WASHINGTON-The credit union tax exemption got an extra dose of attention last week.
Numerous members of the House and Senate made their support for the credit union tax exemption clear last week during NAFCU's Congressional Caucus, even before any threat to the exemption has surfaced in Congress during the debate over tax reform. At the same time NAFCU was hosting its Caucus CUNA backed its latest "Don't Tax Tuesday" initiative it said boosted the number of messages to Congress in support of the tax exemption to 850,000, primarily using social media. The effort was part of CUNA's broader "Don't Tax My Credit Union" campaign that last week also introduced new Spanish language materials and online support.
Overall, CUNA is estimating that more than 1 million Twitter users were potentially exposed to the #DontTaxMyCU campaign on Don't Tax Tuesday.
Meanwhile, at Congressional Caucus, members of Congress were lining up to remind credit unions of their support for the examption.
"Credit unions have enjoyed the benefit of a tax exemption because you do what others don't do," said Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who served on the board of Heritage Trust CU in Charleston, S.C., for seven years. "You go into communities and make relationships with people that others don't make."
"I've decided to protect our credit union tax status with my voting record," added Scott, a member of the House who was appointed to a Senate vacancy last year.
Rep. Peter King (R-NY) pledged to "fight as hard as I can to ensure no federal corporate income tax is imposed" on credit unions.
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a strong credit union supporter in Congress, said "I am not in any way, shape or form in favor of eliminating the tax exemption."
But perhaps the most important Congressional source made no pledges. Rep. David Camp (R-MI), the chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, appeared by video and spoke about tax reform but did not mention the credit union exemption, despite praising credit union involvement in the debate. "The credit union community has been an active supporter of this [reform] effort," said Camp.
