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The IRS on March 6 announced that it no longer intends to amend the required minimum distribution (RMD) regulations to address the practice of offering retirees and beneficiaries who are currently receiving annuity payments under a defined benefit plan a temporary option to elect a lump-sum payment...
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Democrats in both houses of Congress have introduced legislation that will tax financial transactions – including those in your 401(k).
"It's called the Wall Street Tax Act, but it's really a Main Street savings attack," said Brian Graff, CEO of the American Retirement Association.
The Wall...
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The California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Investment Board has proposed regulations that would directly address questions of eligibility, processes and duties, as well as further define terms and clarify sections of the law that created the CalSavers Retirement Savings Program.
The board...
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A group consisting of 12 separate financial services trade associations – including SIFMA, ACLI and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – have highlighted both preemption issues and legal deficiencies with Nevada’s proposed fiduciary regulation that they say goes “well beyond” the state’s legal authority...
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Of late, we’ve been getting a lot of questions about legislation that would create open multiple employer plans (MEPs). Here’s the update.
Ever since the Department of Labor issued an explicit ruling in 2012 that an open MEP is not a single employee benefit pension plan but a group of single...
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Some plan sponsors and administrators “stretch the match” as a way to increase participants’ contributions to their retirement savings accounts. Does the strategy work? A recently released study seeks to find out.
Stretching the match is a practice in which an employer sets a higher employee...
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Plan fiduciaries have asked the nation’s highest court to weigh in on when ERISA’s three-year statute of limitations begins – and if disclosure alone is enough to start that clock.
In asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case, plan fiduciaries at Intel said the question presented was “...
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The Silver State managed to overlook the long history of ERISA preemption in its recent draft fiduciary regulations. Once again, the American Retirement Association has brought this to their attention.
The comments came in response to draft regulations issue in mid-January by Nevada’s Office of...
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IRAs have existed for 45 years – middle-aged in human terms. But that doesn’t translate to understanding, according to recent research that says Americans’ confidence in their knowledge of IRAs is low.
In fact, just over a third of those studied by the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute said they...
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A recent headline in The Wall Street Journal started off: “Forget the 401(k).” And then, unintentionally, proceeded to explain why that would be… nuts.
Not that the author (Jason Zweig) didn’t throw in some digs at the subject, making a glancing reference to what he termed “the rigid and often...
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There are many pieces to the puzzle that is retirement security. And one of them, suggests a benefits institute, is the behavior of plan participants. Working with, and influencing, that can help put pieces in place.
In the paper “Ten Ways Behavioral Finance Can Boost Retirement Security,” the...
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Regardless of political affiliation, large majorities of Americans believe the nation faces a retirement crisis and are largely supportive of state efforts to expand coverage, new survey results show.
Findings contained in the National Institute on Retirement Security’s “Retirement Insecurity 2019...
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Running and maintaining a plan can be complicated — and fiduciary rules are part of the reason. A recent blog entry offers some suggestions regarding how to reduce the risk of making fiduciary errors in operating a plan.
“Operational errors can arouse the same severe consequences as an investment...
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The IRS has posted on its website an updated version of Publication 575, “Pension and Annuity Income,” for reporting concerning 2018.
New for 2018 reporting: The IRS has updated Publication 575 concerning the extended rollover period for qualified plan loan offsets in 2018 or later. For...
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The IRS has updated the information available on its website concerning automatic enrollment.
The site provides basic information regarding an employer’s obligations if it decides to offer automatic enrollment and deferrals. It also discusses automatic contribution arrangements, eligible automatic...
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While confidence in the ability to retire has increased from five years ago, increasing health care costs and market volatility continue to drive client fears of going broke in retirement, new survey results show.
According to the AICPA’s Personal Financial Planning Trends Survey, 30% of CPA...
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All that stands between a bill establishing the New Jersey Secure Choice Savings Program and its becoming law is the signature of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D).
The state Assembly passed the bill, which calls for the establishment of a state-run retirement savings plan for private-sector...
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The size of a required minimum distribution (RMD) one takes may be related to that individual’s income level, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) found in a recent study.
In “Estimating the Effects of the Required Minimum Distribution Rules on Withdrawals from Individual Retirement Arrangements...
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The seeds have been sown for a retirement income crisis, says a former U.S. Senator, and the time to act is now.
“We face a looming retirement crisis that will impact millions of elderly and soon-to-be elderly Americans, as well as our children and grandchildren who will have to bail out those...
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The IRS has updated its frequently asked questions (FAQs) page for employers adopting pre-approved retirement plans.
Among the recent additions to the FAQs is a reminder that April 30, 2020, is the deadline to adopt a pre-approved defined benefit plan restated for items on the 2012 Cumulative List...
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