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Entries for 'Tom Yamachika'
| Sunday, April 5, 2026 |
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Additional Car Tax Dead for Now
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 132 Views :: Taxes
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... It might get resurrected this session if it, in Frankenstein fashion, is grafted onto another live bill ....
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| Sunday, March 29, 2026 |
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HB2429: Makes Your Tax Return Public Record
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2634 Views :: Taxes
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... Somebody needs to rewrite this bill or put it out of its misery ....
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| Sunday, March 22, 2026 |
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Legislative Halftime Report
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 3081 Views :: Hawaii State Government
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... Any bill that hasn’t crossed over is dead for this session ....
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| Sunday, March 15, 2026 |
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A Taxing Debate
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 2855 Views :: Hawaii State Government, Taxes
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... What will likely follow will be a bit of negotiating, most of which will occur behind closed doors ....
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| Sunday, March 8, 2026 |
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The Rental Car ‘Loophole’
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 1675 Views :: Labor, Small Business, Taxes, Tourism
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... is it really a loophole? ....
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| Sunday, March 1, 2026 |
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The Cruise Fee Quandary
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1131 Views :: Jones Act, Taxes, Tourism
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... there are bills that would undo the TAT extension to cruise lines and, instead, impose a per-passenger charge on cruise ship docking ....
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| Sunday, February 22, 2026 |
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UH sitting on $429M Hoard
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1578 Views :: Higher Education, Taxes
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... The University of Hawaii has a $429M special fund for tuition and fees ....
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| Sunday, February 15, 2026 |
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Tax Cuts: Pause versus Stop
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 868 Views :: Taxes
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... House Bill 2306 and Senate Bill 3125 don’t delay the scheduled cuts by three years or five years. They propose to repeal the cuts, as in get rid of them for good....
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| Sunday, February 1, 2026 |
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Tax Versus Judiciary
By Tom Yamachika @ 12:01 AM :: 611 Views :: Judiciary, Taxes
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...There are two Hawaii Supreme Court cases pending that involve fights over the extent to which courts can get involved in taxation at all....
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| Sunday, January 25, 2026 |
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New Year, New Variance
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 828 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government, Taxes
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... A mortality rate of 620 per thousand is something you might get with an atomic bomb ....
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| Sunday, January 18, 2026 |
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Idle Agriculture Funds
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1036 Views :: Agriculture, Hawaii State Government, Taxes
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... millions of dollars lying around ....
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| Sunday, January 11, 2026 |
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Idle DOE Funds
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1751 Views :: Education K-12
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... Can we put $80 million to good use instead of just allowing it to sit idle? ....
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| Sunday, January 4, 2026 |
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Tax Word Find
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 938 Views :: Taxes
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... a Word Find puzzle with 26 key words and phrases ....
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| Sunday, December 28, 2025 |
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Charitable Giving This Year?
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1017 Views :: Taxes
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... there is an additional complication called the Pease limit ....
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| Sunday, December 21, 2025 |
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Gaming This Year?
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1059 Views :: Gambling, Taxes
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... According to the Census Bureau, state tax revenue from sports betting nearly quadrupled in the last four years ....
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| Sunday, December 14, 2025 |
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More Grief Over SNAP
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1149 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government, Cost of Living
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... information to purge allegedly fraudulent recipients ....
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| Sunday, December 7, 2025 |
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Making a Federal Case Out of the Green Fee
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1190 Views :: Jones Act, Judiciary, Taxes, Tourism
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... the cruise lines alleged that the tax appeal system we have here is anything but plain, speedy, and efficient ....
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| Sunday, November 30, 2025 |
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SNAP Confusion…On Us
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1240 Views :: National News, Hawaii State Government
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... the new guidance says that immigrants in certain categories, namely Refugees, Individuals Granted Asylum, Parolees, and Deportation Withheld are “Not Eligible” for SNAP ....
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| Sunday, November 23, 2025 |
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Pitfalls in Tax Appeals
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 999 Views :: Taxes
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... People sometimes get into a disagreement with the Department of Taxation ....
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| Sunday, November 16, 2025 |
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Student Loan Forgiveness for a 'substantially illegal purpose'?
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1334 Views :: Higher Education, Cost of Living
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... better watch out because there are changes coming ....
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| Sunday, November 9, 2025 |
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Eligible Charges
By Tom Yamachika @ 2:48 PM :: 1485 Views :: Health Care, Taxes
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... some health insurance programs don’t cover general excise tax that we in Hawaii impose on health care charges ....
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| Sunday, November 2, 2025 |
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TATmas Tree
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 1500 Views :: DHHL, Taxes, Tourism
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... Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is proposing Legislators again hike the Transient Accommodations Tax ....
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| Sunday, October 26, 2025 |
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Spend That Money, Vought Is Watching
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2019 Views :: DHHL
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... DHHL's carryover balances, and these high annual re-appropriations that they have, kind of made it low-hanging fruit for the Trump Administration ....
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| Sunday, October 19, 2025 |
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Even More TANF Hoarding
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 1639 Views :: Family, Hawaii State Government
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... federal TANF money that we haven’t spent: $452 million ....
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| Sunday, October 12, 2025 |
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DoTax Employees Rebelling Against the Culture of Silence
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2660 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government, Taxes
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... with a very public step being taken, it will be impossible to simply sweep the matter under the rug ....
