From the beginning of 401(k) plans, the retirement industry has focused on the performance of individual funds as the key driver of retirement readiness. But a study by the Putnam Institute in 2006 and repeated in 2012 concluded that increasing deferral rates have the greatest potential impact on a 401(k) participant’s account balance at retirement … Continue Reading
Because there are now five generations in the workforce for the first time: The challenge to create and provide a 401(k) plan is arguably more difficult now than it ever was. 401(k) plans are part of the big picture which includes dealing with such questions as Dr. Bea Bourne, DM, is an expert on generational … Continue Reading
“Compensation” is a timely topic now for employers with retirement plans. It’s that time of the year when decisions are made about retirement plan contributions. The starting point for those decisions is “compensation”. That starting point is a straightforward matter when employees are involved. It’s some variation of taxable wages reported on Form W-2. But … Continue Reading
ERISA record retention may not be of those sizzling retirement plan topics for some folks. But please don’t stop reading. It’s an important issue in today’s ERISA’s environment in which Plan Administrators and other fiduciaries must meet complicated compliance reporting requirements, oversight from regulatory agencies, and sometimes litigation. So here is some basic information … Continue Reading
Last month, the Department of Labor (DOL), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) released advance copies of the 2020 Form 5500 Series. When filed, they will join those of prior years’ morphing into the body language of ERISA compliance. Here’s how:… Continue Reading
On August 6 President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders that expanded economic relief to taxpayers. One of those orders calls for employee payroll tax deferrals from September 1 through December 31, 2020. It includes the 6.2% of the employee’s share of Social Security taxes but not the 1.45% employee’s share of Medicare … Continue Reading
The deadline to restate preapproved defined benefit pension plans or 403(b) plans for the Pension Protection Act (“PPA”) has come and gone. July 31, 2020 was the date the IRS required that these plans be updated to reflect changes since the PPA was passed in 2016. The PPA restatement is not optional. Failure to do … Continue Reading
Grappling with COVIT-19 issues has certainly been difficult, but retirement plan filings and payments are still required. The Internal Revenue Service has provided relief for some of them by granting extensions. Here is a summary of those extensions:… Continue Reading
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act known as the “CARES Act” passed on March 27, 2020 provides $2 trillion in financial relief to individual taxpayers and loans and other concessions to businesses. The Act also includes several provisions affecting retirement plans which we will cover in later blog posts. For now, we’ll focus … Continue Reading
Service providers for 401(k) and other retirement plans require access to personal data on participants including name, age, address, date of hire, compensation and possibly social security number to provide recordkeeping services. Are these plan service providers simply taking advantage of a business opportunity or are they improperly exploiting information that is a plan asset … Continue Reading
Selecting an auditor for an ERISA plan is one of those fiduciary responsibilities which has been a continuing concern of the Department of Labor (“DOL”). At a June 25, 2019 meeting of the DOL’s ERISA Advisory Council, James Haubrock of the American Institute of CPAs responded to the Council’s request for recommendations on how the … Continue Reading
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
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 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
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
“Procedural Prudence” is not a new concept. It 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 … 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
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
