Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act of 2018
Latest action. Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act of 2018
This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to modify requirements for tax-favored retirement savings accounts, employer-provided retirement plans, and retirement benefits for federal judges.
With respect to employer-provided plans, the bill modifies requirements regarding:
multiple employer plans,
automatic enrollment and nonelective contributions,
loans,
terminating or transferring plans,
reporting and disclosure rules,
nondiscrimination rules,
selecting lifetime income providers, and
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation premiums.
The bill also increases the tax credit for small employer pension plan startup costs and allows a tax credit for small employers that establish retirement plans that include automatic enrollment.
With respect to Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), the bill:
treats taxable non-tuition fellowship and stipend payments as compensation,
repeals the maximum age for traditional IRA contributions, and
permits any IRA to be a shareholder of any S corporation that is a bank.
The bill makes several modifications to retirement benefits for magistrate judges of the U.S. Tax Court and other federal judges.
The bill also modifies various tax provisions to:
reinstate and increase the tax exclusion for benefits provided to volunteer firefighters and emergency medical responders,
revise the required distribution rules for pension plans,
increase penalties for failing to file tax or retirement plan returns, and
require the Internal Revenue Service to share returns and return information with U.S. Customs Border Protection to administer the heavy vehicle use tax.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in Senate" stage on March 8, 2018. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on March 8, 2018: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the Senate
- Passage by the House
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 115th Congress (2017-18), 442 of the 11,421 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.9 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
ORRIN HATCH (R-UT) introduced it on March 8, 2018, and 1 member has since signed on as a cosponsor.
They are 1 Democrat.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on March 8, 2018, 3108 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 3108 days ago, on March 8, 2018.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 115th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2019 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- SenateIn committee, no floor vote yet
- HouseAwaits Senate passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers