Report Title:

Tax Credit; Child Passenger Restraint Systems

 

Description:

Raises the child passenger restraint tax credit from $25 to $50 and expands the credit to include booster seats.

THE SENATE

S.B. NO.

2137

TWENTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2002

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

relating to taxation.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that motor vehicle crashes remain the nation's leading cause of death in young children. In May 2000, Partners for Child Passenger Safety – a Pennsylvania organization – released the first comprehensive investigation of how and why children are injured or killed in vehicle crashes. The study found that children who ride unrestrained are three times more likely to sustain a significant injury in a crash, when compared with children who are restrained. It also found that eighty-three per cent of children ages four to eight have inappropriately graduated to the use of adult seat belts, which are not designed to fit young children and may put children at risk for abdominal and spinal cord injury in a crash.

The legislature further finds that booster seats can significantly reduce the risk for older children, but for many families the cost of booster seats is prohibitive.

The purpose of this Act is to help prevent serious injuries and save children's lives by increasing the tax credit for child passenger restraint systems and by expanding the tax credit to include booster seats.

SECTION 2. Section 235-15, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (b) to read as follows:

"(b) The tax credit shall be [$25;] $50; provided that the taxpayer purchases one or more new child passenger restraint systems in the tax year for which the credit is properly claimed; and provided that such restraint system can be shown to be in substantial conformity with specifications for such restraint systems set forth by the federal motor vehicle safety standards which were in effect at the time of such purchase.

For the purposes of this section, "child passenger restraint systems" shall include booster seats."

SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This Act, upon its approval, shall apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2002.

INTRODUCED BY:

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