BENEFITS DIGEST

Employer interest in contributing to Trump Accounts keeps running into administration. PLANSPONSOR reports hearing participants and consultants describing multiple trustees, payroll mechanics and account authentication as the obstacles between a willing employer and an actual contribution. Automatic account opening doesn’t replace the parent’s claiming process, so an employer can’t assume every employee’s child has a usable account. The picture is operational choices and uncertainty, not a settled model.

The White House marked the formal launch of Trump Accounts this week, with roughly 60 million children registered through the auto-enrollment added late in the program’s design and $1,000 in seed money for eligible children. Since the July 4 start the accounts have taken in more than $4.5 billion, including $1.3 billion in seed contributions, $600 million from families and $2.6 billion in philanthropic gifts, the latter anchored by a $6.25 billion commitment from Michael and Susan Dell. Family and friends may contribute up to $5,000 a year, and employers may contribute up to $2,500 within that cap. For sponsors, Aon’s Melissa Elbert points to Treasury’s continued support for running dependent contributions through a Section 125 cafeteria plan, which she calls a middle ground that lets employers facilitate participation through existing benefits infrastructure even if they never contribute a dollar themselves.

Treasury explains how parents and guardians can claim the Trump Accounts that automatic enrollment created. The official app is the channel, a parent or guardian verifies identity and relationship to the child, and families with questions are pointed to TrumpAccounts.gov. The announcement doesn't change the employer-contribution rules the agencies proposed in August, which are still proposals, not final rules.

The Trump Account auto-enrollment proposal has been published in the Federal Register. Comments are due November 30, 2026. The proposal would pair the temporary regulations' automatic account creation with rules for the claiming process and for qualified general contributions, and a scheduled October 15 public hearing on the related employer-contribution rules has been [switched to telephonic only](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/09/30/2026-20021/employer-contributions-to-trump-accounts-and-nondiscrimination-rules-for-dependent-care-assistance). The rules mainly concern how Treasury will create and administer the accounts. Jim Earle of Troutman Pepper Locke [told SHRM](https://www.troutman.com/insights/what-trump-account-auto-enrollment-means-for-employers) the temporary and proposed rules don't directly affect employers or change the separately proposed rules for employer contributions. The comment window is the place to press questions about how claiming will work when employers start funding accounts.

An employer contribution to a child’s Trump Account could involve considerably more work than adding a payroll deduction. At an IRS hearing, Aon’s Grace Lattyak warned that employers might have to validate accounts, transmit contributions and handle corrections separately with numerous financial institutions. PLANADVISER also reports questions about payroll taxes and whether existing payroll systems can accommodate the benefit. For employers considering it, the unresolved issue is how the administration would work across account providers, not simply whether employees would welcome another contribution.

Mercer’s 15-page explainer covers the employer side of the new child savings accounts, to which employers have been able to contribute since July 2026. The $2,500 exclusion applies per employee, not per child. Additional employer contributions outside the program are taxable wages, and individual and employer contributions remain subject to the account’s separate aggregate annual limit, while Social Security, Medicare, and federal unemployment taxes still apply under the proposed guidance. Minor employees cannot fund their own accounts pretax, and the linked proposed regulations carry their own open questions.

Haynes Boone walks employers through contributing to Trump Accounts, which the firm describes as traditional IRAs for children under 18 that took effect earlier this year. Ordinary contributions, including qualifying employer contributions, share a $5,000 annual limit per child, with certain government, qualified general and rollover contributions excluded, and an employer program may contribute up to $2,500 per employee, counted within that shared limit rather than on top of it. Qualifying employer contributions are exempt from federal income tax but not from the employer’s Social Security and unemployment payroll taxes, and the firm describes the written-program and nondiscrimination requirements along with open administrative questions. These are accounts for employees’ children, not a new retirement account every adult employee can open, and the analysis is the firm’s reading of the underlying guidance.

