WMTA Shares these commentaries, without taking a position unless otherwise noted, to bring information to our readers
To view the archives of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii's commentary click here. Weekly Commentary For the Week of February 11, 2018 The Value Of A Refundable Credit By Tom Yamachika, President In the 2017 legislative session, our legislature passed an earned income tax credit (EITC), which its supporters maintain is the best solution to lift families out of poverty since sliced bread. At the Department of Taxation‘s urging, however, the EITC was made nonrefundable. Advocates clearly didn’t like that, and are already imploring the 2018 legislature to make the credit refundable. Well, what’s the difference? Let’s start with a nonrefundable credit, which is current law. Suppose you either have lots of credits or not very much income, so you have more credits than tax liability. If you have made tax payments throughout the year, through wage withholding perhaps, you still can get all your payments back. But once the tax liability hits zero, there’s no more. The state does not cut you a check, but you get a credit carryover which can be used against next year's tax liability. In contrast, a refundable credit is just as good as cash. Not only can this type of credit reduce the amount of tax owed, but if the tax liability is less than the credit the State will cut the taxpayer a check for the difference. Why is the State concerned about issuing refundable credits? There are several reasons. First, issuing a refund is administratively expensive. In most businesses, the internal process necessary to send money to someone goes through several checks and balances to make sure that no mistakes are made. In our state government, we need to do those processes twice. At the Department of Taxation, staff can ask for a refund to be issued but no one can issue a check. Instead, a document called a "refund voucher" is sent to a different department altogether, the Department of Accounting and General Services (DAGS). Once DAGS gets the refund voucher, it goes through its own processes, checking to see if the recipient doesn't owe another agency for example, and then issues the check. Second, a refund can become a target for bad actors. We earlier pointed to reports from the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration estimating that more than 20% of all federal EITC payouts were improper. Other studies estimated that about half of these so-called improper payments were paid out because someone made a mistake. Perhaps the taxpayer was confused by the tax form, which is admittedly complex. The other half were paid out because of bad actors. Maybe a taxpayer claimed credits for kids they don't have. Maybe an unethical tax preparation service filled in data claiming credits for people who exist but aren't part of the taxpayer's family. Once the cash goes out, however, it's tough to get back. In Hawaii, our credit is 20% of the federal credit so a smaller check would go out, and because the number is smaller the Department of Taxation might not be motivated to chase down the improper payments given the number and severity of other items on their plate. Indeed, the Department recently estimated that changing the Hawaii EITC to a refundable one would cost the State $32 million more than a nonrefundable credit. It’s not clear how they came up with that number. But that amount of money definitely could cool a few sweltering classrooms, or perhaps fix a few plumbing facilities at the airport. In this situation, what are our priorities? Where is the need greatest? Or will our lawmakers simply punt on the question and soak the taxpayers even more to make up the difference? WMTA Shares these commentaries, without taking a position unless otherwise noted, to bring information to our readers
To view the archives of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii's commentary click here. Weekly Commentary For the Week of February 4, 2018 How Much Does A Crosswalk Cost? By Tom Yamachika, President Most of us are very familiar with crosswalks and traffic signals. We pass a few of them every day. We might get stopped by a red light from one of them. But have we ever stopped to think how much one of these things cost? One of the bills introduced in the recent legislative session, Senate Bill 2004, tells the story of just one signalized crosswalk yet to be built. (House Bill 2063 is identical.) The crosswalk is to be located at the intersection of Vineyard Boulevard and River Street in Honolulu, at the edge of Chinatown. It’s kind of a busy area for cars and people, with Vineyard Boulevard being six lanes of traffic all going Ewa (West, for you non-locals). Apparently, our lawmakers agreed some time ago that a crosswalk with traffic signals is needed there. Funds were appropriated for the project back in the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2014. At the time, $750,000 was set aside for both design and construction. Although the 2014 budget act was signed into law on June 26, 2014, the text of Senate Bill 2004 recites that the funds were released in April 2015, ten months later. That date is significant because the State’s fiscal biennium ended at the end of June 2015, at which point the funds appropriated in the 2014 bill were to lapse. The Department of Transportation was able to get a contract signed to design the intersection, but not to construct it. The design work seems to have cost about $230,000. Because the crosswalk was still needed and wasn’t built yet, lawmakers took up the cause again in the 2016 legislative session and were able to get it included in the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2016. This time, the appropriation was for $523,000, which probably was what remained of the originally appropriated $750,000 after the design costs