May 21, 2019

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) would like to express our continued strong support for H.R. 1994, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019, slated to be voted on later this week.

The American retirement system has helped millions of Americans prepare for a secure retirement. The SECURE Act will help even more Americans realize this benefit. In particular, this legislation takes important steps toward enhancing the private retirement system and increasing retirement savings by encouraging small businesses to offer retirement savings plans and individuals to utilize the options that are available to enjoy retirement security. These commonsense changes to expand the utility of Individual Retirement Accounts, as well as employer-sponsored retirement savings plans deserve strong bipartisan support.

SIFMA believes a number of provisions included in this legislation would enhance and support increased retirement savings, including:

• Allowing employers to join a pooled arrangement that permits different types of employers to collectively offer a plan to their employees (open MEPs).
• Providing an automatic enrollment credit for small employers; automatic enrollment is shown to increase employee participation and higher retirement savings.
• Repealing the prohibition on contributions to a traditional IRA by an individual who has reached age 70½; This accounts for increases in life expectancy.
• Providing for portability of lifetime income options which will permit participants to preserve their lifetime income investments and avoid surrender charges and fees.
• Increasing the start-up credit for small employer retirement plans to make it more affordable for small businesses to set up retirement plans.
• Increasing the minimum distribution age from 70 ½ to 72 years when participants must begin taking distributions from their retirement plan; This takes into account increases in life expectancy.

H.R. 1994 is critical to ensuring Americans can continue to save for a safe and secure retirement and urge you to vote in favor of final passage of this legislation.

Sincerely,

Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr.
President & CEO
Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association