The state Department of Taxation wants to subpoena Airbnb Inc. records for the past 10 years to determine whether transient vacation rental operators in Hawaii have been paying their state taxes.

Attorney General Russell Suzuki last week filed a request for Circuit Court authorization to subpoena the tax records from the vacation rental platform “as part of its investigation into compliance with general excise and transient accommodations tax laws,” according to the petition.

The administrative subpoena would demand “all invoices, receipts, statements and confirmations” of bookings and payments as well as the names, tax identification numbers and Social Security numbers of the hosts, according to the filing.

The subpoena would also seek the location of the rentals, the dates and length of stay by each guest, and the amounts paid for the rentals. State law requires tax investigators to seek court authority to issue such a subpoena if the demand does not specifically identify the person who is the target of the investigation.

“The intent of the administrative subpoena is to ascertain who are not paying their fair share of general excise and transient accommodation taxes,” according to the filing. The tax department has not yet sought similar records from other vacation rental platforms.

A study commissioned by the Hawaii Tourism Authority in 2016 concluded collecting hotel room taxes from Airbnb and similar rental platforms should generate $136 million in 2018, but the state is collecting only a fraction of that amount.

A statement from Airbnb said the company “has received the request from the state’s Department of Taxation and is currently reviewing it.”

The controversy over illegal vacation rentals and tax collections escalated during the primary election campaign this year, with Gov. David Ige pledging to use his executive authority to “collect the taxes one by one.”

During a candidates forum hosted by the hotel industry in Waikiki on July 2, Ige said that “we’re doing it the old-fashioned, hard way, going property by property looking at the platforms that are renting, verifying the ones that we believe are illegal and then pursuing them. It’s a tough job, but we’re going to do it until we get support from the (Legislature).”

Lawmakers have considered bills in each of the past four years to try to ensure Airbnb and transient vacation rentals pay their state excise and hotel room taxes.

Ige vetoed a bill in 2016 that would have authorized Airbnb to act as an agent to collect the taxes from its clients on behalf of the state, and since then bills dealing with the issue have stalled at the state Legislature.

Critics of that 2016 bill said it would have allowed the state to collect more in taxes, but would also have allowed illegal rentals to continue their operations and spread. Illegal vacation rentals are reducing the supply of housing for local residents and changing the character of residential neighborhoods, critics say.

Earlier this year Ige rejected a memorandum of agreement proposed by Airbnb that included provisions similar to the 2016 bill, saying both the bill and the memorandum of agreement would have exacerbated the problem of illegal vacation rentals. While the state wants to collect all taxes owed from vacation rental operators, it is also important that the properties used as rentals are “appropriately zoned and regulated,” he said.

Ige has said he wants an agreement that prohibits Airbnb from promoting Hawaii properties that are not appropriately zoned, something he said the company has agreed to do in other counties and states.

State Tax Director Linda Chu Takayama has said under Ige there has been “an increased emphasis on (transient accommodations) collections.”

The tax department’s Special Enforcement Section opened more than 300 investigations into transient rental businesses in the year ending June 30, and has been identifying possible targets using complaints received on its hotline, data analytics and surveys, she said.

Lawmakers authorized six additional special enforcement investigators effective July 1, which will increase the special enforcement section staff to 13 once the positions are filled.