No New Taxes!

Several bills are circulating in the Hawaii State Legislature that threaten to increase taxes. The liberal left Democrats as well as our own Republican Governor, Linda Lingle are proposing several pieces of legislation to bail the state out of its financial dire straits. Many of these are tax increase bills.

Hello tax increases? Hawaii citizens and business cannot afford to pay more taxes to the state during this downturn in the economy.

Tax increase bills that I am aware of include the following:

• HB 735 - Streamline Tax - This will tax all internet and mail order out of state purchases.
• SB 1678 - This is the Senate version of the internet and mail order tax proposal for out of state purchases. This bill already passed out of the Senate Economic Development and Technology Committee. Senators that want to take more of your money and who voted in favor of this tax bill include: Senator Carol Fukunaga, Roz Baker, David Ige. Voting against the bill Senator Sam Slom. Excused: Senator Hee. The bill was introduced by all 23 of the Democrat senators. Remember... all Democrats... and they all want to tax your internet purchases and take more of your money. The bill still has to go to the Senate's Ways & Means Committee. Given the overwhelming majority of the Democrats, it is likely this bill will pass unless it faces major opposition from the people, which at this point is unlikely.
• HB 1576 - Allows counties to impose half percent increase to GE tax on water to be used on water infrastructure.
• HB 1575 - "Authorizes a county to levy a one-half percent general excise tax to be used for county schools; establishes a County Education Surcharge Trust Fund; authorizes complex area superintendents to establish criteria for awarding schools funds from the fund." Seems like this tax proposal is to fund schools specific to each county.
  
• SB 1611 - This is a Democrat sponsored bill that proposes to raise the following highway use taxes:

  (1) Increase the state tax on liquid fuel by ten cents per gallon increase;

  (2) Increase the state vehicle registration fee by $20;

  (3) Increase the rental motor vehicle surcharge tax permanently to $5 per day; and

  (4) Increase the state vehicle weight tax.
  

  • The tax increases are supposed to fund highway improvements. These tax increases would not be needed if the State did not raid the present highway special fund that was reported to be around $700 million. The Governor has also proposed a similar bill. This bill was introduced by the following Democrat senators: ENGLISH, Baker, Bunda, Chun Oakland, Espero, Gabbard, Galuteria, Hanabusa, Kidani, Nishihara, Takamine, Tokuda, Tsutsui
  
  
• HB 1167 - The Governor's version of the same tax increases outlined above.
• SB 985 - The Senate version of HB 1167.
• HB 1527 - Increases the general excise tax on tobacco products other than cigarettes; designates a percentage of this increase to cervical and breast cancer screening and the Healthy Start program.
• SB 38 - Increases the tobacco tax on tobacco products other than cigarettes from 40% to 60% of the wholesale price and deposits 33.3% of the proceeds collected into the community health centers special fund.
• HB 895 - Similar to SB 38.
• SB 457 - Increases the state vehicle excise tax on passenger cars and pickup trucks weighing more than three thousand five hundred pounds net weight up to and including ten thousand pounds net weight.
• SB 719 - Another GE tax increase bill based on vehicle weight.
• SB 42 - Increases the liquor tax and directs the increased revenues to the health systems special fund.
• HB 1223 - Proposes an amendment to the State Constitution to authorize the legislature to increase the general excise tax by not more than one percentage point and dedicate the proceeds to funding a state long-term care program as prescribed by the legislature.
• SB 279 - Provides a vehicle to increase the TAT to pay for culturally-related programs. The Senate Tourism committee has deferred this bill.
• SB 1111 - Increases the rate of the transient accommodations tax beginning on July 1, 2009, and requires the additional revenues collected from the increase to be deposited into the general fund.
• HB 887 - Assesses a surcharge tax on the sale of consumer fireworks.

Hawaii taxpayers are overburdened with the high cost of living already imposed by taxes passed by both the state and counties in previous years. We are already paying 12.5% more in General Excise Taxes to fund Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann's "train to nowhere" project. Sewer and water bills are set to increase by the City & County of Honolulu later this year. Other taxes and fees have gone up over the years. We are worst off for paying taxes than we were when Linda Lingle first took office in December 2002.

Now is not the time to increase or impose new taxes.