Sky Train, Tax Tips & Alec

>> Coming up next on "Arizona Horizon," the sky train is running at Sky Harbor. We'll have details of the new passenger transport train. >>> We heard critics of the conservative group ALEC and its ties to the legislature last week. Tonight we hear from an ALEC supporter. >>> And tax time is upon us. We'll get the latest state and federal tax tips from the IRS and the Arizona department of revenue. >>> Those stories next, on "Arizona Horizon." >> "Arizona Horizon" is made possible by contributions from the friends of eight. Members of your Arizona PBS station. Thank you. >>> Good evening, and welcome to "Arizona Horizon." I'm Ted Simons. >>> Futurist and architect Paolo Soleri died today. Soleri was 93. He died of natural causes at his Paradise Valley home. Paolo Soleri was one of the last living architects trained directly by Frank Lloyd Wright, and is best known for Acrosanti, an ongoing if slow-developing experimental city that Soleri began 43 years ago near Cordes Junction, north of Phoenix. >>> The sky train at Sky Harbor officially opened to the public yesterday. The train connects light rail to terminal four and is just the first phase of the airport's passenger moving expansion plans. Here to tell us more is Deborah Ostreicher, deputy aviation director for the airport. Good to see you again. >> Hello, Ted. >> We talked about it when it was in its planning stages. It's here. What is the sky train. >> The Phoenix sky train is so amazing. It takes you as you said, from the 44th street and Washington metro light rail stop to our east economy parking, which is a great place to park right into terminal four, where 80% of Sky Harbor's passengers are. >> How fast does this thing go? >> It Averages about 25 miles an hour, but it can go even faster, up to 38 miles per hour. It's faster than you think when you get on it. >> If you get on 44th street and you get -- How long to the east economy lot? >> Three minutes. >> From the east economy, how long to T-4. >> Two minutes. The whole ride is five minutes. >> And when kind of train, what kind of technology are we talking about tracks, air, what do we have? >> This is a state of the art driverless train made by Lombardia, and it's sunk down so it's on a guide rail, so there's no driver and it's all controlled by a control room. >> Interesting. How long of a wait between trains? >> Three to five minutes. Three minutes in peak times. So the reliability and the frequency is unbelievable, because you always know another one is right behind the first. >> Really, three to four minutes, poof, here comes another one. >> That's right. And unlike the buses, which were great in their time, and we continue to have buses to the other terminals, but you know there's a train coming every three to five minutes now. >> Right now we're on this train toward the airport. I gotta tell you, it's elevated, there's not much to the size. That's an interesting ride. >> Oh, there I am, look at that. The first ride yesterday. >> The mucky mucks at the opening ceremony. That is a ride, isn't it? >> It really is. We all expected the ride to be beautiful and scenic as you go up over that active taxiway that everybody sees. But what we found when we rode it the first time the other day, it's beautiful the whole ride. You really get to see Arizona in such a unique way. >> The waiting areas, you don't have to wait very long, but describe the waiting areas. Benches, seats? >> So the train is designed for quick travel with suitcases. So the inside of the train, there are hardly any seats, there are a few seats, and the stations are beautiful at 44th street and at the east economy lot, and terminal four, they have public art inside, they are worth going to see just to see them. >> And as far as parking, correct me if I'm wrong here, there is no permanent parking at the 44th street light rail area? >> That's correct. The airport doesn't have any parking. Some of the hotels and properties around 44th street and Washington do have some private facilities there where you can park. But the very best option now is the east economy lot. Whether you want uncovered parking or the covered garage, that is probably the best place to park now. Because you just hop on the train and you're in terminal four in two minutes. >> But there is a drop-off area at 44th and Washington. >> There is, and a cell phone waiting lot that a lot of people are used to. So what we're hoping is this new transit station will be a place that you can pick up and drop off so that you don't even need to come into the airport proper. You can just tell somebody to meet you at the 4th street -- 44th street and Washington station. >> There's a remote bag check involved? >> Yes. This convenience is incredible. Both at the 44th street and Washington station, and the east economy lot. You can drive up, give your bags right now with southwest and U.S. Airways, no extra charge for that, give your bags to someone, and off you go your bags are checked. >> do you have to get there a little earlier? >> A little earlier, I think the cutoff time is an hour and a half. You'd be there anyway if you were parking. But now you don't have your bag. >> What kind of cost to build this thing? I've heard upwards of 1.5, 6 building. >> for the entire project, once it's done, going to the rest of the terminals to the rental car center, the estimated cost is $1.5 billion, but what we opened yesterday, $644 million. >> So what you opened yesterday was phase one. Talk about the rest of the phases here. This thing goes to 2020 completed out? >> That's right. In 2015, we're continuing to build right now. If you drive past terminal three right now you can see the beginnings of the next station. But we figured why wait to open it? Let's open now what we can, which is to serve 80% of the passengers anyway. So the sky Travis Murphy train will go