Reporting & Public Records

Nonprofit organizations that have been granted federal income tax exemptions are regulated by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and must file annual financial reports with that agency. In addition, many states regulate charities and require similar annual financial statements. Many of these records are available online. IRS Form 990s Nonprofit organizations that have been granted…

Election returns from past elections can usually be found at the websites of a Secretary of State for state races, and at the websites of a county voter registrar or a county election department for local races. On election night, these same agencies post election returns on special sections of their websites as the returns…

This is a guide to the public records a reporter can access to find background information on a business. The records are kept by a variety of local, state and federal agencies, as well as some private organizations. The filings vary from simple listings of the address and principal executive of a company, to detailed…

Lobbyists and companies or people who employ lobbyists in connection with federal, state or local legislation often must register with a government agency and file annual or quarterly reports on their activities. The reports include information such as the clients for which a lobbyist works and the specific legislation on which the lobbyist worked on…

A county assessor’s office compiles information on the value of parcels of property in a county and the owners of the properties, for purposes of computing property tax payments. Individual pieces of property are identified by assessor’s parcel numbers and parcel maps. Parcel Maps A county assessor’s office keeps a set of maps to identify…

Records of registered voters are kept on a county level, usually in a Voter Registrar’s Office, sometimes called an Elections Office. In California, copies of the voter registration records also are kept at the California Secretary of State’s Office. The information on a voter includes the person’s home address, political party affiliation, date of birth…

Each county has a property tax collector’s office that collects property taxes (often referred to as “secured” property taxes) from property owners. The tax collector relies on the county assessor’s office to get the assessed value of each piece of property. The tax collector then applies to that value the property tax rate (which is…

Records on people who served in the military are available from the U.S. government. However, you have to formally request the records. Only very basic information is available online at websites that have posted data on military service. The main federal government depository for military records is the: National Archives See the U.S. National Archives…

Lawsuits are filed in civil courts, and the documents filed in these civil cases are presumed to be open to the public. Civil court lawsuits include many different types of filings including divorce cases (often called “dissolution of marriage” or “family law” cases) and probate actions to settle a deceased person’s estate. There also are…

The county recorder’s office is the place of record for publicly filing official documents, usually related to property. These include property sales, mortgage loans, defaults on mortgage loans, liens on property, etc. Name Index Documents filed with the county recorder’s office are indexed alphabetically by the names of people, companies and organizations that have filed…