Hawaiʻi lawmakers again considering taxing income on REITs

The Senate Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to hear Senate Bill 2697 on Tuesday.

It would disallow dividend deduction for real estate investment trusts—that is, it would allow the state of Hawaiʻi to impose corporate income taxes on REITs.

SB 2697 is very similar to Senate Bill 301, which called for the same thing in the 2019 Hawaiʻi Legislature. It was vetoed by Governor David Ige.

The new bill has the same author—Senator Gil Keith-Agaran—but this time has more cosponsors and only one Senate committee to pass, not three like the previous legislation.