to the rest of the terminals in 2015, and sometime in the 2020s it will go all the way to the rental car center. >> This is really something. But let's get a 30,000-foot view if we can. Why was this built? What need does this fill? >> This fills a very important need. That is, if you've ever been to the airport on a Sunday night, or during Super Bowl, we have another one coming up, or any big holiday weekend, you see the roadways get so congested. Sometimes you can't even get up to terminal four to pick up or drop off a passenger. As we look into the 2020s, that's what the roadways would begin to look like every single day. So rather than wait until that happens, we needed to act now to build this so we can grow together with the demand for traffic. >> Last question. Is there a message involved? Is there like a civic message? Airports are often the first thing that out of town folks see when they get to a particular community. >> Well, this is really a -- Just another sign that America's friendliest airport, what we're doing for customer service. You can't be more efficient, quick, and beautifully transported than you can on the new Phoenix sky train. >> It sounds exciting. It's running as we speak. >> It sure is, 24 hours a day. >> Seven days a week. Good to have you here. >> Thanks, Ted. >> ALEC is the American legislative exchange council, and critics say it's a corporate interest lobbying group that directs and produces model legislation for state lawmakers. Last week we heard criticism of ALEC's influence from the head of common cause. Tonight we hear from a supporter of ALEC. Joining us is Tom Jenney, of Americans for prosperity. Good to have you here. >> Thank you for letting me be here. >> What is ALEC? >> ALEC is the American legislative exchange council. You can find it on the web at WWW.ALEC.org. There's no big secret here. They put their agenda out there, they put their model legislation out there on the web for everybody to see. There's no big secret to this. They're a lot like -- They're the conservative version of the national conference of state legislatures, which is kind of a more of a centrist, maybe center left organization, and it's the same counterpart to the progressive states network, which if you're a left wing legislator you would probably go there. >> But we kind of -- We had the head of common cause on last week. I mentioned PSN, and other groups. What he said was these were not charity groups, they were lobbying groups and ALEC is not a lobbying group. And he had problems with that. I want you to respond to the idea that it's an organized -- Organization that's filed as a charity. First of all, is that true? >> As far as I know, they have at least some element that's got to be 501(c)3 and a large part is putting policy ideas out there for people to look at. And it seems to me, I just don't understand what the news story is, really. >> The news story is a lot of people think they have undue influence, and they're a lobbying group that says they're not a lobbying group. Do you see them as a lobbying group? >> I suspect if people think they have undue influence, people from the left who worry at one point, one-third of all the legislators in this country belonged to ALEC. So it's a group with a lot of influence, but that's largely because conservatives in state legislatures have quite a lot of clout. >> We mentioned bob Edgar last week, I want to listen to what he had to say regarding the idea this is a lobbying group that says it's not a lobbying group. >> It's actually lobbying on the cheap. I think what your constituents here in Arizona want, they want their representatives to come to the state capitol and do the best job they can, listen not only to corporations, but listen to all sides of a particular issue. And they want lobbyists to be known, registered, and not hiding in the shadows. >> Do you think ALEC is hiding in the shadows? >> That's absolutely silly. Go to their website. You can find all their model legislation on that website. >> Do we know who donates to ALEC? >> I don't know if you do or not. I haven't checked with that. But a lot of organizations, including left wing organization and they're protected under a very old, five decades old court case decided, NAACP versus Alabama, and the courts rightly said organizations often want to protect their donors. >> Should those organizations, again, I'm speaking from what the other side is saying and what we're hearing from the other side, should those organizations have that kind of influence in modeling legislation at various state legislatures around the country, and having that kind of contact with lawmakers? That kind of access? >> I think a public -- >> that a public person may not otherwise have. >> What have you heard of a legislature who didn't -- Who's down there at the legislature and never looked at any other states for an example of what to do? This person just sat there and didn't listen to anybody coming in, no lobbies, just tried to make up their own mind about legislation. Wouldn't you think that person was uninformed? You'd think that person was not using the resources available. So if you are a center right, if you're a conservative, you go to ALEC and network, and you try to find good ideas for your legislature. If you are a centrist, you go to the national council of state legislatures. In fact we pay Arizona state -- The state of Arizona pays for people to go to NCSL. If you're a left winger you go to progressive states network. >> The idea, and I think this is what I'm hearing from common cause, is that ALEC is in a sense defrauding the tax code, and basically the influence is there, it's -- I think you used the word lobby, they are lobbying, but they say they're not a lobbying group. And thus anyone and their brother can donate and get a tax credit for it. Is that fair? First, is that right, secondly, is