r/Hawaii • u/Konaboy27 • 3d ago
Local Issue Spotlight Now: From gas to groceries, Hawaii families hit by rising costs
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2026/10/13/spotlight-now-gas-groceries-hawaii-families-hit-by-rising-costs/What would Hawaii gain and/or lose if groceries and drug were not taxed.
Example: Washington State does not tax grocery and drug
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u/AvengingBlowfish 3d ago
FYI, it's a little tricky because Hawaii technically does NOT have a sales tax.
The General Excise Tax on groceries may appear to be 4.712% on the receipt, but because the GET applies to business to business wholesale transactions and everything else the grocery store has to pay like rent and utilities, it's the equivalent of a 16% sales tax according to some studies.
In any case, there is a bill to remove the GET from groceries. It would help a little... about $240 million a year spread over the 1.4 million people who live in Hawaii and the roughly 225,000 tourists who are here on any given day.
https://www.grassrootinstitute.org/no-grocery-get/
Personally, I'd rather see the legislature focus on reducing housing costs. I think that would have a bigger impact.
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u/kiwimonk 3d ago
Doing away with taxes doesn't fix anything long term. You have to have people in government actively rooting out corruption and trying to make our lives easier instead of the richest richer.
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u/incarnate1 Oʻahu 3d ago
Doing away with taxes doesn't fix anything long term.
It would make things cheaper for us; and it might force the government to stop being so wasteful with other people's money. It's not about rooting out corruption, it's about setting up our infrastructure so that corruption is very hard or impossible to exist. To de-incentivize unwanton behavior and enforce accountability amongst public servants who are supposed to be serving the public.
There is a lot of WASTE that goes on with the taxpayer dime. It's a nice thought though, that our tax dollars are being spent efficiently.
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u/EZhayn808 3d ago
This. The savings of less taxes would be minuscule per person/household compared to how much in total our government would lose. Which means less state/county services. More understaffing. Etc etc.
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u/315_benchpress 3d ago
It’s crazy how high grocery prices have gotten these past few years. I feel broke everytime I go out to buy food
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u/Tall-Blacksmith3463 3d ago
Some months I'm like wtf did I spend my money on, and granted I do buy some items that are a little bougie, but I barely eat out and its still wtf to me.
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u/t_ran_asuarus_rex Oʻahu 3d ago
Everything costs more so I’m surprised at how many new things and full restaurants I see when I’m out
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u/Slightly_Shrewd Kauaʻi 3d ago
I mean, when you’re selling chips and guac (sourced straight from Costco) for $11 (~20 chips and 1/4 of an avo), you’re bounding to make a decent living lol
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u/t_ran_asuarus_rex Oʻahu 3d ago
Yeah…it’s cheaper to buy in bulk and meal prep, but I have coworkers who buy coffee and lunch everyday at $15-20 total then complain about how they can’t afford anything while putting luxury goods and vacations on credit
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u/Hubert_J_Cumberdale Hawaiʻi (Big Island) 3d ago
You just described all of my coworkers. Every singe one of them. A few of them even use doordash for all of this and I'm pretty sure they're spending closer to $30 a day.
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u/t_ran_asuarus_rex Oʻahu 2d ago
They say Costco is too expensive but will buy bags of chips and candy bars retail price at 7-11 lol
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u/Hubert_J_Cumberdale Hawaiʻi (Big Island) 2d ago
Every day around 3pm someone makes an ABC run to grab a few $5-6 energy drinks. I'm still not sure why they don't just pick up a 24pk from Costco. It's like they haven't figured out that this is a daily thing with an easy fix to save money.
I'm not gonna say anything though because they also come back with HiChews.
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u/Konaboy27 3d ago
And they are the same Hawai’i people who think local people that live in Washington state have it better than them.
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u/Konaboy27 3d ago
Hawai’i people have some messed up priorities IMO.
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u/t_ran_asuarus_rex Oʻahu 2d ago
People who are irresponsible are downvoting you.