Ian Berger explains how automatically opened Trump Accounts work and when families can start adding money. Only about seven million Trump Accounts had been opened by parents as of July, so Treasury automatically created an account for roughly 60 million more eligible children. The auto accounts live together in a master group trust and can hold only two things, the $1,000 federal contribution, which parents still must claim, and contributions from tax-exempt organizations. Before a family can add its own money or accept employer contributions, a parent must claim the account and move it out of the trust. The second announcement lets private foundations contribute publicly traded stock instead of cash, with no dollar cap and no effect on the $5,000 annual limit that applies to individual and employer contributions, though contributions must go to a targeted group of children and stock generally must be held five years before sale.

Sanyam Parikh and Sterling Perkinson turn the Trump Account rules into an implementation checklist. A contribution program must be a separate written plan; up to $2,500 per employee per year, a cap that applies per employee rather than per dependent, is excluded from income but still subject to FICA and FUTA; and salary-reduction contributions run through the cafeteria plan and can fund only a dependent’s account. Two details matter before launch. Under the September 30 temporary regulations, an automatically created account that hasn’t been claimed can’t receive employer contributions, so payroll needs to verify claiming before routing a dollar, and contributions report on the W-2 under new code TA. Their ERISA tip is to set eligibility at age 21 with a year of service, which keeps working minors, and the thorniest coverage questions, out of the program.

Ary Rosenbaum's short take on Technical Release 2026-02, in which the Labor Department concluded that Trump Accounts and most employer contribution programs tied to them won't be treated as pension plans under ERISA. The accounts belong to children, not employees, and the department described limits on employer involvement that keep a program outside Title I. His point for employers is that the guidance answers the ERISA-coverage question and that question only; the written-program, certification, and contribution-limit requirements still apply.

The follow-up to IFEBP's earlier walk-through of the proposed Trump-account contribution rules, this one on the testing, all of it still proposed. An employer contribution program could not favor highly compensated employees in contributions or benefits, and would need reasonable, objective eligibility classifications. The heart is an average benefits test: the average benefit going to non-highly compensated employees must be at least 55 percent of the average going to the highly compensated, counting only employees who actually receive something and, where benefits run through salary reduction, permitting workers earning under $25,000 to be disregarded. Certain employees, including those under 21 or with less than a year of service, can be left out of the testing populations, and collectively bargained employees may be excludable subject to conditions. Comments are due September 25, a hearing follows October 15, and the proposal would let employers correct specified 2026 testing failures until January 31, 2027.

The first alert to give equal time to the second proposed rule: what Trump accounts may actually hold during the growth period. Investments must be index tracking mutual funds or ETFs with no leverage and annual fees capped at 0.1 percent of net asset value—actively managed funds, fund of funds structures, and ESG index funds are all ineligible—and trustees must re-verify eligibility every twelve months and dispose of noncompliant holdings within thirty days. On the employer side, two cautions easy to miss: a written employee certification is not enough by itself to verify an account, and contributions escape income tax but remain wages for FICA and FUTA. A safe harbor covers employers that match the $1,000 pilot contribution identically for all non-excluded employees.

IFEBP walks through contribution program design under the proposed regulations, covering payroll deductions, the written plan requirement, employer contribution limits, and implementation considerations for sponsors weighing a program.

Two sets of proposed regulations address how employer-sponsored Trump Account contribution programs will operate and how account assets may be invested before a beneficiary turns 18. Seyfarth walks through the requirements, including a separate written plan document, a $2,500 per-employee cap on tax-favored Section 128 contributions, cafeteria plan elections for employee pre-tax contributions to dependents' accounts, and nondiscrimination testing that tracks the dependent care FSA rules. Contributions default to an S&P 500 index ETF with ESG index funds off the table, and open questions remain, from tracking eligible dependents to coordinating contributions across a controlled group.

Seyfarth reviews the IRS's latest proposed Trump Account guidance, which addresses employer contribution programs and the eligible-investment rules confining account assets to low-fee, broad-market index funds during a beneficiary's childhood.

In Technical Release 2026-02, the DOL concluded that Section 530A accounts and employer contribution programs generally are not ERISA-covered pension plans when employers keep a neutral, administrative role. To stay outside ERISA, employers should avoid endorsing particular providers, influencing investment decisions, imposing conditions on account use beyond what the tax code requires, or receiving compensation. Verrill's takeaway is that the guidance clears a major compliance concern for employers weighing 530A contributions, while ERISA risk still turns on program design, communication, and administration.

