Employee and Retiree Access to Justice Act

Retirement Security 1.H.R.1013, S.424 Retirement Fairness for Charities and Educational Institutions Act of 2025: Allows 403(b) retirement plans to invest in Collective Investment Trust or Separate Accounts Insurance Products to establish investment parity with other defined contribution plans, like 401(k)s. 2.H.R.2023, S.988 Womens Retirement Protection Act (WRPA): This legislation imposes spousal consent requirements on nearly all distributions from defined contribution plans. The bill also seeks to enhance financial literacy through grants to community-based organizations and offers grants to such organizations to help low-income women and survivors of domestic abuse obtain qualified domestic relations orders. 3.H.R.2067, S.928 Protecting Americans Retirement Savings Act (PARSA): This bill prohibits ERISA-covered retirement plans from making new investments in companies controlled by or based in countries considered to be foreign adversaries. Foreign adversaries include China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. The bill also requires fiduciaries to disclose continuing investments in such entities and sanctioned firms. 4.H.R.2089 Generating Retirement Ownership through Long-Term Holding (GROWTH): The legislation provides that reinvested mutual fund dividends are not subject to capital gains taxation until the investor sells his or her shares. 5.H.R.2163 No Penalties for Victims of Fraud Act: The bill ensures that victims of retirement account fraud are not subject to the 10% additional income tax on early retirement plan distributions. 6.H.R.2544, S.1222 Financial Freedom Act of 2025: The legislation prohibits the Secretary of Labor from restricting the investments available in self-directed 401(k) brokerage windows. The bill also prohibits the DOL from preventing a fiduciary from selecting, any particular type of investment alternative, provided that a fiduciary provides the participant or beneficiary an opportunity to choose, from a broad range of investment alternatives, nor can the DOL require that any particular type of investment be either favored or disfavored, other than on the basis of the investments risk-return characteristics. 7.H.R.2696, S.1526 Retirement Savings for Americans Act (RSAA): This legislation establishes a federally run American Worker Retirement Plan for private-sector workers that do not have access to a workplace-based retirement plan. The bill also includes an enhanced federal matching contribution that only applies to lower income workers that participate in the federal plan. 8.H.R.2748 First Time Homeowner Savings Plan Act: This legislation increases the amount first-time homebuyers could pull from their retirement savings from the $10,000 set in the 1990s to $25,000 (indexed to inflation) without the 10% additional income tax on early retirement plan distributions to use as a down payment on their home. 9.H.R.2869 EBSA Investigations Transparency Act: This legislation requires the Department of Labors Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) to submit annual reports to Congress on the status of its open employee plan audits and to explain why any audits open for more than 36 months have not been closed. 10.H.R.2958 Balance the Scales Act: This legislation requires the Department of Labors Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) to report annually to Congress about its use of common interest agreements. 11.H.R.2988 Protecting Prudent Investment of Retirement Savings Act: This legislation amends ERISA to specify that a retirement plan fiduciary shall be considered acting solely in the interest of participants only if: 1) the investment does not subordinate the interest of participants in their retirement income or financial benefits under the plan to other objectives, including ESG objectives and 2) the fiduciary does not sacrifice investment returns or take on additional investment risks to promote goals unrelated to the plan. 12.H.R.3526, S.2867 Uplifting First-Time Homebuyers Act of 2025: This legislation allows individuals to take an early distribution out of an IRA of up to $50,000 for a qualified first-time home purchase without the 10% additional income tax penalty. Current rules only allow up to a $10,000 early distribution without penalty. 13.S.2003 Strengthening Benefits Plans Act of 2025: This legislation permits surplus assets in a retiree health account to be used for other benefits, like active employee health benefits. The legislation also permits surplus assets in a defined benefit plan to be used to provide contributions to the employers defined contribution plan without terminating the defined benefit plan. 14.S.2210 Unlocking Benefits for Independent Workers Act: This legislation establishes a safe harbor under federal law for companies that would like to voluntarily provide independent workers with any benefit or protection commonly provided to full-time employees, such as retirement and health care benefits. 