One of the largest retirement reforms in recent history has recently been signed into law with the goal of improving the retirement savings crisis in our country. The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act is slated to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2020, and includes an extensive 29 provisions.

Some of the key takeaways include improving access to retirement plans for part-time workers, adding incentives to increase employer adoption of retirement plans, changing distribution requirements for inherited IRAs, and changing age requirements for retirement contributions and required distributions from retirement accounts.

The following is a brief review of several of these key provisions and their impact on retirement planning:

Save more: The SECURE Act repeals the age cap of 70.5 for making a Traditional IRA contribution. This benefits employees who work longer, allowing them to contribute to Traditional IRAs past the age of 70.5. Though not a part of the SECURE Act, keep in mind that your Traditional IRA contribution is tax deductible if you meet certain income limits.
Defer taxes: Prior to the passage of the SECURE Act, required minimum distributions (RMDs) from retirement accounts must start in the year you reach 70.5, or April 1 of the following year at the latest. For those who have not reached age 70.5 by the end of 2019, RMDs do not need to be taken until age 72. Note that RMDs are not required from your employer retirement plan as long as you are still working and do not own more than 5% of the business.
Plan carefully: If you inherit a retirement account in 2020 or later and are not a spouse, minor child of the owner or other excluded group, the inherited account needs to be fully emptied within 10 years. Prior to this change, you were allowed to extend IRA distributions over future generations. Since IRA distributions are 100% taxable, tax and income planning will be especially important. For your own retirement account, review how this change will impact your beneficiaries.