Trump Accounts are a new tax-favored, IRA-style savings vehicle that may be established for eligible children by an authorized individual, such as a parent, legal guardian, or grandparent, and may receive federal, family, and employer contributions.

The Treasury Department recently issued proposed regulations providing long-awaited guidance on employer contributions to Trump Accounts under Internal Revenue Code Section 128.

Boutwell Fay's walkthrough of the August 11 employer-contribution proposed regulations for Trump Accounts, the third set of rules for the new accounts, with the nondiscrimination overlay plan sponsors will actually administer.

Segal breaks down the proposed employer-contribution rules for Trump Accounts: the cafeteria-plan interaction, the nondiscrimination testing overlay, and what benefits committees should be scoping before the rules finalize.

The Slott team on the administrative requirements employers must meet to contribute to Trump accounts, and why small employers in particular may find the compliance load heavier than the $2,500 benefit suggests.

Mayer Brown's analysis of Monday's proposed regulations: the up-to-$2,500 tax-free employer contribution to Trump Accounts, the workplace-program nondiscrimination and reporting requirements, and the first formal guidance on the 55 percent average-benefits test for dependent care assistance programs.

Starting this year, employers can contribute to an employee's or dependent's Trump account tax free, up to a combined $2,500 per year (inflation-adjusted after 2027) under a contribution program. Groom's walk-through of this week's proposed regulations.

NAPA's take on this week's proposal guiding employers on implementing a Trump Account contribution program, a third voice alongside the primary text and the Groom explainer.

PLANSPONSOR's coverage of yesterday's proposed regulations: up to $2,500 in tax-free employer contributions, with nondiscrimination, reporting, and salary-reduction requirements for workplace programs.

Treasury and the IRS proposed the framework for employer Trump account contribution programs: a separate written plan, eligibility classes tested under DCAP-style nondiscrimination rules including a 90% sliding-scale safe harbor, written employee notification, and W-2 reporting, with employees able to exclude up to $2,500 per year of employer contributions. The proposal also updates the section 129 DCAP nondiscrimination rules themselves, reflecting the OBBBA's increase of the dependent care exclusion to $7,500. Employers may rely on the proposed rules now; comments are due September 25 and a public hearing is set for October 15.

The proposal, which will clarify how employers can contribute to Trump Accounts, should be published soon.

Today's blog shares updates on employer contributions for employees’ dependent children with Trump accounts.

Seyfarth Synopsis : The Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued Technical Release 2026-02, which clarifies that neither Trump Accounts nor employer contributions to Trump Accounts are considered “employee pension benefit plans” under Section 3(2) of ERISA.

The U.S. Department of Labor (the “DOL”) recently issued Technical Release 2026-02, providing guidance on whether certain Trump accounts established under Section 530A of the Internal Revenue Code and the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act (“Trump Accounts”) and employer contribution programs to such accounts constitute employee benefit plans subject to ERISA.

Trump Accounts launched on July 4, 2026. These special individual retirement accounts (IRAs) can help children under 18 build savings.

On June 17, 2026, the DOL issued Technical Release 2026-02, which confirms that “Trump Accounts” and Code Section 128 Trump Account contribution programs generally will not constitute “employee

Elon Musk pledged a SpaceX share for each American child, and the article explores whether Trump Accounts could hold them. Aon commentary highlights the family, tax and trustee complications an employer would face before anything like that could be administered. It’s a pledge, not a delivery, and nothing establishes that individual SpaceX shares are permissible Trump Account investments under the statute’s limits. For employers, the gap between a headline gift and a working mechanism is the story.

What happens when a Trump Account’s investments drift outside the permitted limits? Retirement-industry commenters want a correction process and protection for trustees relying in good faith on public investment information. Other requests go further. Vanguard sought room for bonds and Coinbase for cryptocurrency, although the statute restricts the eligible investments. The October 20 comment deadline has passed. For providers building these accounts, the distinction matters between changes Treasury could make through guidance and changes that would require Congress.

