republican Caucus Speaker Jeremy Feson in a text message on June 3rd. “That’s exactly why the house made this information easy to access.”

Lawmakers approved tax refunds after Lee administration officials said The state faced potential lawsuits regarding the legality of the franchise tax, but no lawsuits have been filed against the state.

Among the companies that recover taxes are Lee Company, owned and operated by Gov. Bill Lee’s family. FedEx; Brown Forman, parent company of Jack Daniels and parent company of AT&T.

During the discussion of the 2024 bill, Lee opposed disclosures of companies undergoing rebates, saying, “I don’t think it should be there. I don’t think it should be there. I don’t think it should take the private tax information the government has and make it public.”

As part of the law, Tennessee has made its name public for 30 days. The public database does not specify the amounts the company is configured to receive, but offers a range of over $10,000.

“It’s not clear to say something is over $10,000, because it could be $10,500 or $100,000,” said Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Union, Open Government.

Tennessee Observation Deck has obtained publicly available information and has been republished below. The database will remain available on the Lookout website after it disappeared from the state site at the end of this month.

Adam Friedman, Cassandra Stephenson and Sam Stockard contributed to this report.

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Editor’s Note: This story was updated on Monday, June 23rd at 1:32pm and became clear.