General Excise Taxpayers Required to File New Survey

By Sonia Isotov

With the suspension of numerous business related tax exemptions and deductions in the last legislative session, the Hawaii Department of Taxation announced yesterday the launch of a survey to monitor the effects of these changes.

Over the next three weeks, the Department of Taxation will be sending letters and emails to General Excise Tax licensees who had previously claimed exemptions or deductions from the General Excise and Use Tax.  The purpose of the letter is to alert taxpayers about the new survey filing requirement.

The new Schedule GE-1, or Survey of General Excise/Use Tax Exemptions and Deductions, must be filed by all taxpayers claiming any general excise and/or use tax exemption(s) and/or deduction(s) for tax years 2010, 2011, and 2012, except for certain nonprofit organizations that have applied for and received approval from the Department of Taxation for an exemption from the general excise tax.

Fred Pablo, Director, State of Hawaii Tax Department. File Photo by Wendy Osher.

During the 2011 legislative session, Act 105 was adopted, suspending 23 general excise and 6 use tax exemptions.  The Act also requires the Department of Taxation to gather information and report “…on all exclusions or exemptions of all amounts, persons, or transactions…”

“Information gathered from the survey will assist in understanding the impact of General Excise and Use Tax exemptions on our state’s economy and its different industries,” said Fred Pablo, Director of Taxation, in a written statement.

To expedite the survey process for our taxpayers, the department worked with Hawaii Information Consortium, our e-filing partner, to develop an electronic survey form which is available through the e-file system currently in place.

Taxpayers can find more information on the survey and at the State Tax Department website at http://www.hawaii.gov/tax. In particular, the department issued Tax Announcement 2011- 26 and Tax Information Release 2011-04 to assist taxpayers in completing the survey.