Utah CU Foes Take Fight To FederalLevel

SALT LAKE CITY - (11/05/04) -- Foiled in their attempts to taxstate-chartered credit unions in Utah, the state legislature'sFinancial Institutions Task Force is carrying its fight to thenational level and plans to ask Congress for its help in pursuingits anti-credit union efforts. Task force members, angered overlast year's escape by the state's biggest credit unions to thetax-exempt shield of a federal charter, met Thursday to debate anon-binding resolution it plans to send to the legislature urgingCongress to restructure NCUA, override the federal preemption ofall state taxes for federal credit unions, and adopt Utah's conceptof 'exempt' and 'non-exempt' credit unions which are eligible toretain their tax exemption, according to a draft copy of theresolution obtained by The Credit Union Journal. "It's ugly," ScottSimpson, president of the Utah Association of CUs, told The CreditUnion Journal after Thursday's meeting. The task force is expectedto meet again Nov. 30 to vote final wording on the resolution,which would be sent to the legislature for its approval.