New Trump Account rules let governments and charities fund equal contributions for every eligible child in a class defined by birth year and geography, and those contributions can now arrive as publicly traded stock rather than cash. Donated stock generally must be held for five years before it is sold and reinvested in the index funds the accounts otherwise require. Until accounts are claimed, the assets of automatically created accounts are invested together through a master trust while Treasury keeps ownership records for each child. The preamble names the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation's $6.25 billion pledge, to children born between 2016 and 2024 in lower-income ZIP codes, as the kind of giving the rules are designed to attract, and it gives charitable donors certainty that these contributions qualify for deductions. Comments on the companion proposed rule are due 60 days after it publishes in the Federal Register.

Comments on the proposed Trump Account investment rules are due October 20. The proposal's requirement that eligible funds invest at least 90 percent in U.S. equities remains contested. It also excludes ESG index funds even though they aren't sector funds. Speaking at a webinar covered by NAPA, Mindset's Chantel Sheaks said the 0.1 percent fee cap includes all charges to the account holder, whatever they're called. Actively managed funds generally wouldn't qualify.

A comment deadline is approaching on the investment side of the accounts we covered all week. October 20 is the date for [the August proposed regulations](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/21/2026-17123/guidance-on-eligible-investments-for-trump-accounts) defining what a Trump Account may hold. The proposed rules are strict. Mutual funds or ETFs only, tracking the S&P 500 or another broad U.S. equity index (no sector, ESG-focused, or actively managed funds, and no leverage), with annual fees capped at 0.1 percent of assets. Under the proposal, trustees would offer only eligible funds, name a default, monitor eligibility annually, and unwind any fund that falls out of compliance within 30 days. The investment menu would stay deliberately narrow, and employers considering contributions should understand those limits before describing the benefit to employees.

Proposed regulations under section 530A would confine Trump Account investments during the growth period to unleveraged index funds that track broad U.S. equity benchmarks and charge annual fees of 0.1% or less, excluding actively managed, sector, and ESG-labeled funds. Employers contributing to the accounts bear no fiduciary duty for investment selection but should confirm contributions flow to compliant accounts. Comments are due October 20.

One of the most important features of Trump accounts is that they must be invested a certain way during the period before January 1 of the year the child turns age 18.

The IRS issued a proposal outlining the acceptable investments for Trump Accounts. The proposal covers fees, foreign investments, ESG funds, and other investment management issues.

Treasury and the IRS proposed rules defining what a Trump Account can hold before the beneficiary turns 18: generally an unleveraged mutual fund or ETF tracking a broad U.S. equity index such as the S&P 500, charging no more than 0.1 percent in annual fees, with the trustee selecting a default fund when no election is made. The August 11 rules told employers what they may contribute; this one tells trustees what the money may sit in. Comments are due October 20, 2026.

Hall Benefits Law's half-year policy roundup names four developments: the DOL's proposed safe harbor for fiduciaries selecting 401(k) investments, EBSA's shift to fewer but more participant-focused enforcement interactions, SEC moves to streamline executive compensation disclosure by company size, and EBSA's technical release that ERISA Title I generally does not apply to Trump Accounts. A mixed but useful mid-year checkpoint for benefits and executive compensation practice.

Proposed regulations would limit investments during a child’s growth period to low-cost, non-leveraged equity index funds and ETFs, with annual fees capped at 0.1%.

Nearly 99% of parents already use the Social Security Administration's Enumeration at Birth program, according to a co-sponsor of the bill, which would establish the new investment accounts through the existing registration system.

Christopher Carosa asks benefits lawyers Marcia Wagner and Michelle Capezza how an employer would actually offer Trump Account contributions, and the answers separate adopting the benefit from running it. Under the proposed rules, salary-reduction contributions would be available only for employees’ dependents through a separate program the tax code creates. Employers would need to build payroll and trustee coordination, let elections change prospectively at least monthly, and run nondiscrimination testing that examines both who qualifies and whether benefits disproportionately favor higher-paid employees. The $2,500 annual exclusion is a combined limit per employee, not per dependent. The article examines proposed administrative rules, whose details could change before they are finalized.

