Q. If a federal government agency only holds records for 30 days yet for tax purposes contractors with that agency must hold those same records for 6 years, can I FOIA the contractor instead?
A. Only federal agencies are required to respond to FOIA requests, so the answer to your question is no. If the records you seek are maintained the contractor for the agency’s recordkeeping purposes, however, those records would be considered “agency records” and the agency would be required to process them. See DOJ/OIP, Treatment of Agency Records Maintained For an Agency By a Government Contractor for Purposes of Records Management, FOIA Post, July 2008.