that fair? >> I think you've got groups all over on the left, including by the way a lot of University professors, who come in and basically weigh in on bills that are before legislatures, and these are 501(c)3, and you could argue these think tanks and University professors, that they shouldn't be doing that. But in reality, we have a pluralistic system. My concern, my big concern about this whole story or this nonstory, as I think the case is, is that it kind of leads to a conspiracy mentality. For instance, one of the big issues, I think we should be focusing on issues. One of the big issues facing the legislature is the fight over the Medicaid expansion. I could sit here and tell you the hospital lobby, the hospital corporations are going to get a ton of money from Washington. If we do this expansion. And I could tell you they've hired the biggest lobbyist in town, Chuck Coughlin. And a lot of people joke that chuck Coughlin is the shadow governor, and all this stuff. But that conspiracy mentality, that conspiracy thinking doesn't get us to the real issue, which is, should we expand Medicaid in Arizona or not? We think it's a bad idea. The people on the other side for reasons that have nothing to do with the corporations that will profit from this, there's a lot of people who don't stand to gain a penny, who still think it's a good idea. And I think we need to debate on that level. On the policy level. >> We have debated on the policy level many times on this program, but if I want to donate to lobbying firms, whether it's chuck Coughlin or ABC over here, I don't get a return on that as a donation. Folks who donate to ALEC do get a return, and that's what I think the criticism is. That we're basically paying for this kind of a corporate interest lobbying group to have this kind of access. That's what I keep hearing. How do you respond to that? >> For better or worse, the tax code is the way it is. The case law is the way it is. And there are left wing groups that do the same thing. And everybody knows how to play the game, and everybody invests where they want to. George SOROS, he's got a group of organizations he's helped funded, and god bless him, they're out there in the policy arena, and they do what they can under the law. >> Last question -- When common cause says taxpayers support, taxpayers fund, and taxpayers subsidize ALEC, does that bother you? >> I think it's mostly not true. >> You don't think it's true? >> If you look at the national council of state legislatures, there's actually an appropriation from our legislature to send legislators to that and staffers to that organization. I'd rather they didn't use taxpayer money that way, but it's not a huge amount of money, and a lot of the staffers will tell you they get good information from that organization, and again, I wouldn't -- I don't think we should do that. I think we should zero out that appropriation, but in the big picture is this corrupting, sending legislators to the national council, is that corrupting our legislature? I don't really think so. >> Tom, I'm glad we had you on. Thanks for joining us. >> Thank you. Is. >>> Get the up side scoop on what's happening at Arizona PBS. Become an eight insider. You'll receive weekly updates on the most anticipated upcoming programs and events. Get the eight insider delivered to your email in box. Visit www.azpbs.org to sign up today. >>> The tax filing deadline is approaching, and every year there are new tax laws to consider and new scams to watch out for. Here to help us navigate this special time of year is Bill Brunson, spokesman for the IRS in Arizona, also with us is Anthony Forschino, spokesman for the Arizona department of revenue. Good to have you both here. Thank you so much for joining us. >> Thanks for having us. >> I want to start with you, and sequestration. What's going on here as far as the IRS? All other federal agencies are getting hit. What's happening? >> Right now we're not specifically certain as to how that's going to play out. So we expect that we're going to be furloughed for a number of days, but we haven't seen the exact, say, paperwork yet. They're supposed to notify the employees within 30 days of the event. But it hasn't yet come to be, so there might -- It might occur, it still might not occur, but we're waiting to see. >> OK. And real quickly, Arizona, I want to start with what seemed to have been a problem for a while with computer glitches regarding acknowledgment receipt of returns. What was that all about? >> What happened is it's really a small amount, what happened was in the beginning as we started, what we have to do is a reconciliation with the IRS. That means that we send our acknowledgments through the IRS to get to the person. That's how it goes. But sometimes there's some glitches as it goes, and what you get is, we do reconciliation with the IRS and say -- They say, you sent us an acknowledge, and we say yes, so we resend it. We had about 40,000 sitting in a hopper. Over the past weekend we took care of all of those 40,000. And what's funny is, even somebody at our work actually got filed, got their refund and then got their acknowledgment. >> So the delay was there, the delay is gone. >> Right. And it didn't mean the return wasn't being processed. It just meant the acknowledgment wasn't going. >> OK. Let's talk about electronic payment here. And the options that are out there with the federal tax system. What can I do as far as electronically filing? >> Well, your payment with -- In that area, if you owe the federal government money and you owe less than $50,000, you can basically call the shots as long as you can pay that off within a five-year time frame. Now, if you're asking about electronically filed tax returns, that's the way to go. 80% of all Arizonans are going to file their return this year with 2.2 million, out of 2.8 million