Posted by Richard Rider at 11:59 pm on Mar 11, 2018 Comments Off on Tax law change makes paying union dues more painful. Good!
Most public employee labor union dues are used to elect
politicians or to pass (or oppose) propositions. The actual
percentage of these dues spent on politics is unknown, as the
unions report whatever they want, and there’s no independent
audit. There is no oversight of this reporting process by the
IRS, FTB, or any other government agency.
The unions generally claim that about 25%-30% of union
dues are spent on politics and politicians. In the rare
instance where a court looks in detail at labor union political
spending, the figure the court comes up with is usually a more
realistic (but in my estimation still understated) 60% to
70%.
Up until the Trump tax reform, one ridiculous subsidy for
the labor unions was to allow such dues to be deducted by
individual union members on their federal and state income tax
filings. It was allowed as a “miscellaneous deduction,” which
combined with other miscellaneous write-offs had to exceed 2% of
adjusted gross income (AGI). to be used as a deduction.
In essence, this allowed many union members to deduct
certain insurance payments buried in the… Read More