Legislative updates

The Family Plus Health Care Act of 2022 (H.R. 6508), introduced by Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) in the House of Representatives, aims to expand group health plan coverage by requiring plans to offer participants the option of enrolling their parents in the plan, as long as the parents are not eligible to enroll in either Medicare or Medicaid.

The cost of the parents’ group health plan coverage would be excluded from the gross income of the employee participating in the plan. Self-employed individuals would be allowed to claim a deduction for the amount that they paid to insure their parents.

The term ‘parent’ includes an individual’s biological parent, a stepparent, and a parent by adoption, but does not include a spouse’s parent. If enacted, this legislation would apply to any amounts paid or incurred after the bill’s date of enactment.

On November 19, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act ("BBB Act" or "the Act"). Following quickly on the heels of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the BBB Act contains several retirement and benefits provisions that may affect financial organizations, service providers, and consumers. This bill has gone through numerous revisions as it made its journey to the House floor for a vote. It will now go to the Senate, which will likely make further revisions. So the Act’s final version—if passed by both the House and Senate—may be different from the current version.

The House of Representatives passed the $1.9 trillion Build Back Better bill in a 220-213 near party line vote. The House-passed version of the bill contains several IRA provisions, including

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the Act), signed by President Biden on November 15, 2021, includes extensions to the single employer pension funding relief originally provided in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA). Other provisions include modifications to the mandatory 60-day postponement period, which grants relief to taxpayers for certain tax-related acts due to federally declared disasters and new reporting requirements for transactions involving digital assets. The effective dates vary—pension funding relief provisions apply to plan years beginning after December 31, 2021; the disaster relief changes are effective for federally declared disasters that occur after November 15, 2021; and the new reporting requirements for digital assets apply to information reports required to be filed after December 31, 2023.

Leadership from the House Committee on Education and Labor and its Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions have introduced the Retirement Improvement and Savings Enhancement (RISE) Act to expand worker access to a secure retirement.

The much-anticipated Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the Act) has passed the House of Representatives months after its approval in the Senate. The legislation contains the following noteworthy provisions.

Representative Jim Himes (D-CT) and Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) have announced legislation to establish universal, portable retirement accounts. The Portable Retirement and Investment Account (PRIA) Act of 2021 would create such accounts for every American at birth, in conjunction with the issuance of a Social Security number.

The House Ways and Means Committee has released additional legislative text as part of its tax portion of the anticipated $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. If enacted, the proposal would impose several restrictions on IRAs.

The House Ways and Means Committee has released draft legislative text as part of what is currently planned to be a $3.5 trillion tax and spending package. The proposal would require employers without an employer-sponsored retirement plan to automatically enroll their employees in an automatic IRA plan or other retirement arrangement at a rate of at least 6 percent and increasing annually to 10 percent of compensation beginning in 2023. Representative Richard Neal (D-MA) previously proposed such legislation under the Automatic Retirement Plan Act of 2017. The current proposal exempts employers with 5 or fewer employees earning at least $5,000, or those that have been in business for less than 2 years from these requirements. The legislation includes enhancements to credits for small employers to offset plan costs and imposes an excise tax of $10 per participant per day to employers that fail to provide an automatic arrangement.

Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) have introduced legislation that would make permanent certain rules for distributions and loans from retirement plans and IRAs in connection with federally declared disasters. This legislation is intended to aid victims by providing consistent treatment of and improving response times associated with disaster relief.