STAND. COM. REP. NO. 172

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 139

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2021

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Energy, Economic Development, and Tourism, to which was referred S.B. No. 139 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE TRANSIENT ACCOMMODATIONS TAX,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to revise the county allocations of transient accommodations tax revenues to reflect the growth in population of each respective county, including Kauai county, Hawaii county, the city and county of Honolulu, and Maui county to take effect July 1, 2021.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Hawaii State Association of Counties.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Budget and Finance, Office of the Mayor of Maui County, Tax Foundation of Hawaii, and Kohala Coast Resort Association.

 

     Your Committee finds that it is important to provide a fairer, more consistent, and reliable allocation of transient accommodations tax revenues to the counties.  Your Committee further finds that many of the burdens imposed by tourism fall on the counties and increased pressures of the visitor industry means greater demands on county services, such as providing, maintaining, and upgrading police and fire protection, parks, beaches, water, roads, sewage systems, and other tourism-related infrastructure. 

 

     Your Committee further finds that basing the allocation of transient allocation funds on the number of visitor arrivals, rather than population growth, better reflects the impact that the visitor industry places on county services, ultimately providing a more equitable distribution of the transient accommodations tax to each county.

 

     Therefore, your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Changing the allocation of transient accommodations taxes to each county based on the number of annual visitor arrivals for each respective county;

 

     (2)  Requiring the statistics used for allocation of the transient accommodations tax to be updated annually and taken from the Hawaii Tourism Authority and State Data Book; and

 

     (3)  Requiring each respective county to report annually to the legislature, no later than twenty days prior to the convening of each regular legislative session, describing how the transient accommodations tax allocation was spent.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Energy, Economic Development, and Tourism that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 139, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 139, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Energy, Economic Development, and Tourism,

 

 

 

________________________________

GLENN WAKAI, Chair