Pass the farm bills to deter tax cheats
It’s time to set the record straight on Heather Kimball’s County Council Bills 57 and 58, which would crack down on gentleman farmers who claim to produce agriculture in order to lower their taxes, when in fact they contribute nothing to our community’s food supply.
Under the new bills, to keep your farm status, all you have to do is show that you are using accepted agricultural practices. The minimum lot size is not an absolute requirement, as long as you show the viability of your farm on a smaller lot.
The main change to the bill is that a farm plan will be needed at the time of application. To make it easy, the Real Property Tax Office is creating a farm plan template. And even that is not an absolute requirement. If you don’t want to do a farm plan, there are other documents that will be acceptable.
While they may take some getting used to, these new requirements are actually pretty simple for anyone who is producing food. However, those who wish to cheat on their taxes by claiming a farm exemption without making a meaningful contribution to our community’s food production would find it difficult to comply.
Like any new policy, there’s always room for improvement. My suggestion would be to add a grandfather clause allowing people whose families have been doing subsistence farming for two generations or more on the same land to be exempt from the new requirements.
With this small improvement in place, the new rules would help us prevent gentrification, preserve the character of the Hamakua Coast, and ensure that tax cheats pay their fair share.
We’ve got wastewater treatment facilities, public gyms, parks, bridges and fire stations in desperate need of repair. Gentleman farmers are claiming agriculture exemptions for their beautiful, multi-million dollar properties without contributing to food production. And still, many of them live in farm communities like Hamakua, which brings in only about 6% of the county’s tax revenue.
When the cheaters don’t have to pay their fair share of taxes, it hurts all of us.
We need to do what’s best for Hamakua and for our island and support tax fairness through Bills 57 and 58.
Koohan Paik-Mander
Hamakua
State and county roadsides are a mess
Can someone please answer me as to why the roadsides on county roads and state highways are in such an overgrown, unkempt or partially pushed down condition? It looks terrible.
Some of these roadsides are plowed down or pushed back and left in that condition. It looks like no one owns a weed-eater!
I remember when Kulani Correctional Facility inmates did this work, and it looked beautiful. Why? Because no one had a lawnmower. It was all done with weed-eaters!
I get it that the county and state workers are unionized and only do “what they’re told to do,” but to me, when you see a nicely kept house and in the easement are tall weeds, bushes and trees, I, as a homeowner of one of these properties, get upset because I don’t own that easement.
The government does, so it’s their kuleana.
Butch Grillot
Hawaiian Paradise Park