Technical Corrections to PPA

April 2007

Typical of most comprehensive legislation, there are a number of clarifications needed to the PPA after its enactment. Congressional staff at each of the tax committees – and to a lesser degree the House Education & Labor and Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pension Committees – is developing a package of technical corrections that will fix mistakes and typos, and provide technical interpretations/clarifications to the PPA.

The package will likely include a provision that clarifies that self-insured health plans qualify for the pre-tax payment of health, accident or long-term care insurance premiums for public safety officers who retire or are disabled. This particular clarification would run counter to guidance already issued by Treasury and disputed by the tax-writers. While the technical corrections bill is expected to be comprehensive, it will not include other legislative fixes such as inclusion of elective features or a beneficiary fix for HRAs. Committee rules prohibit technical corrections bills from containing substantive or unrelated changes.