A Message From President & CEO Doug Wareham Luxury-Box-Sized Profiteering by an In-Your-Face Nonprofit Credit Union Anyone traveling to or from Kansas City International Airport has grown accustomed to seeing billboard-sized ads featuring perennial NFL superstar Patrick Mahomes promoting CommunityAmerica Credit Union as the exclusive banking and wealth management partner of the Kansas City Chiefs. More recently, MLB superstar Bobby Witt Jr. joined the campaign, highlighting CommunityAmerica as the designated mortgage lender for the Kansas City Royals. The nonprofit credit union’s support for the Chiefs and Royals also extends to luxury experiences, including naming rights for the premium-seating Crown Club section behind home plate at Kauffman Stadium and the CommunityAmerica Club Level at Arrowhead Stadium, which offers temperature-controlled concourses, upscale dining and exclusive access to VIP lounges. This high-cost marketing strategy raises a serious question: Did federal lawmakers envision strategic partnerships with highly compensated sports celebrities and multibillion-dollar sports franchises — complete with upscale dining and VIP lounges — when Congress granted nonprofit credit unions their federal income tax exemption in 1937? I sincerely doubt it. Representatives of the credit union industry continue to defend that tax-exempt status by arguing that credit unions operate as nonprofit, member-owned cooperatives rather than profit-driven corporations. But that claim raises another important question: Where is all this money coming from to pay for celebrity spokespersons and naming rights for premium sporting-event experiences, if not from funds that should be benefiting CommunityAmerica’s members? CommunityAmerica Credit Union’s leaders are not stopping with their Kansas City sports-market blitz. They recently announced a 13-year, $70 million naming-rights agreement with the University of Arkansas Razorbacks that will rename the SEC school’s Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium as CommunityAmerica Razorback Stadium. That amounts to a $5 million annual investment by the Kansas City-based nonprofit and will also give the credit union rebranding rights to the premium-experience SEC Club, enjoyed by some of the wealthiest members of Razorback Nation. Once again, I question whether a nonprofit, member-owned cooperative spending millions on premium sporting-event experiences associated with an SEC team’s most affluent supporters is what Congress had in mind when it exempted credit unions from federal income taxes. Congress has a responsibility to police the use of tax benefits granted to nonprofit credit unions and any other organizations benefiting from a federally mandated tax exemption. And each of us — as individual income taxpayers and as businesses subject to federal income tax — has a duty to speak up when we witness the abuse of an exemption that increases the tax burden on those not granted this special tax treatment. Regrettably, Congress has not held an oversight hearing focused on the tax-exempt status of large, dare I say profit-minded, credit unions since 2005. That’s right: It has been 21 years — more than two decades — since Congress publicly asked tough questions of supposedly nonprofit credit unions using their tax-exempt status to pay millions to elite celebrity spokespersons and outbid prominent for-profit companies. Walmart and Tyson Foods immediately come to mind in Arkansas, where they were apparently outbid by a cooperatively owned nonprofit credit union from Kansas City. If the in-your-face-to-taxpayers approach being taken by CommunityAmerica Credit Union doesn’t trigger stronger oversight from Congress, I’m not sure what will. 4
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