来源：《华盛顿邮报》
原文刊登日期：2021年6月6日
文章结构
美国免税退休储蓄的目的：鼓励公民主动存钱养老；不鼓励将养老金留给继承人。
一项议案将最迟领取养老金年龄延后。
这项议案将使政府从领取养老金中获得的税收减少。
该项议案主要使美国有钱人受益。
该议案已经在参议院获得两党支持，说明：两党都支持的政策未必就是好政策。
Created in the late 1970s, individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and 401(k) plans now include 60 million participants each; they’re key sources of tax-advantaged retirement savings in the United States. Americans who own one or more of these accounts contribute annually and watch the earnings accumulate, tax-free, until tapping them later in life — to supplement pensions, Social Security and other income. Savers may start withdrawing money from their IRAs and 401(k)s as young as 59.5 years — with taxes due on what they take out. And they must start taking such taxable distributions no later than age 72. This is consistent with the policy rationale of tax-advantaged saving: to help people accumulate funds for their own use in retirement — not to protect as much money as possible until death, at which point their heirs get it.
个人退休账户(IRAs)和401(k)计划创建于上世纪70年代末，现在各有6000万参与者；两者是美国享有税收优惠的退休储蓄的主要来源。拥有一个或多个此类账户的美国人每年都要缴纳一笔钱，并看着收入累积，免税，直到晚年才动用——用来补充养老金、社会保障和其他收入。储户可能在59.5岁的时候就开始从个人退休金账户和401(k)计划中取出钱——取出的钱要交税。而且他们必须最迟在72岁开始从中取钱。这与税收优惠储蓄的政策原理是一致的：促使人们自己积累在退休时使用的资金，而不是尽可能多地省钱，直到他们死后，由他们的继承人得到这些钱。
Yet a bill has passed the House Ways and Means Committee that would let savers wait until 73 to dip into their tax-advantaged nest eggs, starting in 2022, with that age gradually increasing to 75 by 2032. The ostensible purpose is to increase IRA “flexibility” in an era when more people are delaying retirement, but the urgency of this objective is far from clear. The current age, 72, already represents a 1.5-year increase, enacted in 2019, over the previous standard. Meanwhile, covid and other factors, unfortunately, reduced average life expectancy to 77.8 years in the first half of 2020, down from 78.8 in 2019.
然而，众议院筹款委员会已经通过了一项法案，允许储户最迟到73岁动用他们的税收优惠储蓄金，从2022年开始，到2032年，这个年龄将逐渐增加到75岁。表面上的目的是在越来越多的人推迟退休的时代增加IRA的“灵活性”，但这一目标的紧迫性远非明显。目前的年龄为72岁，是2019年颁布制定的，比之前的标准延长了1.5年。与此同时，不幸的是，新冠肺炎等因素使美国人均预期寿命从2019年的78.8岁降至2020年上半年的77.8岁。
In 2018, the roughly 17 percent of taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $100,000-plus took more than half of the $253 billion in IRA distributions. Under the proposed law, more of that money will stay put, thus depriving the government of taxes that would have been paid upon withdrawal. The cost: $6.9 billion over 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
2018年，17%的纳税人调整后的总收入超过10万美元，他们约从IRA分配的2530亿美元中拿走了一半以上。根据拟议的法律，更多的资金将留在原地，从而剥夺了本应在取款时支付的税收。根据税收联合委员会的数据，10年内的税收损失将达到69亿美元。
As you might expect, the benefits will flow mainly to upper-income Americans, because they are more likely than others to have IRAs and 401(k)s in the first place — and because their account balances, on average, exceed those of lower-income people. The higher your income, the longer into retirement you can afford to wait before drawing on an IRA. Longevity varies directly with income, too.
正如你所料，这些福利将主要流向高收入美国人，因为，首先他们比其他人更有可能拥有IRA和401(k)计划，而且他们的平均账户余额超过低收入人群。你的收入越高，在退休后能推迟动用个人退休账户的时间就越长。寿命也与收入直接相关。
In short, this provision confers the bulk of its foreseeable benefits on the wealthiest — and healthiest — older Americans, and their heirs, while depriving the federal government of resources it could have used to help everyone else. The bill, which made it through committee unanimously, and a version of which enjoys bipartisan support in the Senate, also makes some needed reforms, such as encouraging more employers to enroll employees in tax-advantaged savings plans. The proposed delay in mandatory withdrawals, however, confirms a sad Washington reality: Bipartisan policy is not necessarily good policy.
简言之，这项规定将大部分可预见的利益赋予最富有、最健康的美国老年人及其继承人，同时剥夺了联邦政府本可以用来帮助其他所有人的税源。该法案获得了筹款委员会的一致通过，其中一个版本在参议院得到了两党的支持，也包含一些必要的改革，比如鼓励更多的雇主使雇员加入税收优惠储蓄计划。然而，推迟强制取款的提议证实了有关美国政府的一个悲惨现实：两党都支持的政策未必是好政策。