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| Sunday, October 5, 2025 |
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Nonresident Withholding, Six Years Later
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2206 Views :: Taxes
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... the legislation was enacted in 2019, six years ago. At the time, the Department issued an announcement saying that it wasn’t ready to implement the requirement yet, so taxpayers could relax ....
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| Sunday, September 28, 2025 |
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The Deduction for State and Local Tax
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 1793 Views :: Taxes
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... the push and pull that the federal tax system inflicts on state and local tax systems ....
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| Sunday, September 21, 2025 |
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Your Money Stays in Vegas — Then the IRS Wants Some
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2870 Views :: Gambling, Taxes
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... Trump tax act: new rules on gambling losses ....
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| Sunday, September 14, 2025 |
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Charitable Giving Under 'Big Beautiful Bill'
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 4295 Views :: Taxes
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"...a significant boost to the standard deduction...."
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| Sunday, September 7, 2025 |
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DoTax Suddenly Begins Collecting GE Tax on Tips
By Tom Yamachika @ 2:42 PM :: 6548 Views :: Small Business, Taxes, Tourism
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... This seems to me to be a departure from past practice ....
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| Sunday, August 31, 2025 |
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No Tax on Tips
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 5893 Views :: Labor, Taxes, Tourism
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An individual who receives tips can exclude up to $25,000 of those tips from his or her gross income....
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| Sunday, August 24, 2025 |
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Classroom Heat
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 6069 Views :: Education K-12, Energy, Ethics
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... ten years ago Governor Ige kicked off an effort to get air conditioners into public school classrooms ....
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| Sunday, August 17, 2025 |
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No Tax on Overtime
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 5340 Views :: Labor, Small Business, Taxes
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... this is critical information for employers too ....
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| Sunday, August 10, 2025 |
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Encumbrance for the Stadium
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 4932 Views :: Ethics, Development, Hawaii State Government, Higher Education, Tourism
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... Act 88 of 2021, which Act 248 amended, stated that the appropriations in the biennium budget would lapse on June 30, 2024 ....
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| Sunday, August 3, 2025 |
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Constitutional Expenditure Controls
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 3007 Views :: Hawaii History, Hawaii State Government
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... over the last fifty years, our lawmakers have tended to regard those provisions as bothersome annoyances, to be worked around or avoided ...
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| Sunday, July 27, 2025 |
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Pay for No Work
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 5100 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government, Hawaii Statistics, Labor
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... $6.3M salary for 'administrative leave' ....
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| Sunday, July 20, 2025 |
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Nonprofit Blankety Blank
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 3077 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government
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... $50 million in the hands of a four-person committee ....
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| Sunday, July 13, 2025 |
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SNAP Cliffs Are Coming
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 3497 Views :: Family, Hawaii State Government, Cost of Living, COVID-19
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... the USDA whacked our state with an $11 million fine for its huge error rate two years in a row ....
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| Monday, July 7, 2025 |
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Building New Schools
By Tom Yamachika @ 2:27 PM :: 2816 Views :: Education K-12, Development, Taxes
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... the fees have been collected but have not been used, and for a very long time ....
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| Monday, June 30, 2025 |
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Lawsuit Challenges “Dam Special Fund” Used to Undermine Constitutional Expenditure Controls
By Tom Yamachika @ 3:57 PM :: 2865 Views :: Ethics, Agriculture, Hawaii State Government
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... The lawsuit alleges that the Special Fund was intended to be, and is, used to circumvent expenditure controls that are in the Hawaii Constitution for the protection of taxpayers ....
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| Sunday, June 29, 2025 |
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Twenty Years of Nickels
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 3567 Views :: Environment, Small Business, Taxes
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... the fund has swollen to over $50 million ....
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| Sunday, June 22, 2025 |
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Dam Special Fund
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 3000 Views :: Ethics, Agriculture, Land Use
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... Our state budget already is in chaos, and adding more workarounds and sleight of hand will not make things better! ....
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| Sunday, June 15, 2025 |
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Intent to Veto
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 1746 Views :: Taxes
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... two tax bills are on the list ....
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| Sunday, June 8, 2025 |
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The Unseen Stopper Committees
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2436 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government
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... money chairs’ macabre tradition ....
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| Sunday, June 1, 2025 |
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Tax Liens: Light at the End?
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2199 Views :: Hawaii History, Taxes
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... Before 2009, Hawaii had no statute of limitations on the collection of taxes ....
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| Sunday, May 25, 2025 |
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2025 Legislative Special Funds -- 0 for 86
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2463 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government
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... out of the eighty-six special and revolving funds reviewed, not one of them met the statutory criteria ....
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| Sunday, May 18, 2025 |
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2025 Legislative Also-Rans
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2061 Views :: Hawaii State Government
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... a few bills that passed both houses of the legislature, but did not make it through conference, may come back to haunt us next year ....
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| Monday, May 12, 2025 |
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2025 Legislative Wrap-Up
By Tom Yamachika @ 3:05 AM :: 2391 Views :: Hawaii State Government, Taxes
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... there were a few tax increases and a bill that is kind of a tax cut ....
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| Sunday, May 4, 2025 |
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The Major Raid that Wasn’t
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2307 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government
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... Senate Draft 2 of the bill proposed to raid ninety-seven special funds for $320M ....
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