While credit unions have a history of playing fast and loose with the facts, they now appear willing to say just about anything to distract from the impact of their taxpayer subsidies, ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey wrote in a new op-ed on LinkedIn.
The Credit Union Claim: Romero Rainey cites a recent letter to the editor responding to American Banker coverage of policymakers’ growing skepticism of credit unions amid their historic bank-buying spree. In the letter, America’s Credit Unions claimed its industry contributes more than $2 trillion in tax revenue each year.
Budgetary Creative License: “As it turns out, the credit union trade group appears to be counting all the tax revenue paid by credit union members nationwide to come up with its specious figure,” Romero Rainey writes. “This budgetary creative license surely is a sign that the credit union industry is feeling insecure about the federal tax exemption for more than $2 trillion in credit union assets.” Read the op-ed.