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u/Konaboy27 2d ago
Some people are too close to their own problems to realize that there is a problem
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u/Konaboy27 10h ago
But for real in my experience as a local boy local people live rather extravagantly and complain about the cost of living.
Yet say I have it better than them because I live on the mainland especially because Washington state has no state income tax
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee Hawaiʻi (Big Island) 3d ago
I'll go WAY further than this. Here is my list of things which should not be taxed:
- Groceries. (except junk food -- soda, for instance. They can tax soda, candy, and other nutritionally deficient foods. Anything which causes diabetes is a good threshold.) But potatoes? A whole chicken? A bag of dried beans? None of that should be taxed.
- Clothing, under some arbitrary price threshold. A $20,000 designer dress should absolutely be taxed. Your child's school clothes should not. This threshold should be pegged to inflation so that parents aren't paying taxes when childrens' clothes go up in price.
- Wholesale goods. This is currently taxed at 0.5% -- Hawaii makes money on both ends of the transaction. I make a widget and sell it to a retail store and pay 0.5%. You buy this widget later and pay another 4.5%. This is an extra half-percent on basically everything in the entire state.
- Medicine and medical supplies. It is fucking unfair to tax tampons. And condoms. And Epipens. And baby formula. And prescriptions.
- Agricultural and industrial items. Tractors, fertilizer, heavy machinery, etc. All of this drives up everything else.
- Rent. Jesus-fucking-christ! Isn't rent high enough already without the county getting a piece of the pie? The tenant pays this tax. It's utterly unfair. I'd even waive taxes on commercial and industrial property because it's just passed on to the customer.
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u/StealinChildren 3d ago
Beyond supplies, medical and dental services should not be taxes either
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee Hawaiʻi (Big Island) 3d ago
An old filling fell out. I paid GET to have it refilled. That's ridiculous. I'm walking around in excruciating pain with a big hole in my tooth and Hawaii wants a cut of that?
I should have added healthcare procedures to that, for sure.
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u/BMLortz Oʻahu 3d ago
I just got my estimate for a root canal with insurance. over $500. I sent a reply asking how much for the doctor to just punch me in the face and knock out my tooth. If they respond at all, assuming they don't offer such a service, I'll ask if they offer "Cast Away" proceedure, that involves a ice skate and a rock.
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u/808flyah 3d ago
That's the way other states do it. Basic necessities are tax free. No tax on the apple but a tax on the apple pie. The GET is a VAT verses a sales tax. I don't think many other states also charge tax on wholesalers either, just at the point of sale to the consumer. It's all regressive in the end anyways.
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u/mark71-8 3d ago
Another area is certain self employed people! It is a huge burden to those who rely on contract work or participate in the gig economy.
Someone orders an uber ride and pays GET. The driver has to pay GET again on his earnings. Then when the driver wants to buy lunch with his earnings, he pays GET again!
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u/Tall-Blacksmith3463 3d ago
I have a W2 and 1099 job. I already made it a priority to focus on supporting local businesses before my 1099 work but MY GOD I try even harder now. The taxes are insane and I am comfortably middle class, not ballin by any means.
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u/KauaiHiker2 2d ago
For all the drivers out there: your fares are taxed as a wholesale service at 0.5%, except tips which are taxed at 4 or 4.5% (whatever your county is at). But that 0.5% applies to the entire fare paid by the customer (so including platform fees, insurance, and the state tax already deducted). So you have to keep track of all your weekly fare breakdowns and separate the items, but you save hundreds on GET.
Here is the official state tax rule: https://files.hawaii.gov/tax/legal/tir/tir25-01.pdf
Note that state tax being deducted is the GET at 4 or 4.5%. So total state tax on rideshare is "only" 5% roughly.
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u/infinite_knowledge 2d ago
Technically there’s no sales tax in Hawaii. We as consumers are not taxed on anything. However we have a GET where it is legal for businesses to pass on the tax to us. So you can say McDonald’s, Walmart, Target shouldn’t be taxing us! But they still would need to pay tax to the state.
