The Next Step for Tax Policy Equity

Albert Feuer recently posted on SSRN his article entitled The Next Step for Tax Policy Equity. Here is the abstract of his article:

In September, the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee released proposals requiring many employers without retirement plans to establish and automatically enroll employees in IRAs or simple 401(k) plans or in IRAs with the default contributions going to Roth IRAs. The proposals would also require a person whose employee benefit plans, Roth IRAs, and traditional IRAs have an aggregate balance greater than $10 million to withdraw at least 50% of the excess balance. Broadening those proposals to require Roth IRAs to comply with the same required minimum distribution (RMD) rules that now govern employee benefit plans and traditional IRAs, would better implement the common-sense policy of using tax incentives to encourage adequate retirement savings by focusing on retirement savings.

Roth IRAs and their participants are subject to the same RMD rules after the death of the IRA participant and the participant’s spouse, if any, as traditional IRAs and tax-advantaged pension and profit-sharing plans, including their Roth designated accounts,. Roth IRAs and their participants should also be subject to the same RMD rules during the life of the IRA participant and the IRA participant’s spouse, if any. An IRA violating those rules would lose its tax exemption, and a person failing to take a timely RMD would be subject to a 50% excise tax.

Subjecting Roth IRA participants to both the excess benefit distribution and the RMD rules would better limit the retirement tax incentives to retirement savings. Those with Mega-IRAs, such as Mr. Thiel’s multi-billion Roth IRA, could continue to receive tax incentives for reasonable-sized retirement accounts, but the tax incentives on any excess balances would be dramatically reduced. Participants with Roth or IRA accounts of any size would similarly be required to withdraw significant funds distributed during the expected life of the participant and the participant’s spouse, if any. This would permit Congress to adopt more equitable policies, such as making more funds available to encourage adequate retirement savings, such as increasing the matching savings credits to low-income tax payers who make contributions to tax-favored retirement plans above the Ways and Means proposed amount.