Entries for 'Tom Yamachika'

...If there is a position taken by a committee chair on one bill or one issue that is not reflecting the wishes of the committee, why can't the committee simply reject the chair's recommendation?....

GEMS, as a program, has been a miserable failure, resulting primarily in a large wad of cash that is just sitting in the bank. That’s why our legislature got the bright idea to “use” it to prop up another miserable failure – the “Cool the Schools” initiative....

On April 26, the Trump Administration released a document that contained a roadmap of sorts for an overhaul of the federal tax code....

...Shut up or we’ll make you pay for rail too....

How does a county raise money?

IRS Ruling: Act 1 Cash Payout to HGEA members would cost ERS its nonprofit status .... 

The 2nd Annual Maui County Carnival, scheduled for April 6-9, 2017, has been cancelled. Skyrocketing state government fees have been blamed....

Terms being bandied about include exemptions, deductions, and tax credits, and among tax credits there are the “CreditAbles” – refundable, nonrefundable, and assignable credits.....

...SB 620 would redefine how our general excise tax laws define “doing business”....

...this study appeared to be an outgrowth of a move by our teachers’ union....

...two bills are moving through the legislature on this subject....

The "shall make sufficient sums available" language is used in one more place in our constitution. It's in Article XII, Section 1, relating to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands....

House Bill 1586 is a multi-faceted bill that seeks to change some of the characteristics of our tax system....

...the amount of the penalty could be as much as $695 x 2 adults plus $695 x ½ x 3 kids = $2,432.50....

The sheer number of bills related to tax or public finance is staggering. It's much more frenetic this year than in any other year I've been in this position....

...the State is making a ton of money off the skim....

Is a 7% return on investment sustainable into the future? Another organization that studied the issue said that a more realistic rate of return would be the “risk-free” rate, which they calculated at 2.344%....

...our state government paid half a million dollars in pension payments to people who were already dead. Well, then, what do you think of budgeting many times that amount for people who don’t even exist?....

On December 13, 2016, Governor Ige signed off on, and thereby finalized, significant increases in fees charged by the Department of Transportation Harbors Division....

... legislators are considering a special, higher GET rate for marijuana, but haven’t decided upon that rate yet ....

...the Ige Administration has been meeting with the unions....

Earlier this year, our lawmakers passed Act 25. It bans smoking on the premises of our state-owned hospitals....

People get viscerally upset when you tell them they need to follow a rule they didn't know and couldn't have known....

If Dot Foods loses, none of us is safe....

Coordinated action is not what our government normally does....

...financially “dead” but are somehow shambling on....

The result of the general election earlier this month raises the possibility of a high magnitude shake-up in our federal tax system....

...the classification ran afoul of three protections that the U.S. Constitution, and, to some extent, the Hawaii Constitution, provide under the Commerce Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Privileges and Immunities Clause....

For a very long time, states have been wrestling with the problem of how much to tax entities operating in more than one state....

In 2016, Hawaii ranked 40th among the states with an OPEB funding ratio of 29.2 percent....

...the tax credit program boosted California’s economy only minimally, if at all....

In March, the Honolulu Zoo was denied re-accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) for the first time in its 100-year history....

One year ago, DHHL was sitting on about $55 million in federal funds unspent, as a result of which HUD stopped providing additional funding....

...a $4 million federal grant to come up with a “reimagining” of the taxes we currently pay....

...Apple owed Ireland 13 billion euros....

In Hawaii, we have a beast called a Taxation Board of Review that is quickly following the dodo bird down the path to extinction....

It seems that 15%-20% of our surcharge is being paid by “tourists” in the strict sense, but when you include military families and the federal government you do come up with a percentage closer to a third....

Divide $200 million by 1 million people, and you get $200 a year per person....

...it is very tempting when lawmakers find a large cache of unused money....

...it’s daunting to add up the numbers that are being bandied about....

...what happens if a benefit plan does get disqualified? According to the IRS’ website, there are potentially severe consequences to the employer, the employees, and the plan itself....

The special treatment applies only to subcontractors....

...a tax bill that tries to reverse progress made toward fairness and taxpayer rights....

...the Code doesn’t require an earmarked tax before an agency can commit....

...it looks bad for individual council members to secure money for such organizations....

...the Department has been raking in the retail rate GET from both the charities and the catering providers....

Someone needs to take remedial action before the thermonuclear bomb hits....

Many agencies relish the ability to spend public money with little or no accountability....