ERISA News

The IRS has issued Notice 2020-15, addressing requests made to the agency for health savings account (HSA)-related guidance as the nation responds to the challenges of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak in the U.S. and worldwide.

The IRS has issued a news release announcing the postponement of certain tax-related deadlines for Texas winter storm victims. The tax relief postpones various tax filing and payment deadlines that occurred starting on February 11. The entire state of Texas is included in this relief. Additionally, taxpayers in other locations will automatically be added to this relief if the disaster area is further expanded.

The most extensive changes to retirement saving in more than a decade became law when President Trump signed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 (FCAA) on December 20, 2019. While the main purpose of the FCAA was to fund the federal government for the next fiscal year, Congress also added significant retirement provisions to the FCAA by including the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act in the broader bill.

The IRS has issued Notice 2020-6, guidance that addresses required minimum distribution (RMD) reporting by IRA custodians, trustees, and issuers. The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act, contained within the broader Further Consolidated Appropriations Act (FCAA), 2020, altered the age when IRA owners must begin taking mandatory annual distributions, or RMDs. Under a provision of the SECURE Act, those who reach age 70½ in 2020 or a later year can delay beginning RMDs until age 72. Those who reached age 70½ in 2019 or earlier years must continue taking annual RMDs.

The new year promises to provide plentiful opportunities for financial advisors to gain business and to demonstrate expertise to existing clients. As you likely know, the SECURE Act was signed into law on December 20, 2019. Many of the Act’s provisions took effect on January 1, 2020. Most of them offer real benefits to your clients; other provisions may not be as helpful, but you still need to understand them to provide the best service possible. This Retirement Spotlight focuses on a half-dozen SECURE Act provisions that will make the most significant impact on your retirement plan practice.

Late Friday, December 20, President Trump signed into law two spending packages passed by Congress, which avert a government shutdown. One of the packages, the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (FCAA), is comprised of multiple bills—including the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act, which contains several major retirement savings-related provisions. Ascensus’ latest Washington Pulse, released on Friday, discusses these provisions in detail.

For the past three years, Congress has attempted to pass major retirement reform legislation. It has finally succeeded with the year-end passage of two spending packages meant to avert a government shutdown. One of the packages, the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (FCAA), includes multiple bills—including the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act, which contains several major retirement-related provisions. These provisions are nearly identical to those included in an earlier version of the SECURE Act that was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May 2019. At the time of this publication, the President had not yet signed these bills into law. But it is widely anticipated that he will.

The U.S. Senate today voted its approval of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020, as passed by the House of Representatives, with provisions that will fund government operations for the coming fiscal year. Included are provisions of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019, as well as healthcare-related changes.

The House Rules Committee has released text of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, whose provisions are to fund government operations for the coming fiscal year. Included in this legislative text—as many have hoped—are provisions of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019. The SECURE Act was passed as stand-alone legislation earlier this year by the House of Representatives, but was not taken up in the Senate. Inclusion in appropriations legislation was considered the last opportunity for passage of this legislation in 2019. These appropriations must have both House and Senate approval, and signature by President Trump, for the SECURE Act provisions to become law.

In these final days of the 2019 congressional session, as lawmakers negotiated to avert a shutdown of federal government functions and to authorize spending for the coming fiscal year, a number of tax-advantaged savings and health care-related changes found their way into the legislative mix. The majority are provisions found in legislation passed earlier in 2019 by the House of Representatives, in the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act, which is legislation that was not taken up by the Senate.