#advantaged — Public Fediverse posts

Lobbyists for a coalition of six groups succeeded in getting changes into a 2021 Portman-Cardin bill governing IRS #oversight of #private #retirement #plans.

Fact sheets provided to POLITICO
— which a Hill staffer said the lobbyists distributed to advocate for their proposal
— sold the changes as fixes that would help elderly Americans, such as retired government and factory workers,
who had inadvertently put too much in their retirement accounts and could face penalties from the IRS.

But the lobbyists were also targeting benefits for a different demographic.

The head of the coalition, according to his biography, specializes in tax planning for🌟 “ultra-high-net-worth clients.” 🌟

The coalition also included an advocacy group that has previously been tied to the #Koch #network
— and which engaged in a massive lobbying campaign against efforts to restructure Puerto Rico’s debt that was owned by hedge fund managers in 2015.

Tax lawyers who reviewed the statutory changes said they would in fact
👉 make it far more difficult for the IRS to penalize supersized retirement accounts where owners avoided millions of dollars in taxes. 👈

“The lobby power of these groups is tremendous,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

“There has been little lobby effort for [low-income taxpayers] and plenty of lobbying from those people in the financial services industry that benefit from those retirement plans

#Secure #financial #services #industry #tax #advantaged #retirement #savings #taxes #Cardin #Portman #Neal #lobbying

Five months before Congress faced a near-catastrophic 2022 standoff over the debt ceiling,
with Republicans demanding restrictions to food and Medicaid programs to rein in spending,
a bill that raised the cost of private retirement savings accounts to $282 billion per year was quietly signed into law.

In this era of deeply divided politics, the 2022 bill known as "#Secure 2.0" was hailed as a bipartisan success — a victory for average Americans.
It had sailed through the House by a whopping 414-5 vote.
It followed four other major bills passed between 1996 and 2019 that 🔸dramatically expanded taxpayer savings 🔸– all equally lauded as bipartisan victories.

But that rare issue that brought a divided Washington together also 💥increased wealth disparities and the federal deficit. 💥

And the victory was most strongly applauded by the burgeoning #financial #services #industry, for whom #tax-#advantaged #retirement #savings has transformed a $7 trillion retirement market in 1995 to a $38.4 trillion behemoth in 2023.

👉Tax-advantaged savings has become a staple of the American retirement system, with 60 million savers squirreling away $6.6 trillion in their 401(k)s, alone.

But a yearlong POLITICO investigation found that Secure 2.0 and its predecessor bills have expanded the system well beyond its goal of helping the middle class.

Today, ⭐️wealthy taxpayers can protect up to $452,500 per year ⭐️in tax-advantaged accounts in a single year, 👉saving up to $203,600 on their #taxes.

And they can keep their money in tax-advantaged accounts far longer.

More striking is how these victories were achieved:
A quarter-century partnership between two senators
— Democrat Ben #Cardin of Maryland and Republican Rob #Portman of Ohio
— joined more recently by the former House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard #Neal (D-Mass.).

Backed by one of the most highly skilled and lavishly funded industry #lobbying teams, and greased by campaign contributions, Portman, Cardin and Neal turned what could have been a deeply controversial giveback to higher-income taxpayers into a staple of the American Dream.

They appealed to core beliefs in both parties
— free enterprise for Republicans, economic security for Democrats
– to enact what is arguably the most costly series of non-Defense bills in recent decades.

Indeed, that success now vexes many retirement experts, alarmed by how easily Congress acquiesces to tax breaks for retirement savings that 🔹disproportionately help the wealthy 🔹while treating the benefits relied upon by most retirees
— Social Security and Medicare
— as "budget-busters ripe for reform".

🔥“The 401(k) industry owns Congress,” 🔥said Daniel Hemel, a professor and tax law scholar based at NYU School of Law.
“Either lawmakers were trying to pull a fast one on the American people or lobbyists were trying to pull a fast one on Congress.
I don’t know which story is better. I don’t know which one I should want to believe.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/13/how-your-401k-ate-the-federal-budget-00150319