Dems push automatic IRA bill

The Hill ^ | 01/22/2015 | Bernie Becker

[Rusty0604]

Congressional Democrats are pushing a new bill to make it easier for workers to sock money away in retirement accounts.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said Thursday that they were introducing legislation that would set up automatic payroll deductions for contributions to Individual Retirement Accounts.

[Paine in the Neck]

Seizing your money is easier if it’s all in one place. And ‘registered’.

Seizing....

Registered....

hmmm....

[sodpoodle]

Agree with many of the comments that suggest this is another effort to prepare us for the collapse of Social Security.

The Feds already mandate that a minimum withdrawal percentage of an IRA or 401K retirement plan must be taken at age 70.5.

By forcing retirees to take distributions it places them in a higher taxable group, since SS benefits are not taxable. Forcing workers to create IRA plans may be the FEDs solution to ending SS and taxing ‘private’ IRA retirement income in perpetuity.

[SueRae]

I like the sound of THAT.

[kearnyirish2]

That’s right; whole segments of our population will never have to pay that tax.

I believe IRAs are also held against parents of college applicants as well.

[CPT Clay]

Watch the RINO leadership very carefully.

[Svartalfiar]

“Workers” can’t do this themselves?

To my knowledge, no. IRAs are 'cash' contributions you make to your account. Your employer doesn't take anything out pre-tax like a 401k, and there is no option to have your employer do this automatically. You have to take the initiative yourself to take your money and put it in the account each paycheck. However, when you file taxes at the end of the year, you can claim IRA contributions as a tax deduction, essentially making them pre-tax contributions. However, they are taxed as regular income when you withdraw after you turn 59 1/2.

[mowowie]

Yea ok

[KarlInOhio]

If, by some miraculous accident, this plan turns out good for the workers some future Obama will just try to kill it as a "tax benefit for the rich" like he proposed to do with 529 plans this week.

[Axenolith]

They will nickel and dime small owners in order to force them to sell out to big amalgamations that use rentals for income streams.

Best way to own them would be to have them in some type of common law or blind trust so you see the income but don’t have any connection to being leaned on to cough them up.

I always keep 50% of my 401K borrowed out, which I will default on if the government gets squirrely with them.

Being able to pick up your assets and carry them, having them buried someplace where others have an extremely low probability of finding them, and having real estate titled to avoid confiscation via personal association are probably going to be pretty important in the future...

[Rusty0604]

Seems like they don’t think commoners should go to Hawaii.

[sheana]

Mmmmmm SS IS taxable.

[tbw2]

I think that’s the goal.
And they can say it is only to protect us from the vagarities of the market, or because the average person cannot handle investing decisions.

[tbw2]

Every time I read about someone burying their assets like gold, I have flashes of the medieval and Roman era coin caches found periodically.
A small business or tools that can support a trade and thus income are better than gold coins that can be confiscated, stolen or lost.

[dfwgator]

And those of us suckers, I mean, savers, will wind up paying for all of this ignorance.

[Delta Dawn]

You left off Step five:

Step five - confiscate all IRA accounts

[Colonel_Flagg]

This from people who won’t let us privatize Social Security.

[Axenolith]

When those caches were found, the most probable outcome was that the owner was dead or exiled far.

I worked with a Romanian woman about 15 years back. She was a Major in the reserves there and had some crazy stories to tell about the dictator falling there.

Another interesting anecdote she had though, was that hoards of people buried wealth there after the Russians occupied after WWII. The thinking was, after a while this crap will pass and we can get on with it. Well, it didn’t pass for about 50 years, the dictator moved masses off farms/rural areas to cities and a large part of the country went back to wildland. There are a LOT of caches there from the 20th century that no one living is going back to get...

Skills and tools is an A#1 angle though, got those too :-)

[sodpoodle]

http://www.ssa.gov/planners/taxes.htm You are correct and my comment was too vague. In certain cases, SS benefits are taxable when other income is over a threshold = see below:. No one pays federal income tax on more than 85 percent of his or her Social Security benefits based on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rules. If you: •file a federal tax return as an "individual" and your combined income* is ◦between $25,000 and $34,000, you may have to pay income tax on up to 50 percent of your benefits. ◦more than $34,000, up to 85 percent of your benefits may be taxable. •file a joint return, and you and your spouse have a combined income* that is ◦between $32,000 and $44,000, you may have to pay income tax on up to 50 percent of your benefits ◦more than $44,000, up to 85 percent of your benefits may be taxable.