Legislative Update with Jay Kruse

​Senator Thune on the IRS Reporting Proposal: “This is a bad idea, and it should be destined for the ash heap of history.”  Video with Senator’s full comments here. 

by Jay Kruse, Chief Advocacy Officer

“This is a bad idea, and it should be destined for the ash heap of history.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself, but those are the words of U.S. Senator John Thune (R-SD) as he joined Senators Crapo (R-ID) and Toomey (R-PA) to specifically denounce the sweeping IRS Reporting Proposal in a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Adding, “Doubling the size of the IRS and allowing them to literally go out and shake down millions of Americans, and hit lower income Americans with bigger tax bills, is a really bad idea.”
​

​Click here or on the picture above to watch the Senator’s full comments.

We can’t thank Senator Thune enough for stepping up and being an outspoken critic of this very intrusive proposal, as credit union advocates from across the nation have sent over 600,000 messages to Congress in less than a month. The Senator mentions during the press conference that his office has received thousands of letters from concern South Dakotans, and over 10,185 of those were generated through our online credit union Action Alert!

As you can see, the battle over this issue is not over.
We have even more Dakota credit unions reaching out to their members this week, with the help of CUNA’s Member Activation Program (MAP) which provides plug and play email templates and social media resources that you are able to personally brand and push out to your members, urging them to Take Action. Along with the templates and social media resources, we also have separate talking points for credit union front-line staff as well as management, to help ensure you and all your employees can answer any questions your members may have as this proposal gains more media attention in the weeks to come.

Changes have not been good.
There have been some recent talks about making some changes, however every time this proposal changes, it gets worse. Increasing the threshold from $600 to $10,000 would still ensnare all taxpayers with a credit union or bank accounts and making minimum wage or above. The change as to the number of Americans this would affect would be miniscule, at best. And any reporting requirement – even something designed to target the truly rich – would force credit unions of all sizes to adjust their systems to comply. Next, expect to hear that the proposal will be tailored to exclude “wages” from the aggregate calculations. How will that work? Your guess is as good as mine.

Please reach out ASAP if you would like to learn more or enlist the IRS Reporting Proposal MAP resources and staff talking points. We need to continue our efforts in fighting this! As always, feel free to contact me with any questions or comments on our advocacy efforts.