On December 29, 2022, President Biden signed into law the $1.7 trillion Consolidated Appropriation Act, 2023. Included in the more than 4,000 pages of legislation are various spending and appropriations bills, including the long-anticipated retirement saving bill known as SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (“the Act” or “SECURE 2.0”). This summary provides an explanation of many of the key changes enacted under SECURE 2.0. In total, the Act includes 92 new or modified retirement provisions. In some respects, this new law is a continuation and amplification of the changes made under the SECURE Act passed in 2019, but also included are many new provisions that attempt to address deficiencies in retirement plan participation and savings among workers.
Some of the key changes in the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 include:
- Increase in age for required minimum distributions
- Repayment of qualified birth or adoption distributions (QBADs)
- Elimination of lifetime RMDs for Roth designated accounts in 401(k) plans
- Clarifications on some penalty tax exemptions, such as the waiver of the 10% premature penalty for distributions due to domestic violence and terminal illness.