From Here to Security: How Workplace Savings Can Keep America's Promise

CHAPTER 10

OPPORTUNITY AND RISK: TAX REFORM 2017?

Be careful what you wish for.

—Folk wisdom of unknown origin

As this book was heading to publication, developments in Washington, D.C., promised to have major impact—for good or ill—on America’s retirement savings system. For the first time since 1986, a sweeping reform of the entire U.S. tax code began to seem possible—this time with Republicans in charge of the House, the Senate, and the White House.

For those of us involved in retirement policy, the opening of this kind of rare “window” for comprehensive tax reform is both exhilarating and unnerving. It’s exciting because adopting more robust, better-designed tax incentives could go far toward actually “solving” America’s whole retirement ...