Taxes
Taxes aren't rocket science. The state needs taxes in order to raise revenue. That revenue is then used to provide services to the people in the form buses, infrastructure, water, street lights, etc. Taxes also pay state employees. From elected officials to the Police that patrol our streets.
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The problems begin when those that have less are asked to pay more and those that have more pay a lot less.
The problems continue when your tax dollars are misspent.
And what is worse is that there is little to no motivation to improve our tax system or to reform it so that it is more efficient, less wasteful, fair, but most importantly, that it is used to also empower the populace. How exactly? Read on to find out.
Some sense and some out of the box thinking.
Short and Sweet.
There is very little political will in Hawai'i to do something about the tax rates in various areas. Why? Easy, political disagreements, ideological disagreements, corruption and pressure from corporations and the rich. Their philosophy for the most part has always been to socialize the costs to those below them and to privatize the gains all for themselves. Whenever that model is challenged, they rise against it. It is time we change that.
My views on what we need to do as a state are simple:
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Increase the taxes on the rich and wealthy.
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Simplify the state tax system so that it is easier to navigate and understand for everyone.
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Cut out needless administrative time and costs as well as doing away with any and all loopholes.
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Create a state system so that state residents may file taxes free of cost. This will help in reducing the number of people that have to pay for services online or in person.
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Relieve the tax burden on the poor and low income.
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Change how we tax homes, home rentals, foreign own housing, non resident owned housing, Airbnb style rentals, and a whole lot more.
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The end goal is to refine that tax system so that it is simple, uncomplicated, and increases taxes on the rich, raises revenue for the state more efficiently, and relieves the tax burden on the poor and low income.
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We would also like to introduce a new idea to Hawai'i: choosing what your tax money goes to. We want to try a pilot program whereby once residents file their taxes, they can choose to allocate what state programs they want to fund in contrast to others. The first couple of years of the program would be for data gathering purposes and then a full program would be tested following the trial. But this is just one idea out of many that could work or should be tried here in Hawai'i if we are to truly change things for the better.
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Think about how empowering that would be and how that would affect how a state operates. Only by trying new ideas, evaluating the results and trying again, will we ever break out of the status quo when it comes to your tax dollars and what is done with them.