Question: I filed my Real Property Tax Exemption Claim for Alternative Energy Improvements (my photovoltaic system) last month. I have not received any response. My daughter said that when she inquired about her claim, she was told that the program was put on hold, but my neighbor who had filed early last year got his exemption. What is the status of the bill that took effect Oct. 1, 2009?
Question: What ever happened to the claim for exemption towards alternate energy improvements under Section 8-10.5 of the Revised Ordinances of Honolulu? I submitted my claim years ago, and the city has yet to credit owners of PV systems the amount paid to install a system. The Hawaii clean energy initiative called for the state to be 70 percent reliant on clean energy by 2030. One of the ways to achieve this was for homeowners to install PV on their homes. This is an expensive undertaking, and the city acknowledged that and passed a law stating that your home assessment would be credited to the amount of the PV installation. Would you please find out why this law has not been implemented by the city administration and when, if ever, it will honor its own law?
Answer: We explained in 2012 that homeowners are not being given a tax exemption because they are not being assessed anything for installing photovoltaic systems, solar water heaters, heat pumps, etc.: bit.ly/1zgQVAL.
Nothing has changed since the situation was explained back then, said Gary Kurokawa, now deputy director of the city Department of Budget and Fiscal Services.
However, he acknowledged continuing confusion because of the way the law is written.
As he explained it previously, "basically there is no need to file a claim, but (the law is) still talking about an exemption." So, "in people’s minds that means you get something exempted."
Because of the ongoing confusion, the city administration plans to introduce legislation "to clarify things," he said. "We’re going to try to remove the confusion," basically by making it so that alternate energy improvements are treated as personal property, like an appliance.
"So, there is nothing to assess and nothing to exempt."
Clarifying Law
Kurokawa says the administration hopes to bring the matter up for first reading at the City Council’s full meeting in March.
An attempt was made in 2011 to clean up the language in the law, “to clarify cost versus value,” he said, but the Council deferred action to allow the Real Property Tax Advisory Commission to take a comprehensive look at the issue.
Nothing happened with the commission and the matter subsequently was shelved in 2013.
This time around, the administration is taking "a different approach" by saying alternate energy improvements are not real property, but rather personal property and therefore not subject to assessments, Kurokawa said.
However, he pointed out that whatever "housekeeping" changes are made "should have no effect on people," again because homeowners are not being assessed real property taxes for installing alternate energy improvements.
Mahalo
To a kind young woman. We had disembarked from the No. 42 bus at Alakawa Street and Dillingham Boulevard in the early afternoon of Jan. 8 and had walked a short distance. The young woman ran out of the bus and handed me my wallet, which had fallen out of my pocket unnoticed. Before we could get her name, she ran back onto the bus. If it were not for her, our Hawaii vacation would have been a disaster. It is exactly this kind of friendly gesture exhibited by this young woman that keeps bringing us back to Hawaii every year. If she sees this, I hope she will contact the paper so that I can send her a reward. — Tosh Suzuki, British Columbia
If you are the person who not only saved Suzuki a lot of grief, but also touched his heart, call Kokua Line and leave a message.
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Write to “Kokua Line” at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
