Tax Justice Digest stories about Hawaii
Anyone compiling a list of similarities between Hawai'i and the Cayman islands can now add "aspiring tax haven" to "sparkling beaches" and "mild climate." Late last month, Hawai'i Governor Linda Lingle signed into law a measure that will cap the premiums tax paid by so-called captive insurance companies in the hope of luring more of those companies to the Aloha State. (A captive insurance company is a subsidiary of a larger company that insures that larger company's property or employee benefits.)
Using tax policy to try to influence business location decisions is questionable enough on its own, but it's especially troubling in this case, since captive insurers can enable major corporations to avoid millions of dollars in federal taxes annually.
As reported earlier this year, Wells Fargo, by establishing a captive insurer in Vermont, will receive "…tax breaks totaling at least hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 30 to 40 years…"; ADM, Heinz, Alcoa, and Sun Microsystems may already be following suit. So, policymakers in Hawai'i may think that they're bringing more jobs to their shores, but what they're really doing is using scarce tax dollars to make federal taxes scarcer still.
The Hawaii Legislature, in accordance with that state's Constitution, recently approved a measure to provide temporary but targeted tax rebates. The rebates are expected to range in value from $160 for married couples with adjusted gross incomes of less than $5,000 to $90 for couples with incomes between $50,000 and $60,000; couples with incomes above that range will not be eligible for the credit, while individuals would receive smaller rebates over the same income range.
The rebates are prompted by a constitutional requirement that tax refunds be distributed whenever the state's general fund experiences a budget surplus of 5 percent or more of state revenue in two consecutive years. The wisdom of reducing taxes, even temporarily, in response to such relatively small surpluses is certainly questionable, but the need to improve the fairness of Hawaii's tax system is not. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a family of four earning just enough to reach the federal poverty level paid $546 in Hawaiian income taxes in 2006, the second highest amount in the country. Consequently, offering targeted tax rebates - rather than flat amounts as had been past practice - is a welcome change, but is ultimately insufficient. As the Honolulu Star Bulletin observed, a better approach would be to institute a state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as numerous other states have done.
In a welcome trend, lawmakers and advocates in Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Hawaii, Utah, Ohio, and Iowa are considering enacting Earned Income Tax Credits — or expanding existing EITCs. The federal EITC has been hailed by policymakers of all stripes as an especially effective tool for lifting working families out of poverty. At the state level, the EITC offers the additional benefit of helping to offset the regressive sales and property taxes that hit low-income families hardest. To find out more about whether EITC legislation is active in your state, check out the Hatcher Group's State EITC Online Resource Center.
After abandoning earlier efforts to pass targeted income tax cuts for working families, Hawaii policymakers are poised to enact tax measures that largely benefit wealthy taxpayers. For more on how this plan would affect Hawaii's income tax threshold-- and more on the distribution of tax cuts under the new plan, click here. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin tells it like it is here.