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee Hawaiʻi (Big Island) 2d ago
You're paying it one way or another. It doesn't matter where the line-item happens. It's basically VAT in Europe.
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u/glassnumbers 3d ago
The Big Island, Kaua'i, any island except for Oahu, growing our own food is possible. On Oahu, the population is too high for that to be a thing.
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u/KauaiHiker2 2d ago
Yet I see more market garden suppliers like Aloun that started on Oahu. They have huge fields next to the train going to Kapolei. The bigger population drives more demand.
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u/123supreme123 3d ago
Sales tax is regressive and hits the poor the worst, which is why other states exempts essentials like groceries and drugs. To do this, the state would need to raise taxes elsewhere, probably increase the GET to 8%. If you think our incompetent lawmakers have the leadership and conviction to make this change... well you haven't been on-island long enough.
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u/Konaboy27 3d ago
It’s a price of paradise that I personally would pay over living in Washington state
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u/saincteye 3d ago edited 3d ago
I mean I was just dozing the other days and just being dumb...
if the state already have EBT database on what not being taxed then it would be easy for them to switch.
Anything food related and falls on the EBT rule then no tax. We can discuss about soda tax, candy tax etc. after we at least agree on this.
Everything else especially luxury items like Gucci/LV/Rolex etc. (maybe $2000) items will be taxed at 9%. Some just fly here to buy those because of the low sales tax while on the expense of other paying the same rate on groceries.
Get rid of sales tax on used items like cars, it was already paid when new.
Tax 1% property tax for rental properties, 3% for properties with occupy days less than 180 days. If the owner resides here more than 180 days then whatever income they make globally will be taxed due to being resident of the state and U.S.
Allow rent to be claimed as expense.
No sales tax for medical procedures that is medically necessary and preventive care.
Get ownership of HECO and make them nonprofit like what a utility company shall be.
While I do like local grown food but price:quality is just too much when compare to costco. Maybe we shall start WWII program like the "freedom garden" or expand the community garden program.
There are probably more...but that was just something I was thinking while stuck on H-1 traffic...
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u/walkwithfish 2d ago
What if the government only taxed transactions on credit/debit cards from zip codes outside of Hawaii?
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u/BrooklynTony198 3d ago
NY Post cites the US Census Bureau that the average family of 4 here spends 20K in groceries annually, but I think thats 2025 data so currently people spend more. So just on groceries that could be about 1,000USD less spent if we eliminate tax on groceries. Medicine I'm not sure how big of an impact that would be, it would be heavily dependent on your medical situation but could be extremely helpful for some. If you have 1 or 2 monthly medications with a $15 copay you'd maybe save $20 annually, but those who are paying $100s monthly on medicine for diabetes or cancer or heart problems would see a lot of savings.
Of course the issue is that this would reduce state revenue, but that money could theoretically be replaced by higher taxes on secondary homes and other things only the rich have access to. Without filling the gap in state revenue programs would be cut, and at least I remember furlough fridays...
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u/Ill-Assumption-4919 3d ago
Anybody ask why our elected “leaders” are pretending the Jones Act is a GOOD thing? Of all the laws and rules being modified for “Climate Change” how do they figure the additional shipping distances required for Jones compliance works in solve these problems 🤔
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u/Konaboy27 3d ago
Jones act is proven to be the cause of high food prices in Hawaii and other US possessions.
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u/Ill-Assumption-4919 3d ago
ABSOLUTELY! It’s an archaic holdover which our State and Federal “leaders” continually fail to address.
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u/Konaboy27 3d ago
They too scared to risk the demise of Matson Navigation and piss off the stevedores
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u/KauaiHiker2 2d ago
Without the Jones act, the ships that replace Matson would be crewed by 3rd world crew working in 3rd world conditions, not allowed to leave the ship and practically indentured servants. No thank you.
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u/TrissNainoa 3d ago
Yea right look at parker ranch they just ended up keeping all the land and selling it for bilions
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u/Hungdaddy69x Hawaiʻi (Big Island) 3d ago
Even crazier: what if Hawaii grew its own food instead of shipping in 90%