Title: Tax Expenditures in Paradise
Speaker: Donald Rousslang (Hawaii Department of Taxation)
Date and Room: Friday, September 14 at 3:00-4:15PM, Saunders 515
Abstract
This paper examines tax expenditures in Hawaii’s General Excise Tax (GET) and net income taxes. More specifically, it identifies the tax expenditures and provides estimates for their revenue cost. A tax expenditure is a tax break, most commonly an exemption, a deduction or a tax credit, that is granted to selected taxpayers or for selected activities. Tax expenditures can be viewed as spending programs implemented through the tax code. Tax expenditures are often hard to identify: In fact, it is sometimes not possible to determine whether a particular feature of the tax code should be considered a tax break. The exercise is one-sided in that it considers only tax breaks and ignores unduly high tax burdens that might exist for some taxpayers or activities. It is also limited to identifying and quantifying the tax expenditures; no attempt is made to determine whether they are worthwhile or achieve their intended goals.
This seminar is co-sponsored by UHERO and the Department of Economics.