By Hugh Clark
Just read and printed out the analysis by Nate Gaddis on proposed farmer market fiasco. It won’t work. He is on point.
We have acquired our fruits and veggies, for most part, at Hilo farmers’ market for about two decades. (Anne purchases; I help eat it.)
It would be a nightmare for these folks to issue receipts and keep books on a harried Saturday. Many are of immigrant stock. Some barely can make change. They likely do not make minimum wage.
What a dumb idea, just like making photos for the Maui Caveman musician illegal. A first-year lawyer will bury that stuff. This session seems to be going straight to hell in a hurry. Hanohano is not alone.
If legislators are serious about recovering lost tax revenue they should act on offshore Internet purchases from companies like Amazon and the many computer outfits.
That represents real money, not chump change.
(Hugh Clark is a retired Honolulu Advertiser reporter.)
March 10th, 2013 at 4:16 am
I just read the Bill SB 1196 gives new meaning getting blood out of a turnip. I pay excise tax income tax state tax sales tax it’s a system where honor is the rule. I pay I keep books and now this. Here is where the power of community could really make the difference.
March 10th, 2013 at 10:05 am
Taking more money, enforcing more regulations from the small farmers who barely make anything, those who help feed the community? Can it get worse than this???
March 10th, 2013 at 11:24 am
I think it’s less likely about the tax money, than it is competition with stores renting commercial real estate.
I am surprised they haven’t gone after the lunch wagons yet with zoning rules like they do on the mainland
March 10th, 2013 at 12:23 pm
Oh, and states cannot regulate interstate commerce like Amazon unless they have a physical presence in the state ( that’s why they dump any affiliates in states that try)
March 10th, 2013 at 5:06 pm
I don’t see how the bill really changes things. Under current law the part about receipts applies to everyone conducting more than 10 cash transactions per day, which would apply to most farmer’s market sellers, so technically they’re in violation already.
You might be able to argue that someone selling at the market one day per week and having less than 70 sales is conducting less than 10 “per day” when averaged out, but that’s stretching already.
March 11th, 2013 at 5:52 pm
stop taxing food, tax corporate tourism and charge fees to the military.
March 11th, 2013 at 5:53 pm
stop taxing imported food, more precisely.
March 11th, 2013 at 5:53 pm
I mean local, non-imported. finally
March 11th, 2013 at 8:36 pm
Don’t forget that bill to name the state microbe! Ay kadish.