The exiting chief of a key Congressional committee predicts that retirement savings vehicles like IRAs and 401(k)s could be under fire on the Hill next year.

Patrick Timothy McHenry United States Congress Representative

"There is going to be a massive fight on this subject matter, a massive fight, because it's a large amount of money, and a small tax on a large amount of money can still produce a large amount of revenue," Representative Patrick McHenry (R-North Carolina) said this morning at the 2024 ICI Leadership Summit at the JW Marriott.

McHenry spoke on the conference's main stage, in a fireside chat with Eric Pan, CEO of the Investment Company Institute (ICI). Pan asked McHenry, who is not running for reelection this year, whether the U.S. will have to change its retirement system to address fiscal issues.

"If we do so, we're going to put more seniors into poverty," McHenry said. "That small tax can have a substantial amount of behavioral change in the American people."

"We've got to protect tax-free savings for retirement," McHenry added. "That will be a major part of the tax discussion."

McHenry framed his retirement savings remarks (in which repeatedly used the "tax-free savings" phrase, without mentioning "tax-deferred savings") in the broader context of the "legislative stew" coming at the end of 2025: the "expiration of the largest component" of the 2017 tax cut, plus a "confluence of fiscal spending bills" that will also expire.

"Who controls Congress will dictate the result," McHenry said. "It is a such a juicy, crazy legislative process that it's almost worth staying around for." 

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