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Congresswoman Gwen Moore (WI-4) Votes On SECURE Act

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Gwen Moore (WI-4) voted for H.R. 1994, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act.

“The SECURE Act is a landmark piece of legislation that makes it easier for American workers to save for retirement. This bill takes necessary steps to addressing our nation’s retirement security crisis, and I am proud to support this bipartisan bill alongside my Ways & Means colleagues,” Congresswoman Gwen Moore said.

The SECURE Act helps more Americans save for retirement by making it easier for small businesses to offer retirement plans to their employees, allowing long-time, part-time workers to participate in 401(k) plans, and providing a tax to small employers to defray startup costs for new section 401(k) plans that include automatic enrollment,  Furthermore, this legislation closes the stretch IRA loophole abused by wealthy Americans and prohibits the distribution of 401(k) plan loans through debit cards or similar arrangements.

H.R. 1994 also takes steps to address the harsh tax rate increase caused by the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 on low-income children and young adults who receive payments from military and Veteran Affairs survivor benefit plans (Gold Star families), tribal governments and other payments that are clearly not conducted to evade taxation.

Congress enacted special tax rules, colloquially known as the kiddie tax, on unearned income of children and young adults to prevent wealthy families from engaging in tax planning to artificially lower their tax burden. However, these tax rules were written too broadly and must be modified so that disbursements such as payments of survivor benefits to Gold Star families and common tribal transfers are no longer unfairly subject to the same tax rules as abusive transfers made to evade taxation.

“While the SECURE Act partially addresses the underlying problem of the kiddie tax on taxable payments made by tribal governments, more needs to be done to fully solve the problem. That’s why I recently introduced bipartisan legislation, H.R. 2810, to exempt taxable payments made by tribal governments to their young members from the kiddie tax. This change is important to supporting tribal sovereignty and a tribe’s ability to best determine how to help their members. H.R. 2810 is a common-sense bill that will remove harsh tax barriers for low-income tribal youth. I am grateful for Chairman Neal’s recognition that the kiddie tax was never meant to apply to funds distributed by Indian tribal governments and his commitment to finding a solution to the underlying problem of the kiddie tax,” Congresswoman Gwen Moore said.

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