On May 23, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives passed important retirement legislation called the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act. The Senate is likely to pass the bill and the President expected to sign as well.
Under HR 1994, there are 3 important issues for estate planners and financial advisors to address right away.
First and most importantly, following the death of a client, IRAs will be distributed over a 10 year period of time, versus today’s “life expectancy” rule. This changes everything, including the need to take a hard look at clients with conduit trusts. In the context of conduit trusts that are required to pay all required minimum distributions to beneficiaries, in year 10, when the final distribution occurs, a large lump-sum distribution will need to be paid to the beneficiaries of the conduit trust. This will be a disaster from a property law standpoint. And those conduit trusts should be immediately converted into an accumulation spray trust.
Secondly, the required minimum distributions during one’s lifetime may now be deferred until age 72 rather than beginning April 1st following when you reach 70 ½.
And third, even individuals that are past their required beginning date will be eligible to make contributions to individual retirement accounts, not just to their Roth IRAs.
Listen to our partner Lalit Kundani speak on how this will work moving forward and what you can do.