were taken out. But alas, delays plagued the project once again. Our Department of Transportation posted a notice on October 10, 2017, requesting bids by November 9. The work included “installation of traffic signals, underground ducts, traffic/pedestrian signal poles, foundations, controller hardware, curb ramps, BMP, pavement markers, lane extension, electrical installation and connection, and removal of chain link fences.” (Sounds pretty involved – but would it be different installing any other traffic signal?) On November 9, 2017, the bids were opened. Two bids were received, the lower of which was for $816,000. That’s in addition to the design work that already had been done, putting the total project cost north of $1 million. Because this new project cost is somewhat larger than the $750,000 originally appropriated for the project, Senate Bill 2004 asks for an additional $352,800 on top of the funds in the 2016 appropriation. The bill says that “construction costs have increased over the intervening years.” (That’s an increase of over 13% per year. I must be in the wrong business.) The median price of a single-family home, which includes design, construction, electrical work, plumbing, and the dirt on which all of it sits, was $760,000 in 2017 according to Honolulu real estate firm Locations. That amount of money doesn’t seem to be enough to pay for one crosswalk with a traffic signal. And a single-family home can be built much more quickly. Is this the new normal? Is this a signal for the need to raise taxes again? Please tell me that it’s not! WMTA Shares these commentaries, without taking a position unless otherwise noted, to bring information to our readers
To view the archives of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii's commentary click here. Weekly Commentary For the Week of January 28, 2018 Oops! Math Error! By Tom Yamachika, President The National Taxpayer Advocate recently produced a “Purple Book” containing her top 50 recommendations for the IRS. One of them concerned “math error authority,” which brought to mind one of the failings in Hawaii’s tax system. On the federal side, disputes between the IRS and taxpayers play out through a lengthy process. The IRS proposes an assessment, the taxpayer responds to it, the IRS finalizes the assessment, and the taxpayer gets to challenge it in court. The IRS, however, does get a short-cut through the process if it is only correcting a math or clerical error that the taxpayer has made. The taxpayer is given one notice instead of the two notices given for a regular assessment, and if the taxpayer doesn’t respond there is no court review. This abbreviated method may be fine for genuine math errors, which are apt to occur in any complicated tax form that isn’t computer generated (and perhaps even some that are). If the taxpayer has admitted to the existence and amount of all income items but just added them up wrongly, for example, the taxpayer can’t have much of a defense. But the relative speed and convenience of math error procedures motivates the agency to use them even for issues that aren’t math errors. “In her reports to Congress,” the National Taxpayer Advocate says, “she has documented circumstances in which the IRS has used math error authority to address discrepancies and mismatches that go beyond simple arithmetic mistakes and have undermined taxpayer rights” – in no fewer than eight annual reports since 2001. Here in Hawaii, our statutes don’t even give our Department of Taxation math error authority. If the Department has a beef with a taxpayer, it is supposed to send out a proposed notice of assessment and a final notice of assessment, and give the taxpayer 30 days to respond each time. But the Department has come up with a document called a “line item adjustment letter,” where it not only corrects math errors but also disallows credit claims, among other things. “Please call or send correspondence to the Oahu District Office if you have any questions regarding this notice,” it says. “You may file an amended return with supporting documents or contact the Oahu District Office for the appropriate action to take if you do not agree with the adjustment(s).” So here are my questions: First, how is the Department able to use this letter to get around the statutory assessment procedures when it doesn’t even have math error authority? The IRS has math error authority to fix 17 kinds of errors, all of which are spelled out in statute; IRS has been begging Congress to give it open-ended authority to add other errors by regulation, but Congress hasn’t bought into that idea to date – and for good reason, given the Taxpayer Advocate’s repeated complaints. Here in Hawaii, simplified procedures may be appropriate for genuine math errors or other issues that are not reasonably subject to dispute, but isn’t that a decision for the Legislature to make as opposed to letting the Department go rogue? Second, are there any standards for when it is appropriate to use this type of letter to summarily adjust a taxpayer’s account as opposed to going through the assessment and appeal procedures? Or is one of these letters just sent out when someone in the Department feels like it? Third, isn’t the letter at least supposed to give an opportunity for the taxpayer to respond before the Department rushes to final judgment and says, “We’re done, and if you don’t like it file an amended return”? The words “Due Process” come to mind, as in due process required by both the federal and Hawaii constitutions. As of this writing, the Department is still working on its new income tax system. Let’s hope the Department and the Legislature come up with a way to clean up this issue in a way that can accommodate situations in which math error authority is appropriate, while preserving taxpayer rights and protections. |
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