Lingle: Use hotel tax money for state budget
National News
Faced with a $1.2 billion budget gap, Gov. Linda Lingle on Monday proposed the state take about $100 million in hotel taxes from Hawaii's four counties next year and delay the payment of some personal and corporate income tax refunds.
The governor's supplemental budget for the 2011 fiscal year that begins July 1 does not call for wholesale layoffs or an increase in the number of furlough days state workers are already taking.
It does call for a big increase in the tax that insurance salespersons pay on their commissions and the elimination of dozens of positions in agencies that focus on mosquito control, adult mental health, family health and agricultural statistics.
But her proposal to swipe roughly between $99 million and $111 million in county hotel taxes in each of the next three fiscal years is likely to face opposition from the state's counties, which rely on the tourism-driven assessment.
Honolulu County, where the bulk of the state's tourists visit, would lose almost $45 million in the 2011 fiscal year; Maui would lose nearly $23 million; the Big Island, $18.6 million; and Kauai, $14.5 million. The Legislature must approve the transfer.
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Does a car or truck accident count as a work injury?
If an employee is injured in a car crash while on the job, they are eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits. “On the job” injuries are not limited to accidents and injuries that happen inside the workplace, they may also include injuries suffered away from an employee’s place of work while performing a job-related task, such as making a delivery or traveling to a client meeting.
Regular commutes to and from work don’t usually count. If you get into an accident on your way in on a regular workday, it’s probably not considered a work injury for the purposes of workers’ compensation.
If you drive around as part of your job, an injury on the road or loading/unloading accident is likely a work injury. If you don’t typically drive around for work but are required to drive for the benefit of your employer, that would be a work injury in many cases.
If you are out of town for work, pretty much any driving would count as work related. For traveling employees, any accidents or injuries that happen on a work trip, even while not technically working, can be considered a work injury. The reason is because you wouldn’t be in that town in the first place, had you not been on a work trip.
Workers’ compensation claims for truck drivers, traveling employees and work-related injuries that occur away from the job site can be challenging and complex. At Krol, Bongiorno & Given, we understand that many families depend on the income of an injured worker, and we are proud of our record protecting the injured and disabled. We have handled well over 30,000 claims for injured workers throughout the state of Illinois.