The credit union tax exemption has been valued at $12.7 billion between 2015 and 2019, according to Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation.

Corporate tax reform is likely to be on the agenda, particularly in the second year of the next Congress, according to G. William Hoagland, the former Republican staff director of the Senate Budget Committee. Hoagland, now SVP at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank, said that means tax expenditures are likely to be high on the list. He added, however, that if Congress is determined to encourage personal savings, the credit union tax exemption may be low on the list.

Credit unions are always ready to defend the state and federal tax exemptions they now have, lobbyists said.

“It's never difficult to motivate credit unions on the tax issue,” John McKechnie, a senior partner at Total Spectrum, said. “If a tax bill is introduced with even a hint of a threat to the credit union tax exemption, credit unions will respond in an overwhelming fashion.”

Most recently, credit unions helped convince a controversial conservative group that writes model legislation on various issues to recommend that state legislatures examine tax expenditures every 10 years, rather than every two years.

The American Legislative Exchange Council is an organization that bills itself as advocating free market policies that limit government power. Critics, such as The Center for Media and Democracy, contend that ALEC writes model legislation that benefits the big businesses that fund the group. In recent years, groups as varied as the AARP and the Coca-Cola Company have resigned from the organization.

Still it is influential because its members are state legislators across the country.

For a few years, ALEC model tax policy called for examining tax expenditures every two years, according to Jonathan Williams, ALEC's vice president of tax and fiscal policy. At its national convention, the group amended that model legislation to call for such an examination every 10 years.

“A 10-year window would have a better effect,” he said, adding, “It seems like this was a consensus position.”

That policy now goes to the full ALEC board.

CUNA was among the groups that met with ALEC officials and pushed for the 10-year review, according to Ryan Donovan, CUNA's chief advocacy officer.

“We made something that was significantly bad less bad,” he said. “You want to have more certainty in the tax code.”

CUNA and state leagues recently were active at the legislative summit of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Several developments signal that CUNA and others may need to make a similar effort on the federal level next year.

The federal debt continues to soar and tax reform is the first step in solving that problem, according to former Rep. Charles Stenholm (D-Texas), who, during his 26 years in the House was a noted budget hawk.

“That has to be on the top of the list,” Stenholm, now a senior policy adviser at the Washington-based law firm of Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Matz, said. “You can't solve the debt problem by cutting taxes.”

And for tax reform to be enacted, Congress must decide that no issue is sacrosanct – including the credit union tax exemption.

“Nothing can be taken off the table,” he said. “If you argue that it has to be taken off the table, you can't get [tax reform] done.”

The influential Tax Foundation, a group that performs non-partisan tax research, released an updated report stating tax expenditures need a close look, but not all should be eliminated.

“Only the … ones designed entirely to subsidize specific industries deserve outright elimination,” the foundation said. “This kind of expenditure is usually the kind that people are most eager to eliminate. However, precisely because people are so eager to eliminate them, there are fewer of these than one might imagine.”

House Republicans agreed that such benefits need a close look.

“The tax code is littered with hundreds of preferences and subsidies that pick winners and losers and create complexity,” the Republicans, including House Ways and Means Committee Chair Kevin Brady (R-Texas), said in the policy document. “Instead of free-market competition that rewards success, our tax code directs resources to politically favored interests, creating a drag on economic growth and job creation.”

“This blueprint generally will eliminate special interest deductions and credits in favor of providing lower tax rates for all businesses and eliminating taxes on business investment,” the Republicans said. “This will allow business decisions to be made based on the economic potential rather than the availability of targeted tax benefits.”

Rep. Stephen King (R-Iowa) has asked Brady to request that the Government Accountability Office update a report on the credit union tax exemption, contending that the financial institutions may not deserve the tax break anymore.

Stenholm said the largest credit unions are larger than many banks and may be vulnerable if the tax exemption is examined.

“The big ones need to be looked at,” he said.

Of course, given the partisan bickering that has resulted in gridlock on Capitol Hill in recent years, Congress may not be able to tackle anything complex – let alone something as complicated as the tax code.

“Unless the culture of Congress changes, I don't think it will get done,” Dorgan said.

McKechnie agreed.

“For the last several years, tax reform has reminded me of what was said about the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1950s: Wait 'til next year,” he said. “The political conditions never seem quite right for a bill to take shape and start moving. With a new administration coming to town, it will be interesting to see if that changes the dynamic.”