Tag: Legislation

A panel of expert witnesses from across the financial services domain discussed shortcomings and opportunities for improvement in the U.S. retirement savings system; they urged House members to embrace bipartisanship and commonsense solutions.

Speaking to the Joint Select Committee on the Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans, one retired Teamster, whose wife is dying from pancreatic cancer, said he could easily end up losing his home and going bankrupt if his pension is cut by the 55% his plan’s trustees are seeking.

Commenting on new Social Security deficit projection figures published this week, Rob Fishbein, corporate counsel at Prudential Financial, says it’s not time to hit the panic button yet—but it is time to take very seriously the retirement income challenge individuals face.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association wants a federal district court to halt the program, based on ERISA preemption and the possibility that home-owning Californians could be called on to pay additional taxes to support Secure Choice, which aims at opening up retirement investing opportunities.

Adjustments made to the corporate tax rate, repatriation of offshore cash and interest rate deductibility all are likely to have immediate effects on the credit markets—and by extension, on institutional investors’ fixed-income portfolios.

Both aim to promote employee ownership and have bipartisan support.

Since the 20% deduction of qualified business income means that a self-employed individual will be taxed at a lower rate than an employee performing substantially the same work with a broker/dealer firm, might more brokerage employees be driven to act as independent contractors?

Alongside numerous proposed changes, employees who work for three consecutive years with at least 500 hours of service each year would have to be made eligible to participate in an employer’s plan, but would be excluded from top-heavy and nondiscrimination testing.

Congressional Republicans have successfully pushed a unified version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act through the House once, and they may now have to do it again. 

The text of a combined bill drawing together the House and Senate proposals is slowly emerging ahead of critical up-or-down floor votes scheduled for early next week.

It appears some last-minute amendments have largely removed controversial provisions from the Senate’s version of tax reform legislation that would have had a big impact on governmental 457 and nonprofit 403(b) plan sponsors.

With the passage of the Senate’s version of tax reform, the stage is set for a bicameral conference committee process through which a select group of legislators will try to rectify the House and Senate bill texts.