Advocacy in action blog

On March 28, President Biden sent Congress a Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 budget that calls for $1.58 trillion in discretionary spending (a 7.4 percent increase over last year) and over $1 trillion in new taxes. The budget, the Administration says, would reduce the federal deficit by $1 trillion over ten years.

Most of the new taxes would come from the proposal to hike the corporate tax rate from the current 21 percent to 28 percent (starting in 2023) and from a new 20 percent tax on a combination of income and capital wealth held by households with $100 million or more in income from earnings and increases in the value of their capital assets. The budget also proposes raising the top individual tax rate to 39.6 percent.

The Kentucky Legislature has passed a comprehensive tax reform package, and thanks to advocacy work by NAIFA's Kentucky chapter financial planners and investment advisors narrowly avoided a 6% sales tax on their services.

NAIFA commends the House of Representatives on passing the SECURE 2.0 (H.R.2954) retirement planning legislation in a 414-5 vote. The popular legislation simplifies the process and creates incentives for employers to create and enroll employees in workplace retirement plans. It also creates greater flexibility for workers who contribute to the plans.

U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) introduced the Empowering States to Protect Seniors from Bad Actors Act, a bipartisan bill that would create a Securities and Exchange Commission program to work with state regulators to protect senior investors.

A new report by the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging prominently features comments submitted by NAIFA that highlight the important ongoing role advisors play in retirement planning.

The House passed H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act. Rep. Jaren Golden (D-ME) was the sole Democrat to vote against the bill. No Republicans voted for the bill. Now, on to the Senate, where significant changes are expected. Senate leadership wants to finish this before year-end, but given the other must pass agenda items (government funding, debt limit, defense authorization), that timing seems unlikely.  

The House of Representatives passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill by a vote of 228-206 with 13 Republicans voting in favor and six Democrats opposing. The vote came after an agreement amongst Democrats that the social spending bill, the Build Back Better Act, would come to the House floor the week of November 15 with no further changes (other than technical corrections). Then the BBB legislation would go to the Senate, where is will likely undergo several changes before coming back to the House for a second vote. 

NAIFA calls on Congress to reject tax hikes on Main Street businesses as the House of Representative sends the latest text of the Build Back Better Act to the Rules Committee. In a letter with other associations and business groups, NAIFA urges congressional leaders to reject the Build Back Better framework's tax increases on individual- and family-owned businesses.

The Build Back Better reconciliation bill is at a boiling point. Some Washington insiders are saying the House could vote on it this week. Others are skeptical that a final bill could come together that quickly. Either way, it will take considerably longer for the Senate to vote. The rules of reconciliation allow for time-eating “vote-a-rama” amendments as well as up to 50 hours of debate, and it is highly likely opponents of the measure in the Senate will take all that time. But things are hot and getting hotter. Here’s the state of play currently.

Thursday morning President Biden released a Build Back Better framework and fact sheet outlining his social spending plan. The situation is still very fluid and it’s unknown if the centrists who have opposed previous spending and tax plans will support this version.