Des Moines, Iowa — A key lawmaker from Hull is saying that a long-simmering argument in the financial sector may be debated as the legislature considers changes in Iowa’s tax code. Republican Senator Randy Feenstra is chairman of the Senate committee that drafts tax policy.
The state’s banking industry argues credit unions should lose their NON-profit status and should have profits taxed like banks. Iowa Bankers Association C-E-O John Sorenson.
Justin Hupfer is vice president of government affairs for the Iowa Credit Union League.
Sorenson, the president of the Iowa Bankers Association, accuses Iowa credit unions of veering from their original mission by doing “a good deal of commercial lending” and placing branches in wealthy neighborhoods.
The Jordan Creek mall is in West Des Moines, one of the state’s fast-growing suburbs where yearly household incomes are about 16-thousand dollars higher than the statewide average. Hupfer from the Iowa Credit Union League counters that three-quarters of the loans approved by the state’s credit unions go to low-and-moderate income Iowans.
There was a debate in CONGRESS about federal taxation of banks and credits, but the FEDERAL tax bill did not alter the tax status for credit unions. There was a brief debate in the Iowa legislature 15 years ago about increasing state taxes on credit unions after the University of Iowa Credit Union made a bid to buy a bank. However, the bill never made it past the committee level and the credit union didn’t wind up acquiring the bank.
