Lawmakers Sculpt Pension Bill

Members of a congressional conference committee might agree to a pension reform bill provision that would phase in permission for insurers to include long term care benefits riders with annuities.

Members of the conference committee also might, or might not, include the House version of a provision that would let insurance agents and other financial professionals provide investment advice to members of retirement plans. (The American Council of Life Insurers, Washington, likes the House version.)

And there is even some talk that an estate tax repeal provision might sneak into the pension reform bill.

Members of conference committee hope to resolve their differences and complete work on the pension reform bill by June 16.

Negotiations aimed at completing work on the pension bill began in earnest May 23, according to comments that Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., made to tax lobbyists at a fundraiser at a Washington steakhouse.

Baucus, the most senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, also told the lobbyists about the speculation that Republicans might attach estate tax repeal to the pension bill.

Marc Cadin, a lobbyist with the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting, Falls Church, Va., who did not attend the fundraiser, said “there was no credence” to the suggestion that estate tax repeal might show up in the pension bill.

Congress probably will vote on repealing the estate tax before the conference committee completes work on the pension bill, Cadin says.