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The Employee Benefit Research Institute, the definitive source of data on retirement plans, reports that in 2006 only 50.6% of private sector wage and salary workers between 21 and 64 worked for an employer sponsoring an employee retirement plan, and only 40.3% participated in a plan.

After missing several self-imposed deadlines, conference committee leaders say that legislation to reform retirement plans might actually get reported back to the House and Senate for a final vote very soon.

House-Senate conferees have made little progress in reaching a compromise on competing versions of retirement plan bills. Rules for pension plan funding and third-party advice for 401(k) plan participants are the widest areas of disagreement.

Leaders in both parties have indicated they plan to move retirement plan reform bills this year. In the House, John Boehner (R-OH) will reintroduce the Republican bill he shepherded through that House last year. In the Senate, Tom Daschle (D-SD) will push a comprehensive Democratic bill (S.

The House has passed H.R. 1000, the Pension Security Act of 2003. The bill would exclude all ESOPs from its requirements except ESOPs in public companies that are combined with 401(k) plans or that allow employees to buy stock through deferrals into the plan.

Leaders in the House and Senate have moved to start the process for reforming retirement plan law again with the introduction in each chamber of legislation paralleling what passed in each House last year.

Last year, the Presidential Panel on Federal Tax Reform proposed sweeping changes in retirement plan tax benefits. While the proposal did not specifically mention ESOPs, it appeared to eliminate all existing defined contribution plans and replace them with an Employer Retirement Savings Account.

A House-Senate conference committee is likely to be held soon to try to iron out differences between versions of pension plan reforms passed by both houses.

Less than two weeks after the government of South Africa announced it would reduce the incentives for broad-based employee ownership, it reversed its decision.

The NCEO's founder, Corey Rosen, published a detailed review of the evidence on ESOPs as a retirement plan in the June 22, 2015, issue of Tax Notes. The article was in response to a prior article arguing that ESOPs needed major reform to be part of the retirement system.