Choice, or rather, too many. General Motors has picked up on recent academic research that indicates that having too many investment choices in a 401(k) plan can lead some participants to pick the most conservative investment option and discourage others from participating at all. GM will be paring the number of 401(k) fund options from … Continue Reading
Call me old fashioned but I couldn’t wait to declare my independence from my parents. But this is a different day and a different generation. The term “helicopter parent” is now being used with more and more frequency in the media to describe parents who hover around their children who are part of the so-called … Continue Reading
All too often we hear about another laptop stolen with sensitive information on it. And all too often it’s personal data about employees. The latest is the retailing giant Neiman Marcus. The Company recently announced that a notebook computer containing personal information on 160,000 current and former employees was stolen. The stolen notebook belonged to … Continue Reading
Here is another example about the importance of properly classifying your employees. Frank Steinberg in his New Jersey Law Blog tells us that the NFL Loses to IRS regarding how the League had been treating their 70-plus Drug Program Agents [DPA’s], who collect urine samples for the drug testing program. The IRS recently ruled that … Continue Reading
Last month a group of more than 60 institutional investors and asset managers with collective assets totaling more than $4 trillion, and leading publicly traded corporations, issued a climate policy call to action requesting Congress and the Federal government to take prompt action on global climate change. The coalition, called Investors and Business for U.S. … Continue Reading
Keller Rohrback, a Seattle-based law firm and one of the leaders in 401(k) class action law suits, has now turned its attention to 403(b) plans. The firm, whose website is named ERISAfraud,com, announced its investigation into ithe National Education Association (“NEA”) Valuebuilder 403(b) variable annuity plan. As background, the NEA has 3.2 million members who … Continue Reading
Accounting Web’s story, Unpaid Trust Fund Taxes Are Serious Business, was about how some business engage in “pyramiding”, the practice of repeatedly withholding trust fund taxes from employees but intentionally failing to send them to the IRS. They’re called ‘trust fund’ taxes because it’s the obligation of employers to hold the employee’s money in trust … Continue Reading
It’s ERISA audit time again. The regular tax season is winding down, and accountants will soon be turning their attention to ERISA plan audits. And if you’re a plan sponsor whose plan is subject to an ERISA audit, selecting a plan auditor is a fiduciary function. So here are a few mistakes to avoid when … Continue Reading
It’s now a common event to learn that yet another healthy large company has frozen its defined benefit pension plan. The most recent of which in the news was Fidelity. In many cases, these employers are beefing up other benefits such as an increased match or profit sharing contribution. But very few seem to be … Continue Reading
Here is a link to a recent guest column I wrote, New Law Good News for 401(k) Sponsors (PDF) that appeared in the Enterprise Forum, the on-line publication for executives of privately-held companies published by WWJ•950 NEWSRADIO, CBS Radio in Detroit, Michigan. It’s published weekly. Present company excluded, there is good information here for private … Continue Reading
Steve Rosenberg in his Boston ERISA Law Blog recently asked the question, When is a Plan Admininstrator a Fiduciary? Steve then goes on to answer the question in writiing about a recent court decision in the which the decision’s main analysis was whether one of the plaintiffs, the plan administrator, qualified as a fiduciary. ERISA … Continue Reading
Trade sanctions against Iran are already in place for U.S. companies with more punitive measures being proposed by Congress. Now legislators on both the federal and state level are pushing legislation that would require public employee retirement plans to divest themselves of investments in foreign companies doing business with Iran. Missouri already has had such legislation … Continue Reading
There’s been a rash of stories lately about how we’re saving too much for retirement carried by such publications as The New York Times, USA Today, MarketWatch. They cite studies by contrarian economists that tell us we’re all being tricked by the on-line calculators put there by the fund providers to get us to invest … Continue Reading
It started late last year with the beginning of the class action suits involving 401(k) fees (More storm clouding forming over 401(k) fees). Then followed by the publication of the General Accounting Office 401(k) Report commissioned by Rep. George Miller, D-Cal. Th e Congressman announced that the House Education and the Workforce Committee that he … Continue Reading
We used to call them “rehires” back in the day: those employees who quit and were hired back. And it didn’t happen all that often. Many companies had policies not to. But now it’s different. Different times, different economy. Employees who left the nest decide they want to come back, and employers desperate for qualified, … Continue Reading
Recently I wrote about being careful to properly classify your workers: independent contractor or employee. But what if you make a mistake, and that independent contractor is really an employee. How do you fix it? Here’s how. There’s two aspects to the fix. From the retirement plan standpoint, you can use one of the correction … Continue Reading
Steve Rosenberg writing today in his Boston ERISA and Insurance Litigation Blog ends his post, Insurance Brokers As ERISA Defendents, by commenting that "… it might be something for any entity playing a role in an ERISA governed plan to consider at the outset of their retention: should they put themselves in a position to … Continue Reading
How long do we have to keep retirement plan records is one of those questions that plan sponsors ask when they start to run out of file cabinet drawers. They’re familiar with their reporting and disclosure obligations that they have under ERISA, but ERISA also requires that plan sponsors retain the records that support the … Continue Reading
In the world of ERISA, there are three parties to a divorce: the retirement plan participant, the ex- (called the alternative payee), and the plan administrator. Or, in the proper order: the participant, the administrator, and the ex-. Because the plan administrator is the person in the middle since he or she has to decide … Continue Reading
Last month with ERISA class action suits in the news, I blogged about a recent ERISA class action suit in which the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a lower court’s decision certifying the case as a case action. Plan participants of the EDS 401(k) plan claimed that the fiduciaries of the plan improperly required … Continue Reading
It happens. An employee meets the 401(k) plan eligibility requirements, and the employer unintentionally does not offer enrollment at what should be the employee’s entry date. Roy Harmon in his Health Plan Law blog writes about a similar situation involving a group insurance benefit. The title of his post, “Instatement” In LTD Plan Appropriate Remedy … Continue Reading
A partial termination of a retirement plan is one of those things that you know now what you didn’t know then. If it happens, then all plan participants must be fully vested. But there is no clear objective test as to when it happens. What got me thinking about this subject was yesterday’s article by … Continue Reading
Target-maturity funds, a/k/a life cycle-funds, have made significant inroads into 401(k) plans, They’re now a common sight on the fund menus of many 401(k) platforms. The recent Department of Labor regulation on default funds in which target-maturity funds are one of the fund types that can provide fiduciary relief has further spurred their growth. Target-maturity … Continue Reading
Business Week reports on a new study by consulting firm Cerulli Associates that large Wall Street firms are likely to capture a sizeable share of the $300 billion expected to roll out of 401(k) plans this year. Much of this money will come from the Baby Boomers, the first of whom reached age 60 last … Continue Reading
