ASAE Applauds Repeal of Nonprofit Employee Benefits Tax
WASHINGTON—ASAE and its Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT) Coalition applaud Congress for repealing a section of the 2017 tax law that required associations and other tax-exempt organizations to pay UBIT on employee benefits such as parking and transportation. The provision to repeal the nonprofit tax was rolled into a massive, bipartisan year-end spending and tax package that House and Senate negotiators agreed to this week.
Repealing this harmful tax has been the top legislative priority for ASAE and its UBIT Coalition over the past two years, and ASAE thanks the many nonprofit advocates who have amplified the tax-exempt community’s voice about this issue on Capitol Hill.
“The ASAE community not only mobilized quickly after this misguided tax was passed as part of the 2017 tax law, but sustained a years-long advocacy and grassroots campaign to educate lawmakers about how this tax unfairly expanded the UBIT statute to tax basic parking and transit benefits that nonprofits provide to their employees,” said Susan Robertson, CAE, ASAE interim president and CEO. “ASAE thanks its members and the UBIT Coalition for persistently and convincingly making the case that this tax should be repealed to allow associations and other nonprofit organizations to focus their limited resources on mission-oriented programs and services that benefit society.”
ASAE and the UBIT Coalition also wish to thank the legislators on both sides of the aisle who understood the compliance challenges and administrative burdens that the employee fringe benefits tax created for nonprofit groups, and championed repeal. Ultimately, Congress recognized that nonprofit employee benefits like parking and transit assistance are not a trade or business conducted for the production of income and therefore should not be regarded as taxable under the UBIT statute.
ASAE and the UBIT Coalition urge President Trump to swiftly sign the bipartisan spending and tax legislation into law and enable nonprofit groups to focus on fulfilling their tax-exempt purposes without undue burden.
MEDIA CONTACT: Lauren Precker, CAE, lprecker@asaecenter.org, 202-626-2735.
About ASAE
ASAE is celebrating 100 years of making society smarter, better and safer. The Centennial anniversary represents ASAE’s role as a leader and supporter of progress and innovation in the association industry. ASAE is a membership organization of more than 48,000 association executives and industry partners representing 7,400 organizations. Since it was established 100 years ago, its members have and continue to lead, manage, and work in or partner with organizations in more than a dozen association management disciplines, from executive management to finance to technology. With the support of the ASAE Research Foundation, a separate nonprofit entity, ASAE is the premier source of learning, knowledge, and future-oriented research for the association and nonprofit profession and provides resources, education, ideas, and advocacy to enhance the power and performance of the association and nonprofit community. Visit ASAE at asaecenter.org .