Washington, D.C., May 21, 2019 – SIFMA today issued the following statement from President and CEO Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr. on H.R. 1994, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019, which is expected to be voted on 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. 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 provisions 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 takes into account 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 pension 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.

SIFMA submitted a letter of support on this legislation, which can be found here: https://www.sifma.org/resources/submissions/support-for-h-r-1994-secure-act-of-2019/

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SIFMA is the leading trade association for broker-dealers, investment banks and asset managers operating in the U.S. and global capital markets. On behalf of our industry’s nearly 1 million employees, we advocate on legislation, regulation and business policy, affecting retail and institutional investors, equity and fixed income markets and related products and services. We serve as an industry coordinating body to promote fair and orderly markets, informed regulatory compliance, and efficient market operations and resiliency. We also provide a forum for industry policy and professional development. SIFMA, with offices in New York and Washington, D.C., is the U.S. regional member of the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA). For more information, visit http://www.sifma.org.