A top Patrick administration official told lawmakers today that a budget provision requiring greater public disclosure by recipients of state tax credits is “the first step in the direction of accountability and transparency.”

David Sullivan, the general counsel for the Executive Office of Administration and Finance, told a joint House-Senate budget hearing that the provision applies only to transferable or refundable tax credits, those which can be sold back to the state or to a third party and converted to cash. The tax credits covered by the provision include the film tax credit, the historic rehabilitation tax credit, the life sciences investment tax credit, the low-income housing tax credit, and the medical device tax credit.

Sullivan said the tax credits function a lot like grants, except that the names of grant recipients are typically disclosed publicly while the names of tax credit recipients are kept secret because of taxpayer confidentiality rules.

Patrick’s budget for next year contains an outside section that would require agencies to disclose who has received any tax credits, how many tax credits they received, and the number and pay of jobs they created with the credits. The goal, Sullivan said, is to find out where these tax credit grants are going and how much good they are doing for the economy. Right now, little other than anecodtal information is available on their economic benefit, even though they are costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

CommonWealth magazine has reported extensively on transferable and refundable tax credits, including the film tax credit, life science tax credits, and the historic rehabilitation tax credit. It also has run commentary on why more public disclosure is needed.