Elizabeth Kelly is a senior vice president at United Income.
The "most significant" changes included in the recently proposed SECURE Act and RESA bill fall into two buckets: efforts to get more small businesses to offer workplace retirement savings plans and changes to IRA rules, including on required minimum distributions, according to Elizabeth Kelly, the former special assistant to the president on the National Economic Council for the Obama administration.
Kelly, who is now senior vice president of operations at United Income, a retirement planning firm, told ThinkAdvisor in a Wednesday email message that both the Senate Finance Committee's Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act (RESA) and the House Ways and Means Committee's Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement, or SECURE, Act "would allow older Americans still in the workforce to continue making tax-deferred contributions to traditional IRAs after age 70.5, rather than just post-tax contributions to Roth IRAs and brokerages."
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While intended to help older Americans who are still working, Kelly said, "this is a small percentage of the population: 14.09% of people age 71-80 report being in the labor force," citing the January 2019 Current Population Survey.
Both bills, Kelly points out, "would also raise revenue by requiring inheritors of 401(k) plan and IRA balances (with some exceptions, like spouses or minor children) to withdraw the entirety of the balance within 10 years of the account owner's death."
The SECURE Act passed the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday, and is said to be headed to the House floor soon. The Senate Finance Committee's RESA bill was introduced Monday and no committee action is scheduled yet.
Indeed, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said on the Senate floor Wednesday that the RESA bill "is paid for," with the main offsetting provision involving the "option under current law for a person to pass along his or her IRA or 401(k) account to a family member or other beneficiary."
Under current law, Grassley said, "the recipient of that account can keep the inherited funds in the tax deferred account and save for their own retirement if they take out a required minimum distribution amount each year," what's often referred to as a stretch IRA.
