Recordkeeping requirements - General

1. A taxpayer shall maintain all records that are necessary to a determination of the correct tax liability under North Dakota Century Code title 57. All required records must be made available on request by the tax commissioner or its authorized representative. Such records shall include any original and nonidentical copy of any communication or other transmission of information that has been reduced by any means into any tangible form or medium or is electronically stored information, including written, electronic, magnetic, or photographic form, of any kind or description and including all records, reports, papers, accounting schedules, books, letters, notes, memoranda, e-mail, and other correspondence, reports and recordings of telephone and other conversations, tape recordings, contracts, evaluations, ledgers, journals, books or records of accounts, summaries of accounts, desk calendars, minutes, drawings, photographs, inspection reports, test reports, diaries, notebooks, sketches, graphs, charts, and press releases, all whether in the taxpayer's possession or under the control of any other individual or entity with knowledge of the information requested. 2. If a taxpayer retains records required to be retained under this regulation in both machine-sensible and hard-copy formats, the taxpayer shall make the records available to the tax commissioner in machine-sensible format upon the tax commissioner's request. 3. Nothing in this regulation shall be construed to prohibit a taxpayer from demonstrating tax compliance with traditional hard-copy documents or reproductions thereof, in whole or in part, whether or not such taxpayer also has retained or has the capability to retain records on electronic or other storage media in accordance with this regulation. However, this subsection shall not relieve the taxpayer of the obligation to comply with subsection 2.