Section 21 of chapter 62C of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2012 Official Edition, is hereby amended by inserting in subsection (b), after paragraph (26), the following new paragraph:-

(27)  notwithstanding any special or general law to the contrary, including without limitation section 12 of chapter 11 and section 20 of chapter 62C, the state auditor’s access to any information, including tax returns and related documents, but excluding information provided to the commonwealth by other federal and state tax agencies where such access is precluded by law or agreement, necessary for the audit of tax expenditures, as defined by section 1 of chapter 29 of the General Laws, provided that the identity of any particular taxpayer shall be deemed to be confidential information and not a public record, shall not be included in any published audit report, and shall be maintained as confidential information in accordance with government auditing standards as established by the Comptroller General of the United States.