• Tax increases • Property assessments • Judicial nominations • Vacation rentals • Property-tax system Tax increases Senator Hooser may blame The Garden Island for inaccuracies in reporting, but the fact remains that he is supporting tax increases. Whether the
• Tax increases
• Property assessments
• Judicial nominations
• Vacation rentals
• Property-tax system
Tax increases
Senator Hooser may blame The Garden Island for inaccuracies in reporting, but the fact remains that he is supporting tax increases. Whether the County of Kaua‘i implements the taxes or not, he still has given them an opportunity to raise our taxes.
He tries to deflect the issue of his approval of tax increases by saying that this is “enabling legislation,” and of course the counties don’t have to implement a .5 percent GET (general-excise tax) increase or a vehicle tax.
Why give the counties any leeway at all?
Do we trust our county government, a government which is spending our tax money to fight the Ohana Kauai tax proposal that over 13,000 voters approved of, to make that decision?
A tax increase is a tax increase, whether it is from “enabling legislation” or not.
Let your senator, representatives, County Council members and mayor know how you feel about this issue.
Property assessments
The real-property-tax department has found this year a new way to misuse the county real-property-tax laws.
Under the law, all taxable properties are to be assessed at 100 percent of their market value. This requirement has been disregarded for many years. Earlier this year, Michael Tresler, Kaua‘i County director of finance, publicly stated that county assessors “are still way behind in trying to bridge the gap between assessed value and market value of island properties,” and that “we are nowhere near close to being in the 90-percent range.”
The county laws also require that “methods of assessment” shall be “systematic,” “uniform” and “equalized.” The Kaua‘i tax authorities provide little or no information about their practices. Consequently, taxpayers are generally unaware our assessors have abandoned their traditional practice that assessments of improvements on residential properties be determined by replacement cost less depreciation, and instead arbitrarily imposed an approximately 25-percent increase across the board.
We can recognize the tax department’s desire to bring assessments closer to market value, but the way it was done is irresponsible.
Determining the value of improvements on real property using the method of replacement-cost-less-depreciation is a recognized practice employed by, among others, insurance companies, to set insured values and by courts in eminent-domain cases.
Raising last year’s assessments by 25 percent is simply a wild stab whose principal virtue is relieving our assessors of the chore of doing their job.
The Kaua‘i law quite clearly requires that building assessments shall be by “systematic” methods, and a 25-percent increase for all properties conforms to neither a standard of 100 percent of market nor an adjustment related to actual replacement cost increases.
The 2005, 25-percent increase in assessments for improvements on residential properties should be found illegal, and the assessors should be sanctioned and mandated to perform their duties and make assessments using systematic methods in conformance with the law.
Judicial nominations
In response to a letter published in The Garden Island on April 19, it’s rather apparent that the letter-writer doesn’t realize that he’s already living in a dictatorship run by extremist left-wing activist judges who regularly legislate from the bench and overturn the will of the people and usurp the constitutional directive of laws being made and passed by the legislative branch, at both the state and federal level, on issues like gay marriage, sodomy, and illegal immigration, to name just a few.
Activist judges who refer to international law instead of the constitution itself for many, if not most, of their decisions. Left-wing activist judges who say they can see things in the constitution that aren’t there, and are unwilling to see things in the constitution that are there.
The letter-writer is also ignorant of the fact that the practice of having a super majority for the confirmation of judicial nominees is not in the constitution, and until it was made the rule by the Democrats when they held the majority in the Senate, the simple majority rule was the one used for over 200 years.
What the writer calls the “nuclear option” would more accurately be called the “constitutional option,” and would of course end the ability of the Democrats in the Senate to continue their obstructionist tactics. All of the judges nominated by President Bush are highly qualified, and many of them have been previously confirmed by the Senate for the seats they currently hold.
Vacation rentals
Councilman Jay Fufaro is spear-heading the effort to find a solution to vacation rentals on Kaua‘i. Also, he is employed by the Princeville Resort. Conflict of interest, hidden agenda, self-serving?
Property-tax system
The recent letter on property-tax assessments presents some horrible examples of what our property-tax system does to people, but his anger is misdirected. The people who have made these assessments have merely followed the law, which requires that assessments should relate to market values of the property.
That is what is wrong.
The real-property tax is based on the assumption that the value of one’s real property reflects one’s ability to pay.
So, if one owns a modest house in an area that is suddenly developed into a hot development area where all the new houses are astronomically priced, the mechanical operation of the tax law says that this modest house is now worth much more, could be sold for a high price, is assessed at that estimated worth, the owner now theoretically has a greater ability to pay, and the taxes go up. That is absurd. It is stupid. But that is how the law works.
Everyone seems to be trying to tinker with the assessment process, and that is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
There is no way to make it workable or fair.
Now, instead of railing against the people who are merely enforcing the law and doing their jobs, let’s get to work on changing the basis on which the government acquires the necessary revenue to pay for the services that we are provided.
