Small Business News
April 2005 | Online Edition
Rail Tax Opposed by Business
The final major battle at the State Capitol involves the never-ending attempt to force a 25% increase in your General Excise Tax (GET) to fund rail transit. There still is no rail plan, schedule, route or budget but the taxers use this as an excuse to extract more of your money. It is not about transit; it is about taxes.
A joint hearing of the Senate Transportation and Intergovernmental Affairs Committees March 21 saw the usual parade of rail transit supporters confess a GET tax increase is needed first. Leading the charge were Congressman Neil, “The Flat Earth Society maybe is against it, but everybody else that’s got any brains is for it,” Abercrombie, City DTS acting head Ed Hirata,and City Councilman Nestor Garcia. Testifiers in support of business included NFIB, RMH, SBH members Cliff Slater, Dale and Darci Evans, and Tim Lyons of the Hawaii Business League. Despite 3 hours of testimony, the rail tax increase passed both committees (Senators Slom and Whalen voted “no”) and heads for a floor vote.
AG Responds to SBH Editorial
By Mark Bennett, Attorney General, State of Hawaii
In your March 2005 issue, you note that “the Lingle Administration is fighting for a Cayetano Administration bill before the U.S. Supreme Court,” regulating the rate of rent oil companies can charge their station tenants in Hawaii. The bill was found unconstitutional by the federal courts, and the Lingle Administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. You also note: “We had hoped [the Administration] would have fought half as hard against the gas cap regulation bill which becomes fully operative this September.”
First, Governor Lingle opposes gas caps, and supports their total repeal. That has been her consistent position since day one, but she has fought an uphill battle against the Legislature.
Second, we appealed to the Supreme Court, because the federal courts said, in an extraordinary burst of judicial activism, that they, not elected representatives of the people, get to decide whether legislation is constitutional, by having fact trials on whether or not the legislation will work.
While the trial in this case was on a law Governor Lingle opposes, tomorrow it could be on bills she believes make great sense.
We appealed on principle—the principle that in a democracy, economic policy, good, bad, or indifferent, must be made by the elected representatives of the people, and not by unelected judges.
If the people don’t like the job their elected representatives are doing, they can (and should) vote them out of office—we believe that is how democracy ought to work. Ceding the power to make economic policy to judges was in vogue 100 years ago, and was eventually rejected by the courts, before resurfacing again now. It made no sense 100 years ago, and makes no sense now. And that is why we took this case all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
State Tax Tips
by Kurt Kawafuchi, State Director of Taxation
Hundreds of tax payments come into the Department of Taxation daily without a payment voucher. This creates problems – for the Department and for you. Very early in the processing cycle for returns, the returns are separated from the accompanying checks and payment vouchers. The payment and voucher are sent through a separate process from the returns and are scanned by our automated remittance processing system.
The payment voucher identifies the taxpayer, the tax type, the tax period, and the amount of tax being paid. Without an accompanying payment voucher, the time frame for processing a payment is significantly prolonged. The Department must research and attempt to identify which taxpayer, tax account and period the payment is to be applied to. Then a voucher is manually created so that the payment can be processed and posted, hopefully, to the correct taxpayer, tax type and account. If a return and payment come in without a payment voucher, it is very likely that the return will post to your account creating a tax due amount before your payment can be credited to against that liability. You will then receive a bill for the tax due, even if you sent in a check (but not a payment voucher!) with the return.
The Department receives many telephone calls from very unhappy taxpayers who receive a tax bill because they did not include the appropriate payment voucher with their tax payment.
We ask for your help by including the appropriate payment vouchers for your returns with payments. Also, please use your new Tax I.D. number. Doing these things will help the returns and payments process smoothly through our system, ensure the payment is applied to the proper account, eliminate the necessity of sending you a bill for taxes due, and reduce the cost of government.
If you don’t know your new Hawaii Tax I.D. number, you may find it using our Internet Tax License Search program by going to our home page at www.state.hi.us/tax and choosing “Search the Tax Licenses” on the right side of the screen under the heading “On-line Services”.
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