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October 9, 2002

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
Arizona Taxpayer Refund; profile of an Arizona family featured in the PBS National program, "And Thou Shalt Honor," a groundbreaking documentary on caregiving
In-Studio Guests:
Mark Killian, Director of the Arizona Department of Revenue;
Mary Lynn Kasunic, Executive Director of the Area Agency on Aging, Region One;
Dr. Bill Arnold, Arizona State University professor of communication and social work and Director of the ASU Gerontology program.

>> Michael: Tonight on "Horizon," you might have an extra tax refund coming, hundreds of thousands of Arizona taxpayers will share in a multi-million dollar settlement.

>>> Plus, caring for our elderly population. We speak with a Mesa family who shared their story for a national PBS documentary and we'll tell you where you can get resources and information.

>>> Good evening, I'm Michael Grant.

>>> First tonight, a federal appeals court is upholding Arizona's law requiring minors to get parental consent to have an abortion. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld how the state deals with cases in which a girl wants to have an abortion but does not get permission from a parent or guardian. Opponents had argued that the process violates a girl's privacy rights.

>>> The State Department of Revenue has started notifying more than 600,000 Arizona taxpayers they may be due a refund from the proposed settlement of a class action lawsuit. That case stems from income taxes paid on dividends received from the out of state corporations in the late 1980s. An Arizona law exempted dividends from the state income tax if the corporation paying the dividend did more than half its business within Arizona. Arizona repealed that law in 1990. The refunds would be due for four tax years in the late 1980s. 2 The case is important for the state and its taxpayers for a couple of reasons. Here to talk about that and some of the logistics involved in filing a claim for the refund, is Mark Killian. He is the Director of the Arizona Department of Revenue. Mark, it's good to see you again.

>> Mark Killian: Glad to be here.

>> Michael: This statute goes back quite a ways; right?

>> Mark: It's been on the books many, many years. It was put on the books in 1933. For whatever reason, I guess coming out of the depression, the legislature felt that it needed to give maybe in-state corporations a boost, an incentive for Arizonans to invest in in-state corporations. It was modified in the '70s, but late 1989, '90, the legislature went through the simplification process on taxes, and we did away with schedule A, which this was listed on. As a result of that, we changed the law and it went away.

>> Michael: Held unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court; correct?

>> Mark: That's correct. Well, originally, a case just like this, in 1935 went to the U.S. Supreme Court. It was a South Carolina case. And it was ruled constitutional, that it didn't violate the commerce clause. All of these many years, the state, the department has always felt that it had a strong case in defending this particular statute, but after the legislature repealed this, the lawyers for Mrs. Ladwin came to the Department and wanted refunds, and they wanted us to do a class, cert a class, which we couldn't do and wouldn't do because it had never been done for income taxes. It ended up in the courts. The tax court ruled against us on the merits, and at that time, there was some federal cases that were similar that ruled the same way, so we gave up on the merits of the case, but we didn't give up on the issue of class action. And we appealed that. The appeals court agreed with us and said there shouldn't be class action suits in income tax cases and then last summer, the -- or a year ago last summer, Arizona Supreme Court basically said, sorry, we're going to have class action lawsuits. The problem with that in that decision, they changed 75 years of juries prudence, administrative tax law and made a huge change in Arizona tax policy.

>> Michael: It clearly ups the ante. The counter argument is that it keeps the State more honest in terms of being absolutely certain that the taxes that it's levying are appropriate, lawful, constitutional. Any counter balancing benefit in that?

>> Mark: No, I don't think so. I think that happens anyway. You can challenge the constitutionality of a tax statute without asserting a class. That's happened before. For whatever reason, for all of those many years, the State, the courts, the law has always been there isn't a class action, but the Supreme Court changed that.

>> Michael: Right.

>> Mark: In effect, what they did is created a huge wealth transfer within the State. That's the argument that people don't talk about too much. All of that money comes out of the general fund, so the average taxpayer is going to help pay back those refunds that typically are going to go to a more wealthier class of taxpayers.

>> Michael: Just because of the passage of time, there is a generational aspect involved in the thing. It goes back 15, 17 years or so to the start of it.

>> Michael: Let's talk about the mechanics of it. This is a massive undertaking, both in terms -- because you are having to reach back into the 1980s, as well as just the scope, breadth of people involved.

>> Mark: This is the biggest project our department has ever had to do. We're trying to find 650 to 700,000 taxpayers. There's many things that complicate that. First of all, over this time people have died so we have to find their estates. People have moved out of the state. We've got to find them. We in Maricopa County have the highest divorce rate of any county in the country. As a result of that, as a complicating factor, we've got to find people who have split their families. We have to contact banks and trusts and companies that handle assets for people to help them find their clients that may be due refunds. This is a huge project. So just the time in getting this done is going to take us time before you're going to see any checks cut by the department and sent out to the taxpayers.

