Sponsor
Bill Cassidy
Senator · R-LA
Senator · R-LA
The bill expands practical retirement access for gig and other independent workers and reduces audit burden for participating employers, but it raises privacy, administrative cost, liquidity, and worker‑protection risks that could let some employers sidestep broader labor obligations.
Gig and other independent workers gain new, practical access to retirement savings (pooled‑employer plans, SEP options, and automatic small/round‑up contributions), letting many nonemployees start or increase retirement saving.
Participating small employers and plan sponsors face a smaller audit scope and lower unnecessary compliance costs because pooled plan audits are limited to each employer's attributable portion and audit responsibilities are clarified.
Audit and trust rules are clarified to protect participant assets and preserve separate-plan legal/operational boundaries, reducing risk of misallocation and improving accountability for participants' benefits.
The non‑inference clause and employer‑size exclusions could let employers treat nonemployees as plan participants while avoiding employment‑law responsibilities or coverage rules, risking erosion of worker protections.
Implementing automatic deductions, suspension accounts, SEP inclusion, and new pilot features will impose real implementation and ongoing compliance costs on small employers, payment platforms, pooled plan providers, and administrators.
Permissions to share worker data for plan setup and pilot administration create privacy and data‑security risks if safeguards are insufficient, exposing independent workers' earnings and personal data.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Allows independent workers and trade associations to join pooled employer plans, lets employers elect SEP treatment for independent workers, revises audit rules, and creates auto-savings pilot programs.
Official title: Amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 regarding pension plans for independent workers, and for other purposes.
Introduced July 9, 2025 by Bill Cassidy · Last progress July 9, 2025
Expands access to workplace-style retirement accounts for independent workers by letting them join pooled employer plans and by letting employers elect to treat them like employees for certain SEP rules. It clarifies accounting/audit rules for pooled and grouped plans to account for separate plan assets and trust structures, and directs Treasury and Labor to run pilot programs that make small automatic retirement contributions possible for independent workers (round-ups and recurring designated-dollar contributions). Tax-code changes take effect for taxable years after enactment and some plan-audit and plan-year rules apply to plan years after enactment.