Wednesday, March 4, 2026
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Entries for 'Tom Yamachika'

Sunday, March 1, 2026
The Cruise Fee Quandary
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 741 Views :: Jones Act, Taxes, Tourism

... 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
UH sitting on $429M Hoard
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1285 Views :: Higher Education, Taxes

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

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Sunday, February 15, 2026
Tax Cuts: Pause versus Stop
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 712 Views :: Taxes

... 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 8, 2026
$100M -- Idle Land and Natural Resource Funds
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 963 Views :: Hawaii State Government, Taxes

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

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Sunday, February 1, 2026
Tax Versus Judiciary
By Tom Yamachika @ 12:01 AM :: 461 Views :: Judiciary, Taxes

...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
New Year, New Variance
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 665 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government, Taxes

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

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Sunday, January 18, 2026
Idle Agriculture Funds
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 922 Views :: Agriculture, Hawaii State Government, Taxes

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

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Sunday, January 11, 2026
Idle DOE Funds
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1622 Views :: Education K-12

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

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Sunday, January 4, 2026
Tax Word Find
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 861 Views :: Taxes

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

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Sunday, December 28, 2025
Charitable Giving This Year?
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 923 Views :: Taxes

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

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Sunday, December 21, 2025
Gaming This Year?
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 936 Views :: Gambling, Taxes

... 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
More Grief Over SNAP
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1041 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government, Cost of Living

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

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Sunday, December 7, 2025
Making a Federal Case Out of the Green Fee
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1040 Views :: Jones Act, Judiciary, Taxes, Tourism

... 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
SNAP Confusion…On Us
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1149 Views :: National News, Hawaii State Government

... 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
Pitfalls in Tax Appeals
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 929 Views :: Taxes

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

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Sunday, November 16, 2025
Student Loan Forgiveness for a 'substantially illegal purpose'?
By Tom Yamachika @ 5:00 AM :: 1227 Views :: Higher Education, Cost of Living

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

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Sunday, November 9, 2025
Eligible Charges
By Tom Yamachika @ 2:48 PM :: 1389 Views :: Health Care, Taxes

... 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
TATmas Tree
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 1380 Views :: DHHL, Taxes, Tourism

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

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Sunday, October 26, 2025
Spend That Money, Vought Is Watching
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 1937 Views :: DHHL

... 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
Even More TANF Hoarding
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 1530 Views :: Family, Hawaii State Government

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

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Sunday, October 12, 2025
DoTax Employees Rebelling Against the Culture of Silence
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2563 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government, Taxes

... 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
Nonresident Withholding, Six Years Later
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2078 Views :: Taxes

... 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
The Deduction for State and Local Tax
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 1709 Views :: Taxes

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

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Sunday, September 21, 2025
Your Money Stays in Vegas — Then the IRS Wants Some
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2780 Views :: Gambling, Taxes

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

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Sunday, September 14, 2025
Charitable Giving Under 'Big Beautiful Bill'
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 4231 Views :: Taxes

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

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Sunday, September 7, 2025
DoTax Suddenly Begins Collecting GE Tax on Tips
By Tom Yamachika @ 2:42 PM :: 6380 Views :: Small Business, Taxes, Tourism

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

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Sunday, August 31, 2025
No Tax on Tips
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 5777 Views :: Labor, Taxes, Tourism

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
Classroom Heat
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 5972 Views :: Education K-12, Energy, Ethics

... 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
No Tax on Overtime
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 5220 Views :: Labor, Small Business, Taxes

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

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Sunday, August 10, 2025
Encumbrance for the Stadium
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 4773 Views :: Ethics, Development, Hawaii State Government, Higher Education, Tourism

... 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
Constitutional Expenditure Controls
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2922 Views :: Hawaii History, Hawaii State Government

... 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
Pay for No Work
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 4931 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government, Hawaii Statistics, Labor

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

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Sunday, July 20, 2025
Nonprofit Blankety Blank
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2986 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government

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

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Sunday, July 13, 2025
SNAP Cliffs Are Coming
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 3378 Views :: Family, Hawaii State Government, Cost of Living, COVID-19

... 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
Building New Schools
By Tom Yamachika @ 2:27 PM :: 2720 Views :: Education K-12, Development, Taxes

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

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Monday, June 30, 2025
Lawsuit Challenges “Dam Special Fund” Used to Undermine Constitutional Expenditure Controls
By Tom Yamachika @ 3:57 PM :: 2758 Views :: Ethics, Agriculture, Hawaii State Government

... 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
Twenty Years of Nickels
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 3459 Views :: Environment, Small Business, Taxes

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

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Sunday, June 22, 2025
Dam Special Fund
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2869 Views :: Ethics, Agriculture, Land Use

... 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
Intent to Veto
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 1688 Views :: Taxes

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

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Sunday, June 8, 2025
The Unseen Stopper Committees
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2351 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government

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

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Sunday, June 1, 2025
Tax Liens: Light at the End?
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2120 Views :: Hawaii History, Taxes

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

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Sunday, May 25, 2025
2025 Legislative Special Funds -- 0 for 86
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2345 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government

... 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
2025 Legislative Also-Rans
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 1989 Views :: Hawaii State Government

... 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
2025 Legislative Wrap-Up
By Tom Yamachika @ 3:05 AM :: 2306 Views :: Hawaii State Government, Taxes

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

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Sunday, May 4, 2025
The Major Raid that Wasn’t
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2204 Views :: Ethics, Hawaii State Government

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

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Sunday, April 27, 2025
HB1175: Small Victory Over Procedural Trap
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 1857 Views :: Taxes

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025
HB1369: Category Killer
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2482 Views :: Small Business, Taxes

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

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Sunday, April 13, 2025
Supporting Government’s Central Services—the Grand Skim of Things
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2053 Views :: Hawaii State Government

... “The Grand Skim of Things” ....

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Sunday, April 6, 2025
Taxing Capital Gains
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2354 Views :: Taxes

... If Auntie’s kids sell her house for a $500,000 gain to provide money for her to go to a nursing home, for example, the tax will fall on her the same as anyone who earns $500,000 in one year ....

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Sunday, March 30, 2025
You Want to Raise the TAT by HOW Much?
By Tom Yamachika @ 6:00 AM :: 2609 Views :: Taxes, Tourism

... the bills replace the current 10.25% tax rate with a blank ....

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