Newsroom

March 22, 2017

Sen. Rounds tells bankers to leave CU tax exemption alone

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., a member of the Senate Banking Committee, urged bankers to drop their lobbying against credit unions' tax exemption during an American Bankers Association meeting in Washington yesterday.

American Banker quoted Rounds saying, "When it comes to regulatory reform and when it comes to a lot of the other challenges that are out there, you are going to have to agree to disagree on the issue of taxes with those credit unions and you are going to have to find a way to work with them with a lot of the other regulatory reforms."

In his comments, Rounds stressed that banks and credit unions would need to work together to accomplish key regulatory Dodd-Frank Act reforms. "Agree to separate [credit unions' tax exemption] out, please, when you are talking about the regulatory reforms," he is quoted saying. "I think you can get the regulatory reform, but you and the credit unions are going to have to work together to get that done."

Preservation of the credit union tax exemption continues to be NAFCU's top priority.

In January, NAFCU reported an independent study showing the positive impact that the credit union tax exemption has on consumers, businesses and the economy. In the 10 years examined in the study (2006-2015), researchers found that the total benefit of credit unions' presence in financial markets was $159 billion.

Credit unions are encouraged to visit NAFCU's Grassroots Action Center to contact their members of Congress about protecting the industry's tax exemption.