“Governor Ige has emergency powers,” one alert reader said. “Can he raise our taxes by himself?” The answer appears to be “no, but.” The Governor’s emergency powers relating to enforcement of existing laws are in Hawaii Revised Statutes chapter 127A. … Read More
By now everyone knows that we’re in a state of emergency. There’s a virus spreading through the population and killing people. There’s no vaccine, and no confirmed effective therapy such as drugs, so if you get sick from it there’s … Read More
On March 5, our Governor issued a Proclamation declaring our current state of emergency. The proclamation suspends several laws, including chapters 89 and 89C, HRS, relating to collective bargaining and public officers and employees excluded from collective bargaining, to the … Read More
Recently, the online site WalletHub published a 50-state study called “2020’s States with the Best & Worst Taxpayer ROI.” ROI, of course, is the acronym for “Return on Investment.” The site derived its ranking by comparing two variables: total taxes … Read More
We are in trying times now, folks. Much of the state is closed. The Capitol and many government offices, including the Department of Taxation, are locked down. People are working remotely when they can, and we are too. In the … Read More
It seems like every year we have a legislature, we have dozens of legislative tax proposals to wade through. Some would lessen the burden on the beleaguered consumer, but most would do the reverse. Most of the tax bills, as … Read More
Senate Bill 2696, which the Senate has just given to the House for consideration, is a bill “Relating to Green Fees.” These green fees have nothing to do with playing golf, however; they are per visitor, per stay charges the … Read More
Some of the bills making their way through our Legislature are sponsored by executive departments. One such department, the Department of Taxation, is behind a few of them. One of them worth mentioning, introduced as SB 2922 and HB 2366, … Read More
In the past few legislative sessions, there always had been one or two proposals to raise taxes in a big way. Some of them got pretty far along the road to becoming law, and some of them actually became law. … Read More
We have occasionally written about a “carbon tax,” something environmentalists appear to be supporting enthusiastically. The basic idea behind one is that a tax is placed upon the purchase of all fuels that result in carbon emissions when the fuel … Read More