Kent Mason Quoted in Planadviser.com Article on the Retirement Industry’s Response to the Passage of a Major Tax Bill
- Published Date: July 9, 2025
- Written By: Davis & Harman
Davis & Harman Partner, Kent Mason, was featured in a Planadviser.com article titled, “Retirement Industry Responds to Passage of ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’”
Planadviser.com’s article details the recent passage of the budget reconciliation tax package that moved through Congress in the first half of 2025, also referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The bill was signed by President Trump on July 4th, and notably it did not include any negative impacts to employer-sponsored retirement plans.
Mason is quoted saying:
“The bill did not reduce the retirement savings tax incentives to raise revenue. Based on many discussions with Congressional offices during 2024 and 2025, we were confident that the retirement tax incentives would not be touched, but having that confirmed was excellent.”
Mason’s quote continues noting that the retirement industry would have liked to see the inclusion of a provision to allow employers to use surplus pension plan assets and retiree health accounts to fund other employer benefits, which would have additionally raised revenue to help fund the bill’s other costly provisions.
Mason stated that “we were very disappointed that the big bill did not include a bill [S. 2003] introduced by Senators Tim Scott, Bill Cassidy, Roger Marshall and Thom Tillis to allow over $100 billion of currently unusable surplus in pension plans and retiree health accounts to be used to provide benefits to employees. The bill was estimated to raise $6.3 billion in revenue and was a pro-worker bill that allowed the use of over $100 billion to fund employee benefits.”
A link to the full article can be found here.