will submit it electronically. It's fast, accurate, secure. It saves the federal government money. It's truly a win-win situation for everybody. >> And you use credit or debit cards? >> When you pay, yes. If you have a liability, you can use credit or debt cards. If you would like. That's certainly an option. Now, they're going to charge you a fee. That's a fee between you and that service provider. So just keep that in mind if you decide to go that option. >> Funds withdrawal, electronic fund withdrawals from your bank account, A-OK as well? >> It certainly is. >> If you are -- If you file, if you -- What if you are unable to file? What choices do you have? >> Run away. No. Basically you need to request the extension to file. It allows you an additional six months to summit the paperwork, not pay the tax. Then you want to request an extension before midnight Monday, April 15th, which is the due date for the 2012 return. There's no cost. And you don't have to make a supplemental payment with it. But you just need to make that request for the item before midnight Monday, April 15th. And you can do that online electronically, and you can do it for free on IRS.GOV's website through the free file option. >> This is -- If you're unable to file, not -- So if you're unable to file do you still have to pay something to keep things going here? >> That was the old way. No. Is it a benefit to the taxpayer to pay what they can when they do file the return or request an extension? You bet, because it's going to save them penalty and interest. But it's not a requirement. >> I want to get to what happens if you're unable to pay here in a second. But back to the state. I notice there are some changes here regarding be the use tax and clean elections. Tell us what's changed over the year. >> The use tax is the tax you pay on purchase as you -- Purchases you make from out of state, online, that tax is not collected. Then you as the individual have to pay that. Last year there was a line on your tax return which allowed you to pay that tax. This year the line is removed. But the use tax is still owed. >> I -- Why is that? >> It was a legislative decision to remove the line from the return. >> Sour not even reminded, but you still have to do it. >> Right. In our booklet we do have a page that talks about it, and on our website and tells you where to pay it. >> As far as the future is concerned, this is kind of going the way of the DODO, right? Eventually you'll have to pay taxes on pretty much online purchases, aren't you? >> That's the direction most legislation, federal legislation all that is going. >> All right. As far as clean elections -- >> clean elections always had a checkoff box on the return where you could donate $5 or 10, then you got a reduction of five or 10, or you could give a donation and get a credit. That's been removed, so the checkoff boxes are no longer there. The credit is no longer there. The donation is no longer there. However, on this year's tax return, if you made a donation prior to August 2nd of last year, you can still take the credit for this year. Because the law went into effect on August 2nd. Any donations made before that is allowed. >> You better remember it, and there's no prompting. >> Exactly. >> What happens if you can't pay your tax on time? We talked about unable to file, what about payment? >> There's going to be a late payment penalty of one half of 1%. So if you're an individual that, say, doesn't have all their paperwork together and has a balance due, they owe uncle Sam money, go ahead and request the extension to file, and you'll not have a late filing penalty of 4.5%, just a late payment penalty until that amount is paid off. Then what we recommend, the intern revenue service recommends, pay what you can and get formally billed by the system, then contact us and we'll work out a payment arrangement. >> These requests for relief can be made online? >> Yes. IRS.GOV or pick up the phone or go by an office. So much is available online at IRS.GOV, it's amazing. You don't truly need to pick up the phone. >> Are there requests for relief that just don't cut it. >> At what point do you say, no. We can't work with you? Or do you always say, we'll find a way? >> That's a very fair question. If the individual is reasonable with us and communicates, we're going to be reasonable with them. But if we see a history of where they vote for multiple years and haven't worked with us, that's a different story. >> OK. Real quickly, another change, state taxes here regarding STO, school tuition organization. >> The school tuition organization, they gives scholarships for private schools, is what's happening is the credit that's there is $500 for single, a thousand dollars for married, which has gone up to 503 and a thousand, six, because it goes by inflation. So it's an extra three dollars. A second credit has been created for another 500 and another thousand dollars. So you can give up to a thousand or 2,000 dollars for that credit. And you can give it up to April 15th and still take it on last year's -- >> very quickly, 30 seconds left. What do we watch for? Biggest tax scam right now? >> Probably a PHiSHiNG tax scam, somebody offers a refund, seems plausible because you filed and you may not have gotten everything you thought could be coming to you, and they'll ask for personal financial information. Don't fall for it. The IRS already has your personal information. If you get something like that, and you're not certain, contact the IRS and we'll talk with you. Then you won't have a problem with scammers. >> Good stuff. Good to have you both here. Thanks for joining us. >>> That is it for now. I'm Ted Simons. Thank you for joining us. You have a great evening. >> "Arizona Horizon" is made possible by contributions from the friends of eight. 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