>> Michael: Do you start with the address that was on the 1989 tax return? Is that the most logical starting spot or not?

>> Mark: Well, yes, you do that. We do get some information on from the IRS. We do share information and we can look on their tapes to see what they have. That's where you start. And then you send those notices out. We also put notices in the newspapers, and hopefully people that have moved out of state or have relatives that they think they might have claim to this will contact us, and we will put a notice out through all of the departments of revenue through all of the country where they can link to the Arizona Department of Revenue's Web site so people who want to know if they are eligible can contact us and get information to us.

>> Michael: So, yeah, we've been talking about the department's outreach effort. There is also an ability to tie in either to the Web site or I assume by telephone or whatever, you can give the particulars and get information back about no, you're dad didn't pay this tax or whatever the case might be?

>> Mark: Absolutely, if you've got a question, call the department. Go to a Web site. Tomorrow there'll be a Web site up or a site on our Web site for the Ladwin case. It's got frequently asked questions, people to contact if you've got concerns or questions. That's the other aspect of this that we're trying to do. Even though the department lost this case, the state lost this case, we now are charged with helping the taxpayers get this money back as quickly as we can and the most taxpayer friendly aspect as we can. We spend time trying to figure out how to reach out and help make this as less difficult as we can, particularly in the discussions with plaintiffs and how we tried to structure the settlement. I think we've done it in such a way that it'll make it easier for the taxpayers to get their money back.

>> Michael: We have put a link on our Web site to your Web site.

>> Michael: The timing of it, I mean, obviously, we talked about the logistics. It will take a while to work this out. What is the earliest that the checks actually would be moving on this?

>> Mark: I'm glad you asked that question. It was reported on one of the TV channels last night that the checks will be in the mail in time for Christmas. Not hardly. The soonest we think checks will be going out will be the fall of '04, and again, it's just the massive amount of time it's going to take us to go through all of the records and reconstruct records for people, and find the information, getting some of the old data reconstructed which we're going to have to do. Some of that data is on old degraded microfiche that has to be digitized. The soonest we can get money out the door is the fall of '04.

>> Michael: Is there a function that it would be good to put these checks off a little bit for the state budget?

>> Mark: As we talked to the plaintiff attorneys about when we could pay this out, they were very concerned about the impact on the state budget. And they raised that as an issue. For us, that was a concern, but from a practical standpoint, from an administrative standpoint, we didn't see how we could possibly get money out the door this fiscal year. There'll be some money expended this fiscal year in administrative costs. Again, just the sheer effort to go through and check the records and verify and find all of the information and find the people takes time, and one time -- and at one time during all of the negotiations we thought it may take us an additional 500 people to do all of this work, but that's been pared down, and we think we're going to get done in a reasonable amount of time.

>> Michael: $30 to $40 million in attorneys' fees. Do I understand this correctly?

>> Mark: That's correct.

>> Michael: Is that under advisement by the judge?

>> Mark: The mediator between the state and plaintiff's attorneys has made a recommendation of not more than 12% on the attorneys fees. And that's something that the judge will have to decide whether he wants to accept. In other types of cases, class action lawsuits, you've seen payouts being as high as 33%. So from a fiduciary standpoint, we think 12% is fair, but we're going to leave it up to the judge to decide whether he wants to lower that or not.

>> Michael: Because that sum, whatever that sum may be, is deducted actually from the corpus of the refund amount, roughly $350 million?

>> Mark: That's correct. The administration and the legal fees come out of that $350 million.

>> Michael: All right. Department of Revenue Director, Mark Killian, thank you very much for the information. Best of luck with the assignment.

>> Michael: Some day in our adult lifetime, we will likely become both caregiver and cared for. Arizona has one of the most rapidly growing elderly populations in the country. How do you prepare yourself for the role of caregiver? What resources are available for family caregivers to help them with their challenge? Tonight Channel 8 will air a national documentary "And Thou Shalt Honor." The program explores the issue of long-term care giving in America through the personal stories told by families.

>> Announcer: In our program, we will encounter ordinary people in extraordinary situations where people and communities interact. Since 80% of caregiving takes place in the home, we start there. Our first story takes us to the small midwestern town of Franklin, Ohio, to the home of Maryanne and Harlan Nation.

>> Maryanne Nation: I don't know where to start. It's a story that's a lot better than some, a lot worse than others. It's different. I've said a lot of times, I wish there was a rule book, dos and don'ts for caregivers. I don't think you could come up with one, because every situation is so unique and so different.

>> Michael: One of the families featured in the documentary is from Mesa, producer Merry Lucero spoke with them about their experience.

