---

BACK TO TOP
|

State tax revenues up 11.5% in August

State tax revenues in August jumped 11.5 percent over August of last year, offsetting July's downturn to lessen the two-month cumulative decline to 6.2 percent, the Department of Taxation reported yesterday.

Last month's income was led by a 9.7 percent increase in the take from excise and use taxes which reflect business activity and make up about half of the state's total general fund tax income.

The personal income tax category, representing about one-third of the total take, showed a 16 percent increase.

It's not known if the August tax figures will prompt the state's Council on Revenues to adjust the revenue forecasts it made last week.

The panel has to meet again Monday because proper six-day public notice of the panel's meeting wasn't posted with the lieutenant governor's office, making that meeting invalid.

Through the first two months in the fiscal year that began July 1, the state has collected $487.7 million, compared to $519.6 million in August 2002.

Trustee defends pension request

Hawaiian Airlines, rebutting arguments made by its pilots union and other interested parties, said in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing yesterday that suspending contributions to the Air Lines Pilots Association pension plan is a temporary step essential to keeping the airline in operation.

The airline, which is trying to avoid making a $4.25 million pension contribution due Monday, as well as subsequent payments, said in its reply motion that suspending payment far outweighs any harm resulting from nonpayment. Airline trustee Joshua Gotbaum, who had sought the suspension in an Aug. 28 filing, said the company needs to preserve its cash as it goes through Chapter 11 reorganization.

Hawaiian's pilots objected to the motion because they said the airline had not shown it faces any immediate threat of liquidation. The pilots also said that a labor arbitration panel and not Bankruptcy Court should rule on the matter.

A hearing is scheduled at 10 a.m. tomorrow before Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Faris.

Hawaiian Air planes nearly full

Hawaiian Airlines' scheduled revenue passenger miles increased 6.9 percent in August from a year earlier even as the number of passengers declined.

The carrier, which is in the process of reorganizing under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, said revenue passenger miles grew to 567.3 million from 530.8 million a year ago. A revenue passenger mile is one paying passenger carried one mile.

Hawaiian's number of passengers, however, fell 3.6 percent to 550,865 from 571,199. For the year, the airline's passenger count is down 1.9 percent to 3.76 million from 3.84 million.

Aided by the busy summer season, Hawaiian's load factor increased 5.7 percentage points to 88 percent from 82.3 percent a year ago. The load factor is the percentage of seats that are filled. The airline said it had 644.7 million seat miles available last month, essentially flat from 644.9 million a year ago.

Hawaiian's figures combine all its scheduled operations -- interisland, mainland-Hawaii and Hawaii-South Pacific.

Longtime A&B counsel retires

Michael J. Marks, the longest-serving general counsel among Hawaii's publicly traded corporations, marked the end of a 39-year legal career by retiring as vice president and general counsel of Alexander & Baldwin Inc. on Sept. 1. Marks spent 28 years at A&B, including the last 23 years as the company's general counsel.

Marks also was corporate secretary of Matson Navigation Co. until 2002 and previously had served as A&B's corporate secretary from 1985 until 1999. He joined A&B in 1975 as senior counsel in its law department and was promoted to assistant general counsel in 1977. He was named vice president and general counsel in 1980.

A search is under way for his replacement.

First ex-Enron exec is sent to prison

HOUSTON >> Enron Corp.'s former treasurer pleaded guilty to conspiracy and was led away in handcuffs and ankle chains yesterday to begin serving five years behind bars -- the first executive to go to prison in the scandal that brought down the energy company and rocked Wall Street.

Federal prosecutors said that Ben Glisan Jr. made no deal to implicate higher-ups such as former Chairman Kenneth Lay but that the sentence -- the maximum under the law -- should send a "somewhat chilling message." Glisan, 37, admitted helping design financial deals that enriched him and illegally kept investment losses off Enron's books.

He also agreed to forfeit nearly $1 million in profits from an off-the-books deal at Enron and agreed to not seek a refund of $412,000 in income taxes he paid on that profit.

In other news ...

>> Treasury Secretary John Snow asked Congress yesterday for a stronger government hand over the mortgage companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Snow opened a partisan debate over homeownership for low-income people by asking lawmakers to shift financial regulation of the two government-sponsored companies to his Treasury Department from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

>> Mortgage delinquencies rose in the second quarter as job losses put a strain on some households' budgets. The seasonally adjusted percentage of mortgage payments 30 or more days past due for all home loans rose to 4.62 percent in the April to June quarter, up sharply from 4.52 percent in the first three months of this year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association of America.