Donating cars If you donate a car to charity for the tax break, you’ll be getting a lot less for it next year. Effective Jan. 1, people who donate their cars to charities no longer will be able to determine
Donating cars
If you donate a car to charity for the tax break, you’ll be getting a lot less for it next year. Effective Jan. 1, people who donate their cars to charities no longer will be able to determine the car’s market value to be deducted from their taxes. Rather, they can deduct only the amount for which the car was resold. In the past, tax breaks were quantified by the Kelley Blue Book value. Now, if the seller gets $300, the tax write off is $300.
Some charities expect to cut their budgets by as much as 60 percent as people stop donating their clunkers. It could reduce services such as homeless shelters, soup kitchens, low-income housing and drug treatment centers.
Sam’s Club cuts jobs
Three weeks after their “grand opening,” the new Keeaumoku Street Sam’s Club in Honolulu is cutting 90 jobs as of Thursday, Nov. 18. Sam’s Club spokesperson Jolanda Stewart said the cuts are “adjustments” resulting from unanticipated business developments. But Patrick Loo of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union told KHON-TV that the company routinely hires extra staff for grand openings, then culls staff two to four weeks later. The Sam’s Club opened Oct. 25, a week after the Wal-Mart opened on the floor below. The two Keeaumoku stores employ 1,200 people in Hawaii.
Tori Richard founder dies
Mort Feldman, the founder of resort wear and fashion apparel company Tori Richard Ltd., died Monday at his home in Honolulu. He was 83 and had cancer. His son, Josh, is president and CEO of the company. They now have offices throughout the country, including Dallas, Chicago and New York. The company is still based in Honolulu and employs about 150 people. Its newest flagship store is expected to open today at Ala Moana Center. Feldman was a Boston native and Air Force veteran who arrived in Hawai‘i in 1953 and founded Tori Richard Ltd. with wife Janice Moody. The company was named after their daughter, Victoria, and his son, Richard.
Damon trust
About 20 beneficiaries will inherit millions of dollars from the Damon trust since Joan Damon Haig, the last grandchild, died Wednesday at her home in New Jersey at 84. The estate of Samuel Mills Damon will be dissolved, as Damon wanted. Once Hawai‘i’s fourth-largest private landowner, the Damon Estate last year sold most of its commercial land holdings on Oahu, including more than 100,000 acres of land on the Big Island – the Kahuku Ranch – to the National Park Service to expand Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. An appeal is pending in state Supreme Court over the division of the assets.
Kauaian on Employers Council
The Hawaii Employers Council has elected Thomas G. Rietow of Hale Kaua‘i, Ltd. to its board of governors. Also newly elected to three-year terms beginning at the end of the year are Patrick D. Ching of Servco Pacific Inc., Robert L. Dove of Hawai‘i Employer’s Mutual Insurance Company, Inc., Ryozo Sakai of Sony Hawai‘i Company, Patricia C.I. Tam of Halekulani Corp. and Jim R. Yates of The Gas Company, LLC.
Dorothy Pung of HFS Federal Credit Union, Kyoko Kimura of Diamond Resort Hawai‘i, Clinton Arnoldus of Central Pacific Financial Corp. and Edward S. Van Lier Ribbink of the Hawai‘i Medical Service Association were re-elected.
At its 61st annual meeting, HEC members filled three mid-term board vacancies by electing Susan Doyle of Aloha United Way, George Otsuka of Fuji Photo Film Hawai‘i and Ruthann Yamanaka of Alexander & Baldwin. The new board will meet in January at the HEC offices in Honolulu. Founded in 1943, HEC provides more than 700 member companies with professional services to foster positive employer-employee relations.
Tech company’s new VP
Wireless Facilities, Inc., the company that provides design, deployment, and management of wireless communication networks and security systems for the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kaua‘i, has hired James T. “Jim” Savage as senior vice president of corporate development in the technical resources sector of the company’s Government Services division. He will be responsible for leveraging the company’s experience in RF engineering and wireless network design, deployment and management into the growing areas of telecommunications, information technology and homeland security applications. He will be based out of WFI’s Honolulu office. He has worked with the U.S. Department of Defense, NAVSEA’s Surface Combatant Vertical Launching System, a one billion dollar program, and was senior vice president for CACI Technologies, Inc.
Cable outage
Oceanic Time Warner Cable officials said that last Monday’s four-hour cable outage on Kaua‘i was caused by vandalism to a cable vault on O‘ahu.
The outage occurred between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. and resulted in a loss of cable and digital services. “Unfortunately, this was an act of malicious intent that caused damage to our fiber cables, which was out of our control,” said company spokesperson Norman Santos.
“A police report has been filed and the company has also launched an official investigation.”
Po‘ipu Town Center
The Honu Group Inc., will break ground break in spring 2005 on the shopping center project called the Po‘ipu Town Center. It will offer about 75,000 square feet of leasable space on five acres and is targeted to open in late 2006. No tenants have been finalized, but Honu expects a marketplace, deli, doctor’s office, community services and two fine-dining restaurants. Retail stores will focus on lifestyle apparel and outdoor sports. The shopping center comes just as work on A&B Properties’ Kukuiula master-planned resort community on 1,000 acres near Po‘ipu kicks into gear. Designed by Eight Inc., the Po‘ipu Town Center features a cluster of onestory buildings with pitch roofs, covered walkways and a 450 space parking lot.
Hi-tech tax credits
Director of the state Department of Taxation, Kurt Kawafuchi, said that the state will be flexible when it comes to applications for Act 221 tax breaks. Last year Kawafuchi was point man in a public campaign against abuse of Act 221 tax credits. He once asserted that up to 20 percent of credits might be fraudulent. The purpose of the credits is to encourage high-tech start-ups, but breaks were claimed by nontech companies installing new computer systems and by Hollywood companies who used new digital technology, but weren’t creating permanent jobs in Hawai‘i. The high-tech community said Act 221 was still helping to generate hundreds of goodpaying technology jobs in the state. But the Lingle Administration won a revision in the law to remove a requirement that it be interpreted liberally.
Superferry
The Public Utilities Commission began holding public hearings on Hawai‘i Superferry’s plan to link the islands with daily ferry service and more public hearings are schedule to be held next Tuesday in Lihu‘e. Commission members are reviewing the company’s plans and looking for public input on whether to give the project the green light. So far, most testimony has been favorable. The Superferry plans to run two ferries, each carrying 866 passengers and 282 cars, daily between Honolulu and Maui, Kaua‘i and the Big Island — for about half of what current air fares cost. The ferry will directly create more than 300 jobs, and more will be created through companies that benefit from the ferry, said John Garibaldi, chief executive of Hawai‘i Superferry. Hawai‘i Superferry is asking the commission to approve one-way fares from O‘ahu to Kaua‘i and Maui that range from $50 to $60; with fares for a passenger car ranging from $55 to 65. Fares between Honolulu and the Big Island would be about 10 percent higher. The ferry’s launch will depend on securing adequate financing. The company completed its initial fund raising of $3.3 million earlier this year.