>> Ethelinn Block: Hi, dad. Do you want to take a shower? Let's take a shower.

>> Producer: Ethelinn Block of Mesa takes care of her 80-year-old father at home. Arthur Block has Alzheimer's disease.

>> Ethelinn: To think of him with strangers, as confused as he already is, breaks my heart. And he's my father and this is the -- I guess, the least I could do for him. And he's happy. He's surrounded by photographs that he may or may not know who they are. But they do provide him with a source of comfort. He pretty much recognizes me. He doesn't really know who my 10 brother is. And even my son, who lives in the same house, he's not sure of, but yet these people are familiar, so they are a source of comfort for him.

>> Reporter: When asked to take part in the national PBS documentary on caregiving "And Thou Shalt Honor," Block wanted to make sure, she, her family and her father would be treated with respect.

>> Ethelinn: I wasn't quite sure -- my brother and I wanted to make sure this wasn't disease of the week. We wanted to make sure that it was done professionally and most of all respectfully. So we didn't know. So we were tentative on it until we actually met the producers and questioned him. 'Cause we wanted to make sure that it was going to be respectful to my father.

>> Reporter: Block also wanted to make sure her father would be able to handle it.

>> Ethelinn: I was a little bit concerned on how my father would react with a camera in his face all day. But he was okay with that.

>> Reporter: The Block family was more than okay with it. The experience of doing the documentary turned out to be cathartic, because they had never realized how little they had acknowledged what they are doing.

>> Ethelinn: It was a celebration for my family to do this because it is tiring. It is frustrating. It' every word that fits in there altogether, that all of a sudden, we realized as a family and I'm talking about my son, my niece, my nephew, my brother, my sister-in-law. That we're doing it. We're doing it. And we felt so close after it was done and so proud of what we've done. But we realized, what a celebration. We have done it. We were so proud of ourselves. And even after the producers had left, we didn't want to leave. We wanted to stay together as a family and the words weren't ever said, yeah, look what we've done, but the feeling was there and the feeling lasted a long time and will be renewed when we see it on TV, because we did it. We did it.

>> Reporter: Doing the documentary also helped them move past some issues.

>> Ethelinn: Sometimes my brother and I, there's two other siblings involved, and they don't participate at all, and sometimes my brother and I get very bogged down in talking about that. But after we did the documentary, that didn't mean anything anymore, because we were filled with what it did for us, which was very positive. And the kids were filled with it, too. So it was very positive.

>> Reporter: Is she concerned about the world seeing her family's story on television?

>> Ethelinn: No, I have no apprehension. To be very honest, though, when I look at it and I see some of the other caregivers' stories, I go, I have it pretty easy. And I think because I'm living it, you know, and I look at some 12 of those other caregivers' stories, and I honor them because, wow, the things they are doing, the things they are giving up, obviously, I am, too, but I just see what the other people are doing, and it's amazing to me. And I'm proud that I can be one of them.

>> Michael: KAET has partnered with the Area Agency on Aging to make available local resources for caring for elders and loved ones. Here to talk about those, Mary Lynn Kasunic, Executive Director of the Area Agency on Aging, Region One, and Dr. Bill Arnold, professor of communication and social work and Director of the ASU gerontology program. Bill, you've seen the documentary. I understand there are different caregiving situations?

>> Bill Arnold: There are a number of scenarios. We've got the couple you just saw in Mesa. We've got another couple in Mesa caring for each other. One has cancer. The other has MS, and so he has to put her in and out of the chair, in and out of bed, and she says, well I'm care giving, too, because I'm providing emotional and spiritual support for my husband.

>> Michael: Mary Lynn, what's the definition of caregiving? I assume it takes different forms in a lot of different settings.

>> Mary Lynn Kasunic: We use the term "caregiving." I think families see it as caring for their loved ones. When a spouse lived together for years, one of them becomes frail or ill, they care for each other, provide all of the necessary care, bathe them, whatever they need to do in order to do that. And then, of course, then, children, the adult children, also start seeing their family members decline, and you know, they start out with maybe you need to provide transportation, but eventually, if they become more and more frail, they are spending more and more time helping the family stay at home, stay together.

>> Michael: Is there a predominant focusing on let's say children to aging parents? Is there a predominant mode delivering services in the parents' house or bringing the parents into your house? Obviously there are some other settings available?

>> Mary Lynn: Generally, you know, the older adult would prefer to live at home independently, in the home they've lived in for years. So I think most families try to continue doing that so they go out and maybe it's just on weekends at first, and then it's every night, you know, they'll go and check on them. But eventually when the older adult starts get starts getting more and more frail, frequently, they'll try to convince the parent, come live with me because it's easier. They don't have to drive as far, so forth. So they'll try to bring them into their family, but it's still complicating because there are teenage children at home, and you are trying to care for your family member.