15.S.2217 Independent Retirement Fairness Act: This legislation relaxes the audit rules for pooled employer plans (PEPs) and allows companies to enroll their independent workers in PEPs and simplified employer pensions (SEPs) IRAs without triggering employee classification. 16.H.R.4548, S.2365 Small Nonprofit Retirement Security Act of 2025: This legislation makes the credit for small employer pension plan startup costs and the retirement auto-enrollment credit available to tax-exempt eligible small employers. 17.H.R.4718, S.1707 Helping Young Americans Save for Retirement Act: This legislation lowers the required minimum participation age in ERISA-covered retirement plans from age 21 to age 18. 18.H.R.5325 Unclaimed Retirement Rescue Plan: This legislation directs the Department of Labor (DOL) to issue a regulation that would permit retirement plan fiduciaries to transfer unclaimed retirement distributions to State unclaimed property programs. 19.H.R.5748 Retirement Investment Choice Act: This legislation codifies Executive Order 14330 relating to democratizing access to alternative assets for 401(k) investors. 20.S.3083 Providing Complete Information to Retirement Investors Act: This legislation adds a new notice requirement to participants investing through brokerage windows in 401(k) plans to explain that the investments in a brokerage window have not been prudently selected and are not monitored by a plan fiduciary. 21.S.3086 Restoring Integrity in Fiduciary Duty Act: This legislation limits fiduciary consideration of nonpecuniary factors for investments. The bill further states that ERISA fiduciaries must also make decisions regarding the exercise of shareholder rights and proxy voting based on pecuniary factors. 22.H.R.5887 Saving for the Future Act: This legislation establishes a hybrid emergency savings and 401(k)-type government-run program called the Federal Universal Personal Savings Investment Program and creates UP Retirement Accounts for every full-time and part-time worker not covered by an active defined benefit pension plan. The legislation also requires employers to make a minimum employer contribution to the workers retirement account. 23.H.R.6084 ERISA Litigation Reform Act: This legislation amends the pleading standard under ERISA Section 502 for certain claims to put the burden on the plaintiff to plausibly allege and prove that an ERISA prohibitive transaction occurred that is not exempt under ERISA section 408(b)(2). 24.H.R.6324, S.5156 Retirement Simplification and Clarity Act: This legislation would: (1) permit an in-service plan distribution to an individual retirement annuity on or after attainment of age 50; and (2) include a specific reference to an individual retirement annuity as a rollover option under a simplified 402(f) safe harbor notice. 25.H.R.6417, S.3333 Emergency Savings Enhancement Act of 2025: This legislation would double the maximum balance limit for Pension-Linked Emergency Savings Accounts (PLESAs) from $2,500 to $5,000 and allows Highly Compensated Employees (HCEs) to participate. 26.H.R.6450, S.3352 Retirement Rollover Flexibility Act: This legislation would permit rollover contributions from Roth IRAs to designated Roth accounts in qualified retirement plans, like 401(k)s. 27.H.R.6722 Automatic IRA Act of 2025: The legislation would require employers with more than 10 employees that do not sponsor a retirement plan to automatically enroll their employees in IRAs (automatic IRAs) or other automatic contribution plans or arrangements, like 401(k) plans. The legislation also requires 401(k) plans with over 100 participants plans must permit participants to elect to receive at least 50 percent of their vested account balance in the form of lifetime income. This requirement does not apply to participants with balances below $200,000. 28.H.R.6729, S.1831 Auto Reenroll Act of 2025: This legislation amends the qualified automatic contribution arrangement (QACA) safe harbor in the tax code for 401(k) plans to allow for automatic periodic reenrollment into the plan. 29.H.R.7185 Home Savings Act: This legislation permits penalty-free withdrawals from a 401(k) account for up to five years when the funds are used for a down payment or closing costs on a primary residence. The legislation also allows an individual to make a penalty-free 401(k) withdrawal and gift those funds to a relative, exempt from gift tax, provided the relative uses the money for a down payment or closing costs on a primary residence. 