Last month, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it would be capping, and in some cases, lowering the fines for HIPAA violations. HHS released a Notification of Enforcement Discretion Regarding HIPAA Civil Money Penalties describing the new tier structure. According to HHS the new structure better reflects a covered entity’s “level of culpability.” Going forward, HHS will now use annual limits based on the four culpability levels of whether an organization has no knowledge, reasonable cause, willfully neglected and corrected, or willfully neglected without correcting HIPAA violations.

On May 23, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1994, also known as the SECURE Act, by a vote of 417 to 3. The SECURE Act is now headed to the Senate, where a nearly identical bill (the Retirement Enhancement Savings Act, aka RESA) is pending. Due to its overwhelming bipartisan support, experts believe the SECURE Act, perhaps with minor adjustments made in the Senate, will easily become law.

According to a US Census Bureau report, couples in which one or both spouses are foreign-born account for 20% of all marriages in the United States. Of these foreign-born spouses, approximately 60% are naturalized and 40% are noncitizens. The Bureau links this trend to both the growth of the US immigrant population and the increased number of Americans traveling and living abroad. This demographic faces unique estate and tax planning issues.