>> Michael: In fact, Bill, there has been a lot of writing and commentary done about the baby boom generation being caught in this squeeze.

>> Bill: Absolutely. A case in point I have a friend, a student whose mother had to come live in the home, and what did that do? It displaced the daughter. The daughter had to go to the couch because they needed a bed for mom. So you see that, the boomer, two family incomes, both have to work, they've had their kids later in life, now all of a sudden an aging parent.

>> Michael: What are the demographics of this?

>> Bill: We know that one in every four households are providing some form of caregiving. I think what was need about Ethelinn's statement, she said, we were doing it, we didn't know it was caregiving, we were just doing all of these activities, and then the producers put the label on it and we said oh, my goodness, that's what we're doing. That's going on all over the place.

>> Michael: One of the -- this seems much more prevalent than it used to be. People are -- well, they are living longer, and they also, because of improvements in medical science, they also recover from illnesses that perhaps 20, 30, certainly 50, 60 years ago, they would not have recovered from.

>> Mary Lynn: When I was -- you know 25 years ago when I first started in aging services, you know, we were lucky if a lot of them lived past the age of 68 or 70. It was a heart attack, a stroke, cancer, whatever, and the older person would die. Now with great medical care, we're able to you know, cure or arrest cancer. With good immediate care, we're able to help people recover from strokes and so forth. So what we have is generally -- and people usually don't have major illnesses until they are older. So it's usually in their 80s, 85, 90, and they are living after having major strokes and there is some debilities. So while they were before able to bathe and clean and cook and shop and transport themselves, now family members are coming in and doing that. And you know, it's really interesting, but from the time that you first start helping your parents until they pass away, oftentimes it's 10 to 18 years, and so it's a long period of time that families are then providing that support to their older adults.

>> Michael: Now, carry out the demographics line. We're all getting older. We aren't getting younger. Are we going to strain -- it would seem to me that as the bulge moves, there is going to be a lot more care needers than necessarily there are caregivers. >

> Bill: I think that's absolutely correct. What I'm really concerned about with this boomer population, is they are not volunteering the way their parents did. You can go to Sun City, and you'll find all kinds of 16 volunteers. You used to. And now they are dying off and nobody is replacing them. So in terms of caregiving, as the boomer gets older, who is going to care for them? And if they have to go to a facility, they are not going to go to the same kind of facilities that we have now. And so that's where I think the crisis is going to hit in the area of formal caregiving. What will those facilities look like? Who will provide the care in the home?

>> Michael: All right, that's a logical transition, I think to talk a little bit about what sort of resources are available, Mary Lynn.

>> Mary Lynn: Through federal funding and a little bit of state funding, we're able to provide a variety of assistance to family caregivers, a spouse or an adult child that might be caring for their elderly person. And before I talk about those services, it's so often the caregivers are reluctant to ask for help in the community. They feel, you know, it's my responsibility. My mom took care of me when I was a child, why should I get help. But we very much encourage those caregivers to take advantage of things like respite, where maybe they are caring for an elderly person who has Alzheimer's, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We can come in with a trained professional that will sit with the older adult for four, six, eight hours one day a week, which will give them a break. 17 There are caregiver forums, educational forums in the community. There are support groups for caregivers. Adult aide healthcare. We can even help with transportation and those kinds of services.

>> Michael: Bill, the respite aspect, I think is particularly important because it can act as a steam valve and avoid some dark sides.

>> Bill: A case in point, yesterday there was a story about the show that's going to be on tonight in the newspaper. And I had a fellow come to me and said, help, I'm caring for a Lou Gehrig's patient. I've got to find a way to get respite care, so I provided the booklets. He says, I'm going to burn out if I don't take care of myself, and that's one of the messages we want to get across, is you've got to care for yourself, even though you may want to give 24/7.

> Michael: Dr. Bill Arnold thank you for joining us. Mary Lynn Kasunic, our thanks to you as well.

>>> If you would like to request a copy of the resources, call 602-264-4357 or outside Maricopa County call 1-800-686-1431. Those numbers will be given again during the broadcast of "And Thou Shalt Honor."

>>> If you would like to get a transcript of this or other "Horizon" programs or if you would like to get ready for the general election, go to www.kaet.asu.edu., click on "Horizon." We have summaries of the ballot 18 propositions that you'll be deciding on in November.

>>> Tomorrow, a candidates forum for state treasurer. Meet the two candidates vying for that office, David Petersen and Ruth Solomon.

>>> And Friday, as always, join us for the journalists' roundtable edition of "Horizon." Thank you very much for joining us this Wednesday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a fine one. Good night.