Attorneys would define a Safe Harbor as a provision of a statute or a regulation that specifies that certain conduct will be deemed not to violate a given rule. In our ERISA world, a Safe Harbor is a provision of the retirement plan law that can cut through the sometimes fog of ERISA and provide … Continue Reading
Compensation for employees is some variation of taxable wages reported on Form W-2. For allocation purposes, the employer or payroll provider downloads the census and compensation data based on the plan’s definition of compensation into a spreadsheet at the end of the year. It’s a little more complicated, of course, but let’s leave it at … Continue Reading
Kids can certainly outgrow their clothes, and so can employers with their retirement plans. A SIMPLE-IRA may have worked in the beginning, but if you want to change to a 401(k) plan in 2019, November 2 is the deadline to take action. Employers must provide notice to their employees by that date that 2018 will … Continue Reading
If you’re in the retirement plan business, you’ve heard the term “audit roulette”. It refers to the belief by some employers that the odds of their retirement plan getting audited by the IRS are in their favor. Well, those odds are getting worse. The IRS is taking technology to the next level using “data driven … Continue Reading
The conventional wisdom is that you can wait until the end of the year to put a retirement plan in place since you can still get the tax benefits for the whole year. Maybe for some purposes, but not for setting up a Safe Harbor 401(k) plan. If you want to set up a new Safe … Continue Reading
The July 31 due date (unless extended) to file Form 5500 for 2017 calendar year ERISA plans is creeping up on us. And if history be our guide, there will be many plan sponsors who don’t have a fidelity bond or one that is insufficient. It’s one of those check the boxes that can easily … Continue Reading
Say what you will about 401(k) loans – and we have over the years – they are a fact of 401(k) life and were addressed in the recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Act”). Before we get to the new rules, let’s start with the state of 401(k) plans. Recent data is difficult … Continue Reading
The 2016 Form 5500 deadline has come and gone for calendar year taxpayers, and a number of them revealed outdated fidelity bonds or retirement plans without bonds at all. The fidelity bond requirement is high up on the Department of Labor’s compliance priorities so it’s not a stretch to assume that the Department of Labor monitors this … Continue Reading
If you are a business owner/employer with a calendar fiscal year, you still have time to adopt a qualified retirement plan for 2017. Here’s what you have to do: Before December 31, 2017: Sign adopting resolutions and a plan document, and Deposit a de minimis amount, e.g., $1,000 in a trust account to establish corpus. … Continue Reading
“Decumulation” is a word that has now entered the lexicon of those individuals approaching retirement. The definition of which is the conversion of retirement plan assets accumulated during an employee’s working life into pension income to be spent during retired life. It’s a new risk for the record number of those moving from the accumulation phase … Continue Reading
It’s a familiar story: you or your retirement plan’s third party administrator (TPA) need to make a benefit distribution to an ex-employee. But the employer’s records are out of date and the former employee cannot be located. Worse yet, the missing participant has attained age 70½ so the plan is required to make minimum distributions … Continue Reading
Tax planning as in life can be a series of trade-offs. Whether to have a SIMPLE-IRA vs. a 401(k) plan is one of those trade-offs. And if you currently have a SIMPLE-IRA and want to change to 401(k), then you’ve got a November 1, 2017 deadline approaching. That’s the date by which employers have to provide … Continue Reading
It occurred to me after my last post, October 1 401(k) Safe Harbor deadline gets closer, that the White Rabbit could relate to ERISA.… Continue Reading
That’s No. 3 in my Pension Plan Procrastination Perils Proper Personal Planning list. If you want to set up a new Safe Harbor 401(k) plan for 2017, it has to be done by October 1. A Safe Harbor plan permits owners and other Highly Compensated Employees (HCEs) to maximize their contribution regardless of how much the Non-HCEs contribute. For … Continue Reading
“Procedural Prudence” is not a new concept. It’s underlies one of ERISA’s bedrock requirements. A fiduciary must discharge its duties prudently with care, skill, and diligence. It’s the process by which a fiduciary can accomplish this. In other words, it’s the “how” a decision gets made which is what the courts have focused on in ERISA … Continue Reading
For calendar year ERISA plans, today is the due date for filing their 2016 Form 5500 unless extended. While the vast majority of employers will meet that deadline, some will have red flags on their returns that could pique the interest of the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) and the Department of Labor (“DOL”).… Continue Reading
Consider a typical retirement plan sponsored by a private employer. The employer is a fiduciary to the plan along with employees who individually serve as trustees or members of the plan’s investment or retirement committee.… Continue Reading
July 31st, is of course, the due date (unless extended) for calendar year ERISA plans required to file Form 5500 for the 2016 plan year. And, as in the past, there will be many plan sponsors who must indicate on the 5500 they have outdated fidelity bonds or none. Here’s a timely reminder why they … Continue Reading
Or six non-alliterative reasons why waiting until the last minute to establish a retirement plan can be costly. And by last minute, I mean year-end.… Continue Reading
Many 401(k) plan sponsors have wisely selected investment professionals to assist in selecting the plan’s investment menu, typically a listing of various mutual funds. Other plan sponsors may allocate this duty to company officers and other key employees.… Continue Reading
Benefit plan regulators were active in the period leading up to the Federal government’s June 30 fiscal year-end. Significant new rules and regulations were proposed for retirement plans, deferred compensation plans and group health plans. It’s not a walk on the wild side, but some of the dry regulatory pronouncements will impact most benefit plan … Continue Reading
The Department of Labor (“DOL”) will be increasing penalties, in some cases substantially, for violations of ERISA. Here’s why and how it will impact ERISA plans that are not in compliance. Background In 2015, Congress passed the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of … Continue Reading
A recently filed lawsuit rekindled some old concerns about self-directed brokerage accounts. What are they? Let’s start at the beginning. Self-Directed Brokerage Accounts or “SDBAs” is the name the retirement industry has given to individual participant brokerage accounts maintained either on a stand-alone basis or through the 401(k) provider handling the menu of funds. The … Continue Reading