Temporary regulations replaced the proposed opening procedure with automatic accounts, and Boutwell Fay reports the result in numbers. Automatic accounts were opened for more than 60 million children on October 1, bringing the total to nearly 70 million. An automatic account still has to be claimed and activated by a parent or guardian, and an employer can’t simply send contributions to an unclaimed account. The firm flags open questions about how employers verify an employee’s account and how these rules fit the earlier employer-contribution proposal.

Foley & Lardner’s explainer covers the employer-contribution side of the new accounts, up to $2,500 per employee per year, fundable by employer dollars or pre-tax salary reductions for dependents through a cafeteria plan. An employer offering contributions needs a separate written program plus nondiscrimination, notification, reporting, and trustee-notice compliance, and salary-reduction designs require plan amendments. Parts of the framework rest on proposed regulations, so not every mechanic is final.

CBIZ’s October update flags three dates for employers. Medicare Part D creditable coverage notices, which tell employees whether their drug coverage is at least as good as standard Medicare coverage, are due before October 15. Extended Form 5500s for calendar-year plans are due October 15, and Massachusetts HIRD filings open November 15. The Labor Department’s benefits agency, in new Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-03, is focusing mental health parity enforcement on blanket exclusions of mental health treatment, the review practices plans use to decide whether care is necessary, and inadequate provider networks. Its updated red-flags checklist helps plans spot potential problems in their own designs while new regulations are drafted. The issue also covers the Trump Accounts temporary regulations, with IRS automatic enrollment reaching more than 60 million children and comments open through November 29, San Francisco’s 2027 health care expenditure rates, New York and New Jersey paid leave figures for 2027, and the District of Columbia’s October 1 reductions in paid family leave durations and maximum benefits.

The initial 2026-2027 Priority Guidance Plan lists 121 projects the agencies intend to prioritize, and the benefits entries sketch the year ahead. From the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the plan includes Trump Account guidance, regulations on the expanded employer child care credit, and guidance on the paid family and medical leave credit. The retirement entries run from an update to the Employee Plans correction program and a new program for correcting IRA mistakes, through SECURE 2.0 guidance including the saver’s match and student-loan matching contributions, to electronic-delivery modernization and defined benefit funding guidance. Other projects address fringe benefits and VEBAs, the tax-exempt trusts some employers use to fund benefits. For executive pay, the plan lists regulations on the deduction limit for high pay at public companies and the parallel excise tax at tax-exempt organizations. The list sets the agencies’ priorities for the coming year. It doesn’t change existing requirements or promise when any project will be finished.

A plain-English rundown of the employer side of the Treasury and IRS proposals. Employers could contribute up to $2,500 a year tax free with respect to each employee, a single cap that covers contributions to the employee's own account and to dependents' accounts combined, and the money counts toward an account's $5,000 annual contribution limit. The proposed regulations add the mechanics, including a separate written plan document, certification procedures on the beneficiary's age and dependent status, employee notices and annual statements, and data sharing with the account trustee, and eligibility can't favor highly compensated employees or their dependents. These remain proposed rules, so the details can change before they're final.

Comments on the proposed rules for employer contributions to Trump accounts close tomorrow, September 25, with a public hearing October 15. Troutman walks through what a program requires under the August proposed regulations. A program needs a separate written plan, notice to eligible employees, and an annual statement of contributions. Up to $2,500 per employee each year, across all of the employee's children or other expected tax dependents, can be excluded from federal income tax. Dependent status is judged when the contribution is made, based on what the employee reasonably expects, with nothing to unwind if it changes later. The contributions remain subject to Social Security, Medicare, and federal unemployment taxes, so payroll systems must treat them differently from other pretax benefits. If a program fails its nondiscrimination testing, only highly compensated employees lose the tax break. The Labor Department has said these programs generally aren't ERISA plans.

Several major benefits rules are awaiting White House review, the last stop before publication. EBSA's automatic portability exemption arrived September 14 as a final rule with a statutory deadline. Its PBM fee disclosure transparency rule has been there as a final since July 23. Treasury sent two Trump Accounts rulemakings on September 18, an interim final rule and a companion proposal under new section 530A. And Treasury's final rule on automatic enrollment under section 414A has been in review since June.

