HACBED backs legislation to enable asset-building

The Hawai‘i Alliance for Community-Based Economic Development has announced its 2008 Asset Building Policy Package.  The bills included in this package are the combined efforts of elected officials and nonprofit and community organizations dedicated to securing financial freedom for Hawai`i families. The HACBED website includes links to sample testimony and support letters. The package includes:

• State Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), HB 2379 and SB 2240 would create a 20 percent state EITC that rewards work, makes work pay and is an efficient and cheap form of tax relief to low-income working families.
• Splitting of Tax Refunds, SB 2838 would allow individual taxpayers to request their state tax refunds be electronically deposited into up to three checking or savings accounts since tax refund time is when families have disposable income and research shows splitting refunds increases saving.
• Adoption of the Self Sufficiency Standard (SSS), HB 2203, HB 2184 and SB 2840 would require the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism to create a Self Sufficiency Standard and update it every two years. SSS is a better measure of what it costs to be self sufficient by including housing costs.
• Fund Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), HB 2046, HB 2047 and SB 2837 would provide funding for IDA programs, matched savings accounts that are proven ways to increase savings to buy a home, start a business or pay for higher education.
• Financial Education and Asset-Building Task Force, HB 2280 and SB 2839 would appropriate funds to create a taskforce and coordinator to make policy recommendations on universal, matched children’s savings accounts and statewide standards for financial and economic education.