News

Leadership from the House Committee on Education and Labor and its Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions have introduced the Retirement Improvement and Savings Enhancement (RISE) Act to expand worker access to a secure retirement.

The much-anticipated Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the Act) has passed the House of Representatives months after its approval in the Senate. The legislation contains the following noteworthy provisions.

The IRS has issued a fourth draft of the 2022 Form W-4P, Withholding Certificate for Periodic Pension or Annuity Payments. In it, the IRS indicates that while final versions of the redesigned Form W-4P and Form W-4R will be released for 2022, based on comments received on prior drafts from stakeholders, the IRS will postpone requirements to begin using the redesigned forms until January 1, 2023. Payors should update their system programming for these new forms but may otherwise continue to use the 2021 Form W-4P.

The IRS has issued Notice 2021-61, which contains the following 2022 retirement savings limitations.

The IRS has issued a news release announcing the postponement of certain tax-related deadlines for victims of Hurricane Ida in Connecticut. The tax relief postpones various tax filing deadlines that began September 1, 2021. Affected individuals and households who reside or have a business in Fairfield and New London counties including the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and Mohegan Tribal Nation, as well as taxpayers with records located in the covered area that are needed to meet covered deadlines, qualify for relief.

The IRS has issued a news release announcing the postponement of certain tax-related deadlines for victims of Hurricane Ida in Mississippi. The tax relief postpones various tax filing deadlines that began August 28, 2021. Affected individuals and households who reside or have a business in Amite, Claiborne, Copiah, Covington, Franklin, George, Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Jefferson Davis, Lawrence, Lincoln, Pearl River, Pike, Simpson, Walthall, Wayne, and Wilkinson counties, as well as taxpayers with records located in the covered area that are needed to meet covered deadlines, qualify for relief.

The IRS recently updated its coronavirus-related relief for retirement plans and IRAs questions and answers (FAQs) for Sec. 2202 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which provides for special distribution options and rollover rules for plans. The updated FAQs address questions regarding rehires following bona fide retirement and in-service distributions.

The Department of Labor (DOL) has extended the transitional relief under Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) 2018-02 and provided additional temporary non-enforcement guidance related to specific provisions of Prohibited Transaction Exemption (PTE) 2020-02 in FAB 2021-02.

The IRS has released Notice 2021-57, providing guidance for multiemployer defined benefit (DB) plans receiving funding relief under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The Notice provides guidance regarding the plan sponsor’s ability to elect to delay designating a plan as being in endangered, critical, or critical and declining status or to delay updating the plan’s funding improvement or rehabilitation plan, and to extend the plan’s funding improvement or rehabilitation period. The guidance further explains the plan sponsor’s ability to amortize certain investments and other experience losses related to COVID-19 over a 30-year period in determining charges to the funding standard account.

The Social Security Administration has announced the 2022 adjustments for benefits and certain other limitations that are subject to annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) indices. One of these includes the Social Security taxable wage base (TWB), which identifies the maximum amount of an individual’s annual earnings that are subject to withholding for Social Security-administered benefits. The TWB is sometimes also used in retirement plan contribution allocations that use so-called "integrated" formulas, providing additional retirement plan benefits on income above the TWB, income for which the recipient will not receive Social Security benefits. For 2022, the TWB will rise from $142,800 to $147,000.