Posted on 03/07/2009 8:17:33 AM PST by reaganaut1
President Obama's budget contains a [universal savings account mandate for employers.]
But small-business owners, advocates and lawmakers already are working to water down the proposal, which would force many employers to participate in such savings plans.
"We want to have small-business employees to have retirement-savings options, but we don't want to add a hurdle for business owners," said Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business. "We need to look at whether this is the best time to put a proposal like this into place."
To increase the reach of workplace pension plans, the administration's 2010 budget calls for businesses to enroll employees automatically. Observers estimate that doing so would increase the savings-participation rate for low- and middle-income workers to about 80% from 15%.
Employers who don't offer a retirement plan will be required to enroll their workers in direct-deposit individual retirement accounts. The proposed mandate, based on a bill introduced in Congress two years ago, is expected to apply to businesses (but not churches or governments) that are at least two years old and that have more than 10 workers who made at least $5,000 in the preceding year. If they chose, workers could opt out.
But for businesses employing the estimated 75 million U.S. workers with no such option, the budget proposal introduces a new demand on their time along with additional expense and paperwork.
...
Businesses are worried they could get sued if they mishandle individual retirement savings, said Todd McCracken, president of the National Small Business Association in Washington. "What happens if I ask you to put in 10% of my pay, and you put in 5% by mistake, and now the market's gone up? Where's my money? Are you going to be liable for that?"
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Say good bye to the 401(k). The Gubment wants you to rely on them for your elder years.
They want to “guarantee” you a 3% return because we are in a bad stretch. So they can get their hands on it to pay for the boomer retirement.
And what company would continue funding retirement plans when it would be easier to pass it off to the government. Aside from retaining employees..
AND....it would prevent billions from entering the stock market year after year. We would go back to an “investment class” and a “working poor” class.
Bad, bad news....
Too bad for you.
I’m starting to get a sense that the U.S. government is making every effort to encourage employers to fire all their employees and turn them all into independent, self-employed contract workers.
What happend to the SIMPLE IRA so the small employer could offer an affordable low cost (to him) retirement plan for his employees?
That’s right, the governement kept loading it down with more rules (read governemnt employees that had to be paid from plan costs and whose job it was to make the whole thing unattractive to employers) until it wasn’t a low cost plan anymore.
OBAMA: I will do what ever it TAKES to.....
I already did. The govt. can't touch what they've single handedly destroyed......
I disagree with your reasoning here. The plan is to use the money to increase social spending for their favorite causes. The boomer retirement is no longer a problem. Nationalized health care will ensure that those who are past certain ages will be denied crucial health care treatment and will die as a result. Quickly. Voila! No more huge end of life treatment bills like now. Problem solved. Now on to more midnight basketball for the poor, etc.
With the rates of breat cancer in the women in my family, I’m not worried about my retirement. Socialized medecine will kill me before i reach retirement age.
You’re right.
Between racial politics, illegals, voter fraud, and wealth redistribution, Baraq is scarily close to a permanent Chavez style majority.
I wonder if this is a precursor for the confiscation of 401Ks?’
You beat me to it. I am convinced that NObama will and wants to confiscate 401’s and private pension plans.
He knows that Argentina did it to the tune of $37 Billion just a few weeks before the Nov 4 election here.
Hw will trump up a story about how badly the government needs the money and he will put IOU’s into the banks for you.
Taking the 401’s will destroy Wall Street and the banking industry...exactly what NObama wants.
In other words, employers do all of the paper work in advance of the total government takeover. How clever. And naturally, how dishonest!
How about we do this. If want to hire you and you are so good at what you do that I have to compete with other businesses to get you as an employee I’ll offer you extra benefits like paid leave, retirement program, sick leave, insurance, etc. All you gotta do is work hard to be good at something I need in my business. Government can go stick their head where the sun don’t shine.
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