Entries for 'Tom Yamachika'

...we are starting to see laws passed in the 2019 Legislature take effect....

...It pains me to read stories of people who lost their homes after being told that they didn’t have to pay back their mortgages because the laws under which they were made were invalid in Hawaii....

... a vacant home fee of 5% or 10% ....

...Recently, we have been getting lots of news about our economy here in the islands, and none of it has been good....

...“Look. We’ve issued four audit reports on the program...."

...the Education Institute of Hawaii that wants to see the general ledger for the whole Department of Education....

...DOTAX justified the shroud of darkness surrounding its revenue projections with a theory, derived from federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) law, called “deliberative process privilege.”....

...A long time ago the Tax Foundation of Hawaii sued the State....

...the law’s discrimination against nonresidents was prohibited by a part of the U.S. Constitution that the deputy attorney general didn’t consider.  “Oops,” the deputy said....

... We control the purse strings, so we said no to a lot of their money. They reversed some of their decisions. We gave them some money. So the tension worked ....

... Department of Land and Natural Resources is doing a reforestation project in East Maui. It’s hired a vendor to certify the project for “carbon credits.” Why are they doing that if we don’t even have a carbon tax ....

...OHA assets cannot be shielded from accountability (to both the Trustees and the general public) simply by tossing them into LLCs....

...they just make a list of the projects and call them “deferred maintenance”....

...No, that isn’t a cuss word. It’s just the facts, ma’am....

...our legislature has a dogged focus on new taxes....

...Before the ink was dry on those judgments, the Department of Taxation produced additional assessments against the taxpayers, this time on car rental commissions....

...if we think it’s such a great idea, why don’t we apply it to state executives, judges, or legislators?....

"...Despite the rejection of the Supreme Court of Hawaii, our efforts were key in the legislature’s decision to drop the skim from 10% to 1% during the 2017 Special Session—this was a win for all taxpayers in this State...."

"SB 1474 Senate Draft 2 that proposes an increase in the GET now specifies '__ per cent or $ _____'"

...what we really need to do is fix the inefficiency....

...individuals, gritting and gnashing their teeth, scour through their financial records and begin the arduous process.... 

...If an eligible person deposits money into the account, a sponsor such as a government agency matches the deposit....

...The auditor found that they have lots of money lying around. More than $120 million in accounts that haven’t been even touched for five years....

...creative tax-related bills at our legislature....

...This year, our legislature once again is poised to consider revenue raising – namely, taxes in new and creative ways....

...Recently, we have heard the term “congestion pricing” bandied about as a way of improving traffic congestion here, and of raising more money....

...In a budget briefing at the legislature at about this time last year, Department of Education officials reported that their backlog of repair and maintenance jobs was $293 million, and they were patting themselves on the back because it was a significant drop from the $392 million reported in 2010....

...Today, we examine “zero-based budgeting,” an idea that has been around for a while but was recently championed by House Finance Chair Sylvia Luke....  

... the agencies are supposed to come up with a “variance report” that is supposed to list how much they were budgeted, how much was spent, and a narrative explanation for any significant difference ....

...DLNR needs to understand that the money in these funds isn’t “their” money. It’s taxpayer money....

...If enacted, the carbon tax would be the fifth special tax imposed on fuel....

...We continue with our series about a timeshare association suing Maui County seeking to invalidate its “Time Share” property classification, with the county then striking back.... 

...We continue with our series about a timeshare association suing the county, with the county then back assessing the association for $10 million.... 

...Timeshare association sues county; county then back assesses association for $10 million.... 

...a long and hotly litigated property tax case from Maui....

...These companies received cash and property, including 1,600+ acres of land in Waimea Valley, from OHA....

...For a long time, I was wondering what the authors of 07-001 were smoking....

...a case now pending in the Hawaii Supreme Court that may give us some insight on county real property taxes and their limits....

...a prior Hawaii Supreme Court case, Cieri v. Leticia Query Realty, 80 Haw. 54 (1995), said, “[R]eal estate is, particularly in Hawai`i, both scarce and expensive. As a result, the purchase of real estate or a residence likely is the largest ‘investment’ a person in Hawai`i may make in a lifetime.”....

...another provision that was passed by the 1978 Constitutional Convention to assure our fiscal health—and what our lawmakers have done to marginalize it....

...The saga of this credit tells us a little about a bold move undertaken in the 1978 Constitutional Convention and our lawmakers’ reaction....

...It is very tempting for a DOE administrator to think, “There’s no benefit for us if we do all this work because the Legislature needs to fund us anyway...."

...This law, which we have discussed before, recently has been used to create a “school impact district” that goes from Kalihi to Ala Moana.... 

...The Tax Foundation of Hawaii, a nonprofit taxpayer watchdog organization, together with 14 other organizations, businesses, and individuals, submitted a court filing supporting the Counties’ request that the Hawaii Supreme Court void the ballot measure for school funds....

...the ballot question doesn’t say anything at all about tax.  Does that make the ballot question misleading or deceptive?....  

...the City is giving the exemption to 342 homes and forgoing taxation on $600 million in property value, translating to a revenue loss exceeding $2 million....

...These days, our General Excise Tax (GET) contains exemptions and reduced rates that are supposed to reflect commercial reality but often contain leaps of faith....

...How long do you think it takes between buying a home on Kauai and having the “home exemption” effective for real property tax there?....

...Maybe it’s just a question of semantics....

...48 productions registered for the credit, with estimated qualified expenditures north of $268 million in exchange for $55 million in tax credits....