Legislation Addresses Retirement Plan Loan Issues

Workers will be limited in tapping their 401(k) retirement plans for loans under legislation introduced by Senators Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Mike Enzi (R-WY).

Joe Bonfiglio, a spokesman for the Senate Special Committee on Aging, for which Kohl is chairman, told Bloomberg News the bill would reduce the number of loans workers may take from a 401(k) to three and give participants more time to repay after losing a job. It will allow savers to contribute to their plan after taking a hardship withdrawal and ban debit cards linked to the accounts, Bonfiglio said in the Bloomberg report.  

For workers who lose their jobs before repaying a loan, the bill would let them pay down their balances into an individual retirement account before filing their taxes for that year, in order to not incur a withdrawal tax penalty on those funds. The IRS and Treasury Department would need to issue guidance on how the process will work, Bonfiglio said.  

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The legislation would also allow participants to continue to contribute to their retirement accounts during the six months following a hardship withdrawal because the loss of employee and company matching contributions during that period can further erode retirement savings, according to a statement from Kohl obtained by Bloomberg.  

The bill also would ban plan debit cards products.  

Text of the legislation is at http://aging.senate.gov/issues/FSA.pdf.

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