30.H.R.7362, S.4953 5500 Filing Simplification Act: This legislation extends the Form 5500 filing deadline to October 15 (for calendar year retirement plans), thus eliminating the need for an extension. 31.H.R.7556, S.2335 Pensions for All Act: This legislation requires every employer to provide to their employees a retirement program with benefits equivalent to the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) or to elect for their employees to participate in FERS. 32.H.R.8273, S.4291 Catching Up Family Caregivers Act of 2026: This legislation allows full-time family caregivers to qualify for up to five additional years of retirement plan catch-up contributions. Catch-up contributions currently allow individuals over age 50 to contribute above the standard annual retirement plan contribution limit, with even higher limits available for those ages 60 to 63. 33.H.R.8274, S.4292 Improving Retirement for Family Caregivers Act of 2026: Current law limits Roth IRA contributions to the lesser of $7,000 or total annual income. This legislation eliminates the annual income requirement for family caregivers, thus allowing them to contribute to a Roth IRA even if they do not have any income. 34.H.R.8313 Trump Accounts for All Generations Act: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) enacted last year created the Trump Account, which is a new individual tax-preferred savings vehicle for children, with a $1,000 government seed contribution for every child born in the United States from 2025 to 2029. This legislation makes the $1,000 government contribution for children permanent and indexes the $1,000 contribution amount to inflation beginning in 2029. 35.H.R.8314 OPTIONS Act: The legislation allows employees to allocate employer contributions among various pre-tax benefits, including retirement accounts, health savings accounts, health reimbursement accounts, and educational assistance programs. 36.S.4360 Investigation Status and Governance for Honest Transparency (INSIGHT) Act: This legislation requires the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) to submit annual reports to Congress on the status of its open employee plan audits and to explain why any audits open for more than 36 months have not been closed. And it also requires the Department of Labor to formalize and disclose situations in which it is providing adverse assistance which means assistance to plaintiffs lawyers suing ERISA benefit plan sponsors and fiduciaries. 37.H.R.8783, S.4511 Charity Parity Act: Current law allows retirement savers to exclude up to $111,000 in annual gross income to make qualified charitable distributions (QCDs), but only if the funds are donated directly from an IRA. This tax break excludes distributions from employer-sponsored retirement plans like 401(k)s and 403(b)s. So, under current law, individuals must first roll assets into an IRA to make a QCD. The Charity Parity Act would permit direct QCDs from employer-sponsored retirement plans. 38.H.R.8837, S.1840 Retirement Investment in Small Employers (RISE) Act: This legislation raises the floor for the existing $250 per-employee tax credit available to small businesses to create retirement plans, ensuring that all small businesses can receive a tax credit of at least $2,500. The House version of the legislation allows the service provider to claim the tax credit as payment for services that would ordinarily be charged to the employer for starting the plan. 39.H.R.9813, S.5040 A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose limitations on high-income taxpayers with large retirement account balances: This legislation that would prohibit further contributions to a Roth or traditional IRA if the total of an individuals IRA and defined contribution plan vested account balances exceeds $10 million for the prior year. The limit on contributions would only apply to married single taxpayers with modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) over $400,000 for the prior year ($425,000 for heads of households, $450,000 for joint filers). 40.H.R.10039, S.5204 SMART Savings Act of 2026: This legislation amends the Internal Revenue Code to exempt individual retirement accounts (IRAs) from the Department of Labors prohibited transaction rules. Although IRAs are generally not ERISA plans, they remain subject to DOL-administered prohibited transaction rules because Congress incorporated those rules into the Internal Revenue Code. 41.S.5507 Savers Match Enhancement Act of 2026: The bill makes the existing Savers Match more generous in the following ways. The bill doubles the matching rate from 50 percent to 100 percent, so that the government matches retirement plan contributions dollar for dollar up to $2,000 per year (now indexed to inflation). The bill also increases the amount of people eligible for the match with an income phase-out range beginning at $85,000 to $115,000 for a joint return ($42,500 to $57,500 for single and $63,750 to $86,250 for head of household). Savers Match contributions would now have after-tax Roth treatment, so the contributions and earnings would not be taxed upon distribution but also not be taxable to the saver in the year of contribution unlike normal Roth contributions. 42.S.5550 529 Retirement Enhancement Act of 2026: The bill eliminates the $35,000 lifetime cap on rollovers from 529 education savings accounts to Roth IRAs. 43.H.R.10641 Employee and Retiree Access to Justice Act of 2026: The bill amends ERISA Section 502 to deem pre-dispute and post-dispute forced arbitration clauses, class action waivers, and representation waivers unenforceable. 44.H.R.10702 Workers Retirement Savings Protection Act of 2026: The bill creates a new statutory definition of an investment advice fiduciary under Section 3(21) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). 45.H.R.10703 Protecting Workers Benefits Act of 2026: The bill amends ERISA Section 502 to allow individuals to bring a legal action as assignees on behalf of their plan and get a cut of any settlement or award, similar to whistleblower actions under the False Claims Act. 46.General Account Product Corrections Act: This proposed legislation clarifies fiduciary responsibilities for life insurance companies as it relates to investments in their general accounts. Income Security S. 2415 and H.R. 7107, the Long-Term Care Affordability Act: Would allow for tax free distributions from retirement accounts to fund LTC contracts. H.R. 133, Both provisions are in the larger bill. S. 5017 - More Paid Leave for Americans Act. Issue: paid family and medical leave H.R. 3089 - Paid Family Leave Public Partnerships Act. Issue: paid family and medical leave H.R. 3090 - Interstate Paid Leave Action Network Act (I-PLAN Act). Issue: paid family and medical leave H.R. 1521 - Dentist and Optometric Care Access Act of 2025 or the DOC Access Act of 2025. Issue: dental and vision insurance H.R.1185 - FAMILY Act. Issue: paid family and medical leave proposal would offer paid leave benefits via a payroll tax for birth or adoption of a child or caring for a sick family member. H.R.1940 - New Parents Act of 2019. Issue: paid family and medical leave H.R.2163 - To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow for tax-advantaged distributions from health savings accounts during family or medical leave, and for other purposes. Issue: paid family and medical leave S.463 - FAMILY Act. Issue: paid family and medical leave- paid family and medical leave proposal would offer paid leave benefits via a payroll tax for birth or adoption of a child or caring for a sick family member S.920 - New Parents Act of 2019. Issue: paid family and medical leave Discussion draft - CRADLE Act. Issue: paid family and medical leave - allows for a deferment of retirement benefits for paid leave benefits. Proposed FY 2020 Budget proposal on paid family and medical leave. Issue: paid family and medical leave H.R. 2694 - Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. Issue: paid family and medical leave. Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, FY2022, S.Con.Res.14. The budget resolution calls for the $3.5 trillion in long-term investments to be fully offset by a combination of new tax revenues, health care savings, and long-term economic growth. In addition, the agreement would prohibit new taxes on families making less than $400,000 per year, and on small businesses and family farms. Issue: Medicare/Dental (Expanding Medicare to include dental, vision, hearing benefits and lowering the eligibility age). H.R. 5376- Build Back Better Act This bill provides funding, establishes programs, and otherwise modifies provisions relating to a broad array of areas, including education, labor, child-care, health care, taxes, immigration, and the environment. Excepted Benefits on Supplemental Benefits-proposed tri-agency rule through HHS, Treasury and Labor. S.3680 - Paid Family and Medical Leave Tax Credit Extension and Enhancement Act Diversity and Inclusion H.R. 5084 - Improving Corporate Governance Through Diversity Act. Issue: diversity and inclusion. H.R. 5360 - Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Act. Issue: diversity and inclusion. H.R. 281 - Ensuring Diverse Leadership Act. Issue: diversity and inclusion. H.R. 7946 and S. 4464 - Federal Reserve Racial and Economic Equity Act. Issue: diversity and inclusion.