From the Executive Editor

Hi everyone. I hope those of you in the hurricane-affected areas are coping with the massive disruptions to your lives. Things like 9/15 deadlines become trivial when you’ve been evacuated from your home, your home is under water, or you have no power for an extended time. As I’m sitting here on 9/14 and stressing with stupid last-minute clients, I’m reminding myself that my problems right now are not real problems.

 

Luckily the IRS has granted relief for filing and funding deadlines for sponsors who are in hurricane-affected areas, or if their relevant advisors are in affected areas. In case you haven’t already seen it, an ASPPA asap that covers the various relief provided is here. Next month we’ll have a comprehensive article from Jim Holland that outlines in more detail the relief provided by the different government agencies.

 

As you have no doubt read and heard, our amazing former Executive Director Judy Miller has retired. We were intending to publish an interview with Judy in this edition, but Judy, who lives in Florida, has had no power for several days and so has been unable to get her answers to me. So we’ll feature that interview in next month’s edition. In the meantime, let’s hope that the rest of Judy’s retirement goes a lot smoother than the last week.

 

A question that comes up often for all of us is this: “Hey Actuary, I have a client who sold their business in an asset sale and they want to set up a new defined benefit plan to try shelter the proceeds of the sale. Can this work?” I know I get this this question at least 10 times a year. The issues that come up with this were recently debated on the listserv, so I asked our regular contributor James Turpin if he would write up an article that outlines all of these issues. His excellent submission is here. 

 

The IRS recently issued Revenue Procedure 2017-41, which makes significant changes to the IRS pre-approved plan program. I volunteered Shelly Jamieson of my office to write an article that summarizes these changes for us, and her submission is here. 

 

ACOPA President Kurt Piper explains to us in this month’s submission about the history of the ACOPA election process. Those of you who were not around when we first formed COPA may not be aware of the importance of this process. Kurt explains it all here. 

 

As you know, I’m on a mission to disprove the notion that all actuaries are nerds. I asked a regular listserv contributor, Charles Brown, to tell us about his hobbies, and Charles tells us here. Sorry, Charles, I conclude that you are a semi-nerd. 

 

Thanks for reading this issue, and I hope the rest of your busy time through 10/15 goes smoothly.

Cheers,

 

Norm