Secure Act 'Unlikely to Move Forward' This Year: Sen. Cardin

While senators remain hopeful that the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (Secure) Act will get passed this year, “we don’t know whether it will finally make it to the finish line,” Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said Wednesday.

Speaking at the AICPA National Tax Conference in Washington, Cardin said that the Secure Act “includes some critically important provisions that affect the ability of some pension plans to be able to continue.”

Cardin told attendees that “there’s a lot that we [lawmakers] should be doing in the area of tax policy, but I’m not sure a lot of this will get done” in 2019.

“A long time ago we agreed to some pension changes under the Secure Act; it was pre-conferenced between the House and Senate and an agreed package was supposed to move very quickly,” Cardin said. “Well, it [Secure] has been stalled now for about a year.”

Cardin said he’s “worked with several members of the Senate on many provisions that are in the Secure Act and would love to see that passed; and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be passed,” however, “unless we can get unanimous consent [vote] in the Senate, it’s unlikely to move forward.”

Cardin and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, reintroduced the Retirement Security and Savings Act of 2019 on May 14 that would raise the required minimum distribution age from 70 ½ to 75 and also help workers pay off their student loans.

Cardin and Portman’s bill overlaps with some provisions in the Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act (RESA) of 2019, which was introduced on April 1, but RESA only raised the RMD age to 72, the same as the Secure Act.