‘Don’t Tax Tuesday’ highlights social value of credit unions
WASHINGTON (Sept. 10, 2013) — With Congress returning to session this week, the R Street Institute supports the goals of “Don’t Tax Tuesday,” today’s online and social media blitz to educate lawmakers about the social value provided by member-owned, not-for-profit credit unions.
As part of today’s events, credit unions and their supporters are using the #DontTaxMyCU hash tag on Facebook and Twitter to get out the message that credit unions’ non-profit status allows them to serve members effectively, extend personal and business credit more broadly and work to offer valuable financial services to communities that have been historically underserved.
“Eliminating credit unions’ tax exemption would shrink economic growth, make financial products more expensive, lead to a net loss of government revenues and imperil tens of thousands of jobs,” R Street Senior Fellow R.J. Lehmann said. “Research demonstrates that the credit union model works. Rather than trying to make credit unions more like banks, lawmakers and regulators should take lessons from that model and see if there are way to make banks more like credit unions.”
There are currently about 7,000 credit unions with roughly 96 million members in the United States. As part of the first “Don’t Tax Tuesday” on July 23, credit unions and their supporters generated more than 2,100 direct tweets to members of Congress and exposed nearly 1.5 million social media users to their message.
For more information on “Don’t Tax Tuesday,” visit DontTaxMyCreditUnion.org.
