Excerpts from today's America's Credit Unions advocacy update

Caroline Willard

America's Credit Unions hosted an advocacy update webinar for credit union and league members—nearly 900 people attended the live webinar. President/CEO Jim Nussle led the update with Chief Advocacy Officer Carrie Hunt, and Patrick Conway, CrossState Credit Union Association President/CEO and AACUL Board Chair, and Caroline Willard, Cornerstone League President/CEO, also provided insights.
 
This update focused on letting credit unions know where we're at in the tax writing process, America's Credit Unions' strategy—up to this point and ongoing--is to keep the credit union tax status out of the bill, and urge all credit unions and industry allies to contact lawmakers directly utilizing resources through the Don't Tax My Credit Union campaign. America's Credit Unions will continue providing regular updates as lawmakers work through the reconciliation process.
 
A few excerpts from the conversation are below. If you would like to further discuss America's Credit Unions and system-wide advocacy efforts to protect the tax status, I would be happy to help arrange.
 
On Tax:
"All of our messaging strategy has been to talk about the credit union difference what we do for our members, how you use that credit union difference, including the tax incentive that we have for the benefit of our communities and the members that we serve. And that's been our message for years, not just since the Trump tax cuts passed in 2017, but the President has put this on the agenda." - Jim Nussle
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"Being able to talk about how you're moving the needle in your community, how you're making a difference for your members, how you can show that in the outcomes of their financial lives is crucial to being able to defend, rationalize the fact that we have a special tax status to back up the mission that we're trying to do. We've also backed it up with other data about what's happening in the economy. The fact that 20,000 bank branches have closed just since the Great Recession...at the same time that credit unions have opened 600 branches—many of these in underserved communities, rural areas in urban areas, places across the country where without that bank branch, without any branch, there's a good chance their only option is payday or something like that, particularly on the margin." - Jim Nussle

"'Don't tax my credit union' is definitely, to some extent, an advocacy threat. Don't tax 140 million members of credit unions across the country. Why would you? Why would you extend a tax cut and at the same time pick on the most challenged people in the country—consumer members of credit unions, 140 million of them who are often on the margins—and say, those services may not be available to you. Your taxes are going to go up, because that's how credit unions operate. We pass the profit, so to speak, on to our members." - Jim Nussle

"I really believe this is a defining moment. This is the biggest threat that we've faced in a very long time. I think it's our objective collectively, the trade associations, the infrastructure that advocates so well for credit unions across the country, to provide clear guidance to our credit unions and to provide trusted leadership as we advocate on your behalf and engage you with those efforts as we move forward. And you know every credit union story shared, every lawmaker engaged, and every advocate activated is making a difference. So thank you. Thank you to all of our credit unions...that have worked with our team and really rolled their sleeves up and done a great job. And if there's any message I would leave all of you with today, is keep going. As Jim said, this is the time to do it...We're stronger than we are on our own, and that's the unique strength of the credit union system." - Patrick Conway

"You may think this is a uniquely U.S. scenario, but I just got back from Africa last week, and we were talking to the Uganda Credit Unions, whose tax status is expiring in 2027, about the importance of preserving the difference of credit unions, because we've seen other international examples like in Australia, where the tax status went away, and then there was a sharp decline in the number and vitality of credit unions in that country. So we have an obligation as U.S. credit unions to do an extraordinarily good job in this fight, because I don't think I'm being dramatic when, by saying that if our domino falls, other dominoes could fall. So I don't take that lightly. I don't think anyone on this call does." - Caroline Willard

On NCUA:
"What we've tried to say very clearly is number one, we want and support, and will continue to advocate for, an independent agency to regulate credit unions. Number one. Second is that we want a full contingency of board members to do that job. And we believe that's not only important from a following the law standpoint. But it's also primarily important from a stability standpoint. Credit unions, like a lot of other financial institutions, thrive on stability, thrive on predictability, understanding what's coming, being able to manage risk, and whenever that is uncertain, it can cause challenges. So, we are going to continue to advocate for a 3-member board. We've called on the President and the Administration to nominate members and to work through the nomination process." - Jim Nussle

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