Troutman walks employers through the piece of the Trump Accounts proposed regulations that's theirs to act on: the first framework for employer contribution programs under new Code section 128. We covered the proposal when it published August 11, and the detail worth repeating is the calendar: comments close this Friday, September 25, with a public hearing set for October 15.

[Notice 2026-28](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-26-28.pdf) led the Digest when it arrived August 5, and comments on it close October 16. Ogletree Deakins's Friday analysis is a prompt to revisit three details before then. The six-month eligibility period is an election an employer makes in its written policy, not an automatic change. Leave required or paid by a state or local program can help an employer qualify for the credit even though it doesn't increase the amount. And an employer can't claim twice for the same funded benefit, though it may use the premium method for an insured portion and the wage method for a portion paid separately from general assets. Employers can rely on the notice for tax years beginning after 2025 until proposed regulations arrive. It's one of three open comment windows. Comments on the [Trump Account and dependent-care assistance proposal](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/11/2026-16314/employer-contributions-to-trump-accounts-and-nondiscrimination-rules-for-dependent-care-assistance) we covered August 11 close Friday, September 25, and the Saver's Match questions from [Notice 2026-48](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-26-48.pdf) close October 5.

New Treasury guidance addresses the Saver's Match, retirement-plan rollovers and employer contributions to Trump Accounts.

The alert turns the proposed regulations into an employer decision memo. Contributions of up to $2,500 per employee per year can flow either directly or through a cafeteria plan, income tax free but payroll taxable, and only common law employees may participate, leaving out partners and 2 percent S corporation shareholders. The program needs a written plan, DCAP style nondiscrimination testing, trustee verification of accounts rather than employee certification, and identification of contributions within 21 days.

Employer contributions to Trump Accounts are excluded from income but count as wages for FICA and FUTA, a cost that FSA and HSA contributions do not carry. A contribution program may not steer money to a preferred trustee, so payroll must accommodate whatever custodian each employee's dependent uses, and contributions are reported on the W-2 under a new code. On the dependent care side, the average benefits test counts only participating employees in the denominator, relief for sponsors who kept failing the test with every eligible employee counted, and a failing program can preserve favorable treatment for everyone else by moving only the excess benefits into highly compensated employees' income by the W-2 deadline. Employers may rely on the proposal immediately.

Proposed regulations issued in August spell out how employers can make tax-free contributions to employees' Trump Accounts, beginning with a separate written plan document. Warner Norcross walks through the ground rules. Contributions are capped at $2,500 per employee per year no matter how many children an employee has, the cap counts both direct employer dollars and cafeteria-plan elections, and amounts get reported on the W-2. Employers cannot steer workers to a preferred custodian, so contributions may flow to many institutions, and the Labor Department has said these plans generally sit outside ERISA because the benefits belong to the children rather than the employees. A public hearing is set for October 15, and employers may rely on the proposal immediately.

Treasury and the IRS have issued proposed rules addressing the opening and administration of Trump Accounts, employer contribution programs, and eligible investments during a beneficiary's childhood.

Recent Treasury guidance resolved several tax and compliance issues, but benefits advisers say administration details may shape adoption.

Treasury’s latest guidance answered key compliance questions, advisers say, but employers are now figuring out how to administer the new benefit.

Trump Accounts will help eligible children “enjoy years of compound earnings for their future college, retirement and other needs,” an IRS leader said.

Eversheds Sutherland works through the August 11 proposed regulations on Trump Account employer contribution programs and the parallel DCAP nondiscrimination rules, a law-firm companion to the consultant takes already in this run.

Thompson Hine works through the proposed regulations' answers to the open Trump Accounts questions, most significantly how salary-reduction contributions run through section 125 cafeteria plans, plus the nondiscrimination testing rules employers have been waiting on.

Bloomberg Law reports early signals that small employers will be slow to add Trump Account contributions even as the proposed rules clear a path, with practitioners pointing to an administrative load that outweighs the $2,500 draw for many.

Human Resources Director's employer-facing walkthrough of the Trump Accounts proposed regulations: contribution mechanics, the nondiscrimination overlay, and what payroll teams should be scoping now.

The adviser-side angle on the proposed regulations: pre-tax payroll deductions similar to health savings accounts, though other vehicles may offer better benefits for some families.

The proposal aims to eliminate confusion for employers and provide a fully operating framework for those offering the federal savings plan.

The Department of Labor has issued guidance stating that most employer contributions to the newly created children's Trump Accounts, or 530A accounts, will not trigger application of ERISA. Read alongside today's proposed contribution-program regulations, the pieces of the employer framework are coming together.

Treasury and the IRS announced that they will propose regulations on the Saver's Match and begin implementing an Executive Order to create a federal IRA savings program for private-sector workers without coverage.

The authors note that Trump Accounts generally exist outside the retirement plan framework, as neither the statute nor current guidance provides a mechanism for incorporating them into a retirement plan.

New federal guidance is providing greater certainty around Trump Accounts and expanded their potential application beyond simple savings.

Candidly releas es Trump Accounts guidance; OakPath launches per sonal coach ‘ Aggi ’ for retirees; and Vestmark o pens AI r esearch c enter.

Kaufman & Canoles’ fall update covers employee stock ownership plan valuations, retirement-plan amendments, written cafeteria-plan terms, educational assistance, and Trump accounts. The firm urges employers to check that their written cafeteria-plan documents match how payroll handles pretax premiums and that educational-assistance documents can accommodate inflation adjustments rather than hard-coding the existing $5,250 limit. It also advises documenting an independent appraisal process when relying on the new ESOP valuation law.

The fifty state scorecard answers the question employers will get from employees: whether their state will tax these accounts the way the federal code does. Nine states have no income tax, twenty plus the District broadly conform, ten more have said they will conform or passed legislation, and California, Hawaii, and Kentucky reversed earlier positions and will now follow federal law. Four holdouts remain—Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Wisconsin—where earnings would face annual state tax despite federal deferral. The list is still moving, and the safest answer remains checking with the state tax office.

Conference speakers argue employers can use Trump Accounts to help workers overcome hesitation about investing, positioning the accounts as an on-ramp for employees who have never participated in a workplace plan.

TrumpIRA.gov, the website powering the new Trump IRA savings accounts, is officially live, giving families and employers their first operational look at enrollment and account details for the program.

NAPA's read of the Senate bill requiring the SSA to send newborn information to Treasury to create Trump Accounts, a second view of the legislation readers met Tuesday via PLANADVISER.

The government launches the regulatory process for SECURE 2.0’s Saver’s Match and takes a first step toward implementing the Executive Order establishing TrumpIRA.gov.

According to the Treasury secretary, 7 million children are already enrolled, as officials highlight educational features and expanded funding options.

To avoid politics and focus solely on the numbers, we will refer to Trump accounts as “530A accounts,” so named by the section of the Internal Revenue Code enacted under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) on July 4, 2025.

Before adopting a Trump Account (OBBBA Section 530A) contribution program, Mayer Brown advises employers to benchmark it against existing benefits like dependent care FSAs and 529 plans, check whether enough employees have young dependents to benefit, and weigh administrative cost against real recruitment value.

Treasury Secretary says Monday the new program is already helping millions of families build investing knowledge.

With contributions to Trump accounts having gone live on July 4, 2026, there has been lots of discussion recently about the “kiddie tax.” That’s because, once a child reaches January 1 of the year they turn age 18, they will be able to withdraw or do a Roth conversion of accumulated Trump account funds.

Most young children should have a Trump account. But that doesn’t mean families should prioritize saving in them.

Effective July 4, 2026, employers may contribute up to $2,500 annually on a tax-free basis to “Trump Accounts,” a new tax-advantaged savings account for employees’ dependent children under age 18, which was established under the Working Families Tax Cuts Act (Pub.

Learn how TrumpIRA.gov and the Saver’s Match could expand retirement savings access, which workers and account types may be affected, and what plan sponsors should consider in today's blog.

Trump Accounts, a new tax-advantaged individual retirement account (IRA) intended for the benefit of minor children, were established under Internal Revenue Code (Code) Section 530A as part of the

Transfer-tax safe harbor for individual donors who contribute to Trump accounts under IRC §530A. If specified conditions are met, contributions are treated as completed gifts that are not future