蜜桃影视

Mike Antonucci鈥檚 Union Report appears most Wednesdays; see the full archive.

Soon after the election, the National Education Association released its 鈥溾�� in which it recommended initiatives in 27 areas for the incoming federal government to champion. Among these was 鈥渢ax fairness.鈥�

The union wants to 鈥渞epeal or amend certain tax breaks in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) for the wealthy and corporations, and replace them with a progressive tax system based on individual and corporate ability to pay in order to yield sufficient revenues to address national needs.鈥� Additionally, NEA opposes 鈥渢ax loopholes or giveaways that reduce revenues and shelter corporations and high-income individuals from paying taxes.鈥�

Then, the day before Thanksgiving, NEA filed its annual financial disclosure report with the U.S. Department of Labor. It revealed that the union took in $375 million in dues during the 2019-20 school year, all of it tax-free. That was $6 million more than in the previous year.

That鈥檚 not all. NEA sold more than $209 million of its stocks and securities during the year, an increase of more than 3,200 percent from 2018-19. For an individual or a business, such a large selloff would trigger a large capital gains tax bill. But NEA is exempt from capital gains taxes.

But when an organization accumulates that much cash, it doesn鈥檛 stuff it into mattresses. NEA reinvested its profits into stocks and other securities to the tune of $278.5 million.

NEA is also specifically . A little back-of-the-envelope math using D.C.鈥檚 property tax rates and the $102.8 million value of NEA鈥檚 headquarters building comes to about a $1.8 million tax exemption.

NEA doesn鈥檛 operate entirely tax-free. It still must pay income tax on 鈥渦nrelated business income.鈥� That is, revenue from businesses placing ads in NEA publications, book sales and the like. All told, the union paid $7.2 million in direct taxes of all types on more than $603 million in gross revenue in 2019-20. That鈥檚 an effective tax rate of 1.2 percent.

NEA鈥檚 policy playbook declares the union鈥檚 opposition to 鈥渁rbitrary maximum limits on any state or local government鈥檚 ability to spend or tax, particularly since such limits have a negative impact on the full funding of schools.鈥� How is NEA鈥檚 privileged tax position benefiting D.C.鈥檚 public schools?

To be sure, there are legions of tax-exempt organizations with a wide variety of missions, and they span the entire political spectrum. But you won鈥檛 find too many as wealthy as the National Education Association spending those tax-free revenues on campaigns to insist that others pay their 鈥渇air share.鈥�

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