Following a major U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2018 (South Dakota v. Wayfair), many States, including ours, enacted “economic nexus” legislation, which means that we consider any business that transacts $100,000 or more in Hawaii sales or 200 or more … Read More
Happy New Year! It’s now 2020 and talk already has begun about raising our minimum wage. $10.10 an hour is not a living wage, some say, so we should be hoisting our minimum wage to say $15 or $17, which … Read More
It wasn’t long ago that, in response to numerous complaints of students sweltering in their classrooms, Governor Ige proclaimed that he would commit $100 million to cool 1,000 classrooms. At the end of the 2016 legislative session, he signed Act … Read More
A recent, eagerly awaited independent financial review of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) has been in the news lately. The review, conducted by the California-based accounting firm CliftonLarsenAllen (“CLA”), made several observations and recommendations, including the flagging of 32 … Read More
Recently, the website howmuch.net, a financial literacy website with interesting visualizations about various financial topics, came out with a comparison called, “This is How Long You Need to Work to Live Comfortably in Every State.” Those folks tried to calculate, … Read More
Piling on, for those of you who aren’t football fans, happens when a player or group of players jump on top of a runner who already has been tackled, just to make sure the runner is not going anywhere. The … Read More
Some folks ask me if I have any radical ideas to change the tax system in Hawaii. Here’s one: Stop taxing transportation of goods and people. Before you stop laughing uproariously, though, consider this. First, we can’t tax air transportation. … Read More
This week we focus on our safety net systems for people or families in need. In the early 1990s, a major part of this net came from the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which matched state … Read More
A recent op-ed column in Real Clear Politics by Scott Hodge, president of the national Tax Foundation (not related to the Tax Foundation of Hawaii although the names are similar) brought up some interesting ideas, spurred by the announced plans … Read More
Hawaii is an island state that is home to a unique set of flora and fauna. It’s vulnerable to invasive species not only from foreign countries but also from the mainland United States, and our Department of Agriculture has traditionally … Read More