Americans are constantly being told that they don’t save enough.  So why not create more widely usable, and less complicated, opportunities for savings that will produce income without being subject to income tax?  I discussed the possibilities in my Tax Law Special Report for March, 2020.  The report is posted for your examination at my firm’s web site, deconcinimcdonald.com.  

First, the title of the SECURE Act is a ridiculously contrived acronym: the full title is the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019.  
What’s more, just about all of the commentary that I have seen about it focuses on the shortening of the time that people who inherit IRAs have to withdraw the funds.  Sure, that may be important in some situations, but I’ll bet that, given the freedom to do whatever they want, most people who inherit IRAs are going to withdraw all the money in ten years (the new, shorter time period for most situations) or less anyway.  
The more impactful change made by the SECURE Act, in my opinion, is the extension of the required beginning date for withdrawals by the account owner (the dreaded required minimum distributions, or RMDs) from age 70½ to age 72.
For a fuller, but by no means comprehensive, discussion of this complex measure that has implications for retirement planning, estate planning, and tax planning, please check out my Tax Law Special Report for February, now available for your reading pleasure in the News & Events section of my firm’s web site, deconcinimcdonald.com.  

To reach the status of one of the dumber tax ideas I have heard recently, the idea must be pretty dumb, but I think this one qualifies: take a sales tax that was enacted to protect an urban area’s water supply and divert it to pay for public transit instead.  Huh?  
If the tax is needed to protect the water supply, how could it possibly make any sense to divert it to pay for public transit?  
On the other hand, if the objective for which the tax was levied has been accomplished, then how about repealing it?  Why don’t politicians ever think of that?  
Via Antiplanner.