Many clients, or would-be clients, desperately need your help to save for retirement.

And they need it soon.

That’s because millions of Americans are far behind in retirement savings.

Millions aren’t saving enough and are facing retirement years that will be anything but golden. It amounts to $4.1 trillion short in aggregate retirement savings, according to a recent report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

It’s not all bad news. In its report, the “Retirement Security Projection Model—Analyzing Policy and Design Proposals,” the EBRI says 57 percent of U.S. households are indeed saving enough. But that means nearly 43 percent of households aren’t.

The institute says one big factor in these figures is defined contribution accounts. The more years one enjoys eligibility and contributes to such a plan, the better the chance he or she will achieve retirement saving success.

For those with 15 to 19 years of account eligibility, for example, the average share of the $4.1 trillion deficit is only some $33,000. For those with 10 to 14 years of eligibility left, the share is $40,000. Those with five to nine years of eligibility account for an average of $53,000 of the deficit and those with one to four years represent an average of $63,000.

What should be done to close these retirement savings shortfalls? Is there a bias against savings?

Part of the problem is the way the tax code treats saving and investment accounts outside the tax code, says the Tax Foundation, a Washington think tank, in its September paper, “What Are Universal Savings Accounts and Why Are They Important?”

“Long-term savings are in decline, and half of Americans are at risk for not saving enough to maintain their current standard of living in retirement,” the Tax Foundation says.

The foundation says the inadequate savings are prompted in part by a tax code that encourages consumption and discourages saving.

Personal saving, the setting aside of resources today to get benefits in the future, is taxed in a variety of ways in the United States, the think tank says.

For example, ordinary income tax treatment taxes income when first earned, and, if saved, taxes the returns on the saving as well (in other words, taxes the reward one “buys” by saving).

This is very different from the way the code treats consumption, the paper says, adding that “income used for immediate consumption is taxed only once by the income tax; the income tax does not fall again on what one buys with the after-tax income. This second layer of tax on the rewards for saving favors immediate consumption over delayed consumption.” These multiple layers of taxation are part of the bias against savings, the paper says.

“In addition to personal income taxes on the principal and the return, corporate income taxes on business profits and estate and gift taxes mean that saving, in some instance, can face up to four layers of taxation. These layers of taxes discourage saving and investment.”

What should be done to combat the bias against saving that has generated this retirement savings deficit?

Several advisors say financial professionals should illustrate the problem in dramatic ways.

“I take out a chart [that shows] how one’s retirement savings will run down and how you may be out of savings by age 72 and then what?” says Raymond Mignone, a CFP in Little Neck, N.Y.

These people usually understand the problem when it is explained to them, advisors say, but unfortunately many people don’t have advisors.

“My clients seem to understand it,” says Jeff Feldman, a CFP in Pittsford, N.Y., “but many people who don’t have advisors have never properly considered the problem. No one has explained to them that if they just put 10 percent aside, they will hardly miss it. And if they do it over 30 years, then their retirement isn’t going to be hard. You’ll [retire] with a million or so.”

Both Feldman and Mignone agree that people who save 10 percent in a qualified retirement account in their early years, through work or through an outside IRA, are pursuing an effective strategy.

However, Mignone urges clients closer to retirement, in their 50s, “to really sock it away. I think then, 20 percent makes sense.”

The advisors also agree that whenever a person starts saving through a qualified plan at work, the initial contribution rates should always be at least enough to earn the employer’s match (or to catch the maximum tax break, if it’s an IRA).

“The sooner you do this, the better,” Feldman adds. “The problem with this retirement savings gap is so many people are assuming that the government or someone is going to take care of you in old age. That’s a big mistake. You must take care of yourself.”