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Are we approaching a tipping point in the effort to foster active interest in financial wellness — and in the process, improving prospects for financial readiness for retirement? A new report indicates that such may be the case.As the new century — not so new now — dawned, employers’ focus was...
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Will more corporations need to file Form 4010 with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) for their pension plans for federal fiscal year (FY) 2016? Jeffrey Kamenir, Principal and Consulting Actuary in the Chicago Office of Milliman USA, Inc., addressed the possibility of increased...
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Boeing, a major U.S. employer with more than 160,000 employees, has reached a tentative, six-year agreement with the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace that would freeze defined benefit plan accruals for its employees who belong to that union. The agreement is set to go into...
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“Just skip those optional questions,” says Form 5500 expert and author Janice M. Wegesin, who has been getting daily inquiries for her opinion as to whether filers should complete the new compliance questions that appear on the 2015 Form 5500. While the “optional” nature of a number of items is...
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The Garden State will have a new state-run retirement plan for private sector workers — though not the one that might have been expected.The state Assembly voted after 1:00 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 12 to cooperate with Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) conditional veto of a bