Congress and the Evolving SECURE Act

With a 414 to 5 vote, the House of Representatives recently approved a second bill — the Securing a Strong Retirement Act of 2022 — that would continue to tweak the rules for contributing to and withdrawing from retirement savings vehicles. Nicknamed SECURE 2.0, the legislation was introduced by Reps. Richard Neal (D-MA) and Kevin Brady (R-TX), the two Congressmen who spearheaded passage of the original SECURE Act. The bill aims to encourage Americans to save more for retirement, in part by making that process easier. Now that SECURE 2.0 has passed the House, it's on its way to the Senate. The most recent iteration, the Enhancing American Retirement Now (EARN) Act, sailed through the Senate Finance Committee on June 22 on a vote of 28 to 0. (Prior coverage: Tax Notes Federal, June 27, 2022, p. 2067.) At the markup hearing on June 22, senators touted various aspects of the more than 70 provisions in the proposal. The text of the Act is available at https://bit.ly/3PjX7rj

'Rise and Shine'

In addition to SECURE 2.0, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee approved the Retirement Improvement and Savings Enhancement to Supplement Healthy Investments for the Nest Egg (RISE & SHINE) Act (S. 4353) on June 14. There are plenty of conceptual common denominators in the bills — from penalty-free withdrawals in some situations to expanded credits for small employers — which means that congressional efforts to coordinate and combine them in the coming months are feasible. The common themes in the proposals include incentives that would help taxpayers across income levels, but not everyone agrees that balancing the benefits among lower-income and higher-income taxpayers is appropriate. It's widely expected that a law to enhance retirement savings will pass sometime this year, given the strong bipartisan support and the nearly unanimous backing of the original SECURE Act. Whether the final law that is eventually enacted will be SECURE 2.0, another bill in the Senate that is similar to SECURE 2.0 but has some differences, or a combination of the two, is right now anyone's guess.