Bill Text: HI HCR206 | 2015 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Taxation; Tax expenditure; Report
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 8-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2015-03-16 - Referred to FIN, referral sheet 33 [HCR206 Detail]
Download: Hawaii-2015-HCR206-Introduced.html
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES |
H.C.R. NO. |
206 |
TWENTY-EIGHTH LEGISLATURE, 2015 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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HOUSE CONCURRENT
RESOLUTION
Requesting the department of taxation to annually publish a tax expenditure report.
WHEREAS, states spend tens, maybe hundreds, of billions of dollars through tax expenditures each year; and
WHEREAS, tax expenditures are tax credits, deductions, and exemptions that reduce state revenue and include poverty-reducing tax credits, middle class benefits, and corporate subsidies; and
WHEREAS, tax expenditures cost state treasuries money in much the same way as direct spending for schools, health care, or road construction; and
WHEREAS, like direct spending, tax expenditures are a tool states can use to accomplish policy goals; and
WHEREAS, a key difference between direct spending and tax expenditures is that states typically require extensive documentation of how much direct spending they do each year and by contrast, tax expenditures usually receive far less scrutiny; and
WHEREAS, policy makers do not regularly examine tax expenditures, nor do states document their effectiveness the same way they do for on-budget expenditures; and
WHEREAS, most tax expenditures are written into
the tax code and thus will continue indefinitely, regardless of how costly they
may become over time, unless the Legislature acts to discontinue them; and
WHEREAS, without information on a particular tax expenditure's costs and
benefits, Hawaii's lawmakers cannot make an informed decision on whether its
continuation is in the State's interest; now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-eighth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2015, the Senate concurring, that the State Department of Taxation is requested to annually publish a tax expenditure report; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the tax expenditure report include the following:
(1) A description of the tax expenditure;
(2) The relevant legal citation and year of enactment;
(3) The purpose of the tax expenditure;
(4) The cost of the tax expenditure, using current data;
(5) The cost of the tax expenditure in future years, to allow comparison with other proposed expenditures;
(6) Details on the taxpayers who benefit from the tax expenditure;
(7) The extent to which the purpose of the tax expenditure has been accomplished;
(8) The distribution of benefits of the tax expenditure by income level and size of business;
(9) The impact of tax expenditures that can be deferred or transferred; and
(10) Separate reporting for state and local revenue losses, where applicable; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the State Department of Taxation may consider modeling Oregon, Minnesota, the District of Columbia, and other jurisdictions that publish relatively comprehensive and informative tax expenditure reports; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Taxation is requested to annually publish its tax expenditure report no later than twenty days prior to the convening of each regular session; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Director of Taxation.
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OFFERED BY: |
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Taxation; Tax expenditure; Report