Entries for 'Tom Yamachika'

... What will likely follow will be a bit of negotiating, most of which will occur behind closed doors ....

... is it really a loophole? ....

... there are bills that would undo the TAT extension to cruise lines and, instead, impose a per-passenger charge on cruise ship docking ....

... The University of Hawaii has a $429M special fund for tuition and fees ....

... 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....

... $30M here, $40M there ....

...There are two Hawaii Supreme Court cases pending that involve fights over the extent to which courts can get involved in taxation at all....

... A mortality rate of 620 per thousand is something you might get with an atomic bomb ....

... millions of dollars lying around ....

... Can we put $80 million to good use instead of just allowing it to sit idle? ....

... a Word Find puzzle with 26 key words and phrases ....

... there is an additional complication called the Pease limit ....

... According to the Census Bureau, state tax revenue from sports betting nearly quadrupled in the last four years ....

... information to purge allegedly fraudulent recipients ....

... the cruise lines alleged that the tax appeal system we have here is anything but plain, speedy, and efficient ....

... the new guidance says that immigrants in certain categories, namely Refugees, Individuals Granted Asylum, Parolees, and Deportation Withheld are “Not Eligible” for SNAP ....

... People sometimes get into a disagreement with the Department of Taxation ....

... better watch out because there are changes coming ....

... some health insurance programs don’t cover general excise tax that we in Hawaii impose on health care charges ....

... Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is proposing Legislators again hike the Transient Accommodations Tax ....

... DHHL's carryover balances, and these high annual re-appropriations that they have, kind of made it low-hanging fruit for the Trump Administration .... 

... federal TANF money that we haven’t spent: $452 million ....

... with a very public step being taken, it will be impossible to simply sweep the matter under the rug ....

... 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 ....

... the push and pull that the federal tax system inflicts on state and local tax systems ....

... Trump tax act: new rules on gambling losses ....

"...a significant boost to the standard deduction...."

... This seems to me to be a departure from past practice ....

An individual who receives tips can exclude up to $25,000 of those tips from his or her gross income....

... ten years ago Governor Ige kicked off an effort to get air conditioners into public school classrooms ....

... this is critical information for employers too ....

... Act 88 of 2021, which Act 248 amended, stated that the appropriations in the biennium budget would lapse on June 30, 2024 ....

... over the last fifty years, our lawmakers have tended to regard those provisions as bothersome annoyances, to be worked around or avoided ...

... $6.3M salary for 'administrative leave' ....

... $50 million in the hands of a four-person committee ....

... the USDA whacked our state with an $11 million fine for its huge error rate two years in a row ....

... the fees have been collected but have not been used, and for a very long time ....

... 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 ....

... the fund has swollen to over $50 million ....

... Our state budget already is in chaos, and adding more workarounds and sleight of hand will not make things better! ....

... two tax bills are on the list ....

... money chairs’ macabre tradition ....

... Before 2009, Hawaii had no statute of limitations on the collection of taxes ....

... out of the eighty-six special and revolving funds reviewed, not one of them met the statutory criteria ....

... 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 .... 

... there were a few tax increases and a bill that is kind of a tax cut ....

... Senate Draft 2 of the bill proposed to raid ninety-seven special funds for $320M  ....

... It’s a genuine procedural trap ....

"...all of the negotiations and conversations take place behind closed doors...."

... “The Grand Skim of Things” ....