On May 24, a group of nine industry organizations, including NAIFA and the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) newly finalized fiduciary rule. Joining NAIFA and ACLI in the lawsuit are NAIFA-Texas, NAIFA-Fort Worth, NAIFA-Dallas, NAIFA-Piney Woods of East Texas, the National Association of Fixed Annuities (NAFA), the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI), and Finseca.

Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions to block the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) newly finalized fiduciary rule have been introduced in both the House and Senate. It appears the motion may pass, but President Biden is virtually certain to veto it if it does pass.

House Ways & Means Committee Republicans have formed ten issue-specific “tax teams” to work on what to include in the looming 2025 major tax bill. Senate Finance Committee Republicans will tackle these issues in six “working groups.” Both say they “may” include Democrats in their deliberations at some point, but for now, it is an all-GOP effort.

Recurring revenue estimates of the cost of extending the expiring 2017 tax cuts suggest that revenue will play a major role in the debate over the upcoming tax bill in 2025. After at least five revenue estimates, all covering a 10-year period that includes 2028, projections of the revenue lost due to current tax rules keep going up.

A companion Senate bill (S.4398) to the RISE Act introduced last fall in the House (H.R.6007) has been introduced. The RISE Act expands the tax credit available for starting retirement savings plans for very small businesses.

The House-passed tax bill, H.R.7024, remains stalled in the Senate. However, its chief Senate sponsor, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), says the bill is not dead. Sen. Wyden says he continues to work with Senate leadership to schedule Senate floor time on the bill.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) has asked for public comments on how to amend current law to allow companies to provide benefits to their independent contractor workers who are not employees.  Sen. Cassidy is ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, the committee with jurisdiction over ERISA’s non-tax pension/retirement savings issues. He also serves on the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over ERISA’s and other retirement savings tax issues.

In Connelly vs. United States, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled that life insurance proceeds increased the value of a closely held business’ stock and therefore had to be included in valuation of the company for estate tax purposes. The ruling impacts some buy-sell agreements where the life insurance is owned by the company rather than by the individuals who own the company.

A coalition of business groups has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) new and now-final white-collar exemption to Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime (OT) rules. A court ruling on the lawsuit could result in a delay in the July 1 effective date of the new rule.

A study released on June 6 by the Life Insurance Marketing and Research Association (LIMRA) shows a 25 percent increase in pension risk transfer contracts in the first quarter of this year. A LIMRA statement discussing the study pointed to a record $14.6 billion in 146 contracts in companies shifting their lifetime pension obligations to annuities.

NAIFA has joined forces with 70 organizations, employers, unions, patient and disease advocacy groups, and other healthcare stakeholders to emphasize the importance of maintaining the tax-free status of employer-provided healthcare coverage. In a united front, these organizations reminded Congress of the critical role this coverage plays in ensuring the health and financial security of nearly 180 million Americans.

NAIFA’s May 20-21 Congressional Conference participants will fan out over Capitol Hill to educate lawmakers on key issues impacting NAIFA members and their clients. Several hundred participants from almost every state and Congressional District will also establish and grow the constituent-lawmaker relationships that are so key to favorable legislative outcomes.

On April 23, the Department of Labor (DOL) finalized its new fiduciary rule and its accompanying amendments to prohibited transaction exemptions (PTEs) 2020-02 and 84-24. The new rules would take effect September 23, but they have already triggered the first of what are likely to be multiple court challenges to them. Those court decisions could impact the effective date. And Congress is likely to vote on a Congressional Review Act (CRA) motion to block the rules, although even if a CRA motion passes both the House and Senate, President Biden will surely veto it.

There will be a major tax bill in 2025, as both Republicans and Democrats contend with the looming expiration of most of the current tax code’s individual and estate tax rules. Scheduled for expiration at the end of 2025 are income and capital gains tax rates for individuals as well as the current $12+ million exemption from the estate tax. Tax policy will play a key role in the debate, but so will revenue—the cost of extending the 2017 rules is astronomical. And lawmakers are already looking at other tax issues—like, for example, the corporate tax rate—that are not scheduled to expire but are intrinsic to both tax policy and revenue issues.

The House Ways & Means Committee held a hearing on April 30 with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as the sole witness. The hearing focused on the Biden budget tax proposals, and on the issues surrounding the scheduled expiration of the 2017 individual and estate tax rules.

Not only are fixed annuities now within the scope of the final fiduciary rule, but also a key tax writer is seeking information from the 12 biggest annuity writers about how annuities are sold. It appears that annuities are approaching being at the center of both Congressional and regulatory attention.

The House Education & the Workforce’s Subcommittee on Workforce Protections held a hearing last month on how to allow states and companies to provide independent contractors with employer-provided benefits without causing them to be classified as employees. Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) said at the hearing that he is working on legislation to achieve this result.

The long-awaited final rule on the white-collar exception from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA’s) overtime rules was released last month. The new rule significantly increases the salary threshold below which the white-collar exception does not apply and provides for automatic adjustments to the salary threshold every three years.

On April 23, by a 3 to 2 partisan vote, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) banned virtually all noncompete agreements. There are some limited exceptions involving key executives, but in general, the new rule would not only ban future noncompete agreements, but also require notice to workers who are party to existing noncompete agreements that those agreements will not be enforceable.

On May 9, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released Revenue Procedure 2024-25, listing the 2025 inflation-adjusted amounts applicable to health savings accounts (HSAs), high deductible health plans (HDHPs), and excepted benefit health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). The inflation adjustments take effect, generally, in 2025 or for plan years beginning in 2025.