LIHU‘E — The Kaua‘i County Council unanimously approved a bill on Wednesday setting a flat property tax of $40,000 a year for the island of Ni‘ihau.
Since the owners of the island, the Robinson family, owed $130,000 in taxes on the property last year, this represents a year-over-year tax cut of about $90,000.
But it is slightly higher than the $32,000 the owners paid before 2021 — when changes to the agricultural dedication program bumped their annual tax payment from $32,000 to more than $222,000.
Introducers Billy DeCosta and Luke Evslin felt that Ni‘ihau should be treated differently in the tax code to reflect its limited use of county services, its difficulty in complying with another recent change to the agricultural dedication program, and county struggles to accurately assess its value.
“I think this is a great way that our administration and our council worked together to provide a fair tax,” said DeCosta at a Dec. 7 committee meeting. He credited the Robinsons for assisting the county during the flood of 2018.
The tax, referred to in the bill as a “minimum tax,” can be amended or abolished at the county’s discretion. The bill mentions the addition of tourism-centered activities or changes to the involvement of lineal descendants as changes that might spark an adjustment in the tax rate.
“With inflation, every year, (the tax) is going to be worth less and less,” said Evslin at the committee meeting. “At some point, we’re going to revisit it to raise it incrementally.”
The 47,605-acre island was purchased in 1864 by Elizabeth Sinclair from the kingdom of Hawai‘i for $10,000, and is now valued at $88 million, according to the most recent assessment.
It has remained in family hands for the last century and a half, and has since been passed on to Sinclair’s descendants, Keith Robinson and Bruce Robinson.
Ni‘ihau does not use county services the same way Kaua‘i properties do.
The Kaua‘i Police Department would require permission from the landowners before conducting an investigation on the island, and the Kaua‘i Fire Department has never responded to the island.
The island is off-limits to all outsiders except the Robinson family and their invited guests, U.S. Navy personnel (the Pacific Missile Range Facility keeps a small installation there) and government officials. Descendants of the Native Hawaiians, who lived on the island before the purchase, are allowed to live on the land rent-free.
Despite their different use of services, Vice Chair KipuKai Kuali‘i stressed the continued interconnectedness of the two islands at the committee meeting.
“Ni‘ihau is part of our county. I don’t think it would exist alone without connecting with Kaua‘i,” said Kuali‘i. “Most everyone on Ni‘ihau at one time or another comes to Kaua‘i for services, to use our roads to get to the airport.”
In 2014, the Robinson family pushed a bill at the state Legislature to separate Ni‘ihau from Kaua‘i and establish it as a new county, but failed after facing backlash from the Kaua‘i government.
The flat tax measure, Bill No. 2889, passed in a 6-0 vote (Kuali‘i was absent), and will now go to recently re-elected Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami’s desk for approval, where it will most likely be signed. Finance Director Reiko Matsuyama has reported the administration supported the measure.
This was among the first meetings of the new County Council since the election in November, and council chambers were more crowded than at many recent meetings. Several government officials, who during the COVID-19 pandemic took to testifying by Zoom, testified in person.
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Guthrie Scrimgeour, reporter, can be reached at 808-647-0329 or gscrimgeour@thegardenisland.com.
