Title: Essential Employees Pay Certainty Act
Policy area: Government Operations and Politics

Summary:
Essential Employees Pay Certainty Act
This bill creates a new Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) withdrawal option for certain federal employees during the lapse in appropriations beginning on or around December 22, 2018.
Specifically, an excepted employee (i.e., an employee who continues to work during the lapse in appropriations) may make a TSP withdrawal without penalty.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 338 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 338

 To allow Federal employees excepted from furlough during the lapse in 
   appropriations beginning on or around December 22, 2018, to make 
  withdrawals from their Thrift Savings Plan accounts, and for other 
                               purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 8, 2019

 Mr. Meadows introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Oversight and Reform, and in addition to the Committee on 
   Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the 
  Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall 
           within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To allow Federal employees excepted from furlough during the lapse in 
   appropriations beginning on or around December 22, 2018, to make 
  withdrawals from their Thrift Savings Plan accounts, and for other 
                               purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Essential Employees Pay Certainty 
Act''.

SEC. 2. TSP WITHDRAWALS FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES EXCEPTED FROM FURLOUGH 
              DURING GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN.

    (a) Withdrawal.--
            (1) In general.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
        law, any Federal employee excepted from furlough resulting from 
        a lapse in discretionary appropriations occurring on or around 
        December 22, 2018, may, during such lapse, make a withdrawal 
        from the employee's account within the Thrift Savings Plan, 
        without penalty and without being treated as violating any 
        requirement of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
            (2) Amount.--The amount of a withdrawal under paragraph (1) 
        may not be greater than the total amount of annual salary that 
        the employee would have received for the period beginning on 
        the date the employee would have received pay but for such 
        lapse and ending on the date on which the withdrawal is made.
    (b) Catch-Up Contributions.--Any employee who makes a withdrawal 
under subsection (a) may, beginning on the date that the lapse in 
appropriations with respect to the employing agency ends, make 1 or 
more contributions in an aggregate amount not to exceed the amount of 
such withdrawal to the employee's account within the Thrift Savings 
Plans. In the case of any such contribution, but only to the extent of 
the amount thereof, the withdrawal shall be treated in the same manner 
as having been received in an eligible rollover distribution (as 
defined in section 402(c)(4) of such Code) and the contribution as 
having been transferred in a direct trustee to trustee transfer within 
60 days of an eligible rollover distribution.
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