Sacramento Standard

F. Vincent Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker, recently criticized new legislation that makes union dues a tax credit in the state of California.

“Unions spend millions on politics and allowing a tax deduction for dues is essentially forcing taxpayers to subsidize the union political agenda,” Vernuccio told the Sacramento Standard recently.

The new law, signed in June by Gov. Gavin Newsom, takes California’s existing tax deduction for union dues payments and makes it a tax credit capped at 33% of dues paid, giving union members a bigger tax break—even for union members who don’t have a tax liability; a Forbes report said. It is the first law of its kind in the country.

“By making union dues tax deductible, Democrats are essentially making it more financially viable for people to contribute to organizations that help elect Democrats,” said Dominic Pino, a National Review Institute fellow, in an article quoted by Forbes.

Pino also cited political spending data from Open Secrets, a website that aggregates public data on political spending, which showed that 90% of union donations to federal campaigns during the 2020 election cycle was directed to Democrats.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data reported that 15.9% of workers in California are unionized, therefore the new tax break will not be available to the vast majority of California workers.

California, however, has a higher percentage of unionized workers than the United States overall, which has approximately 10% of the workforce unionized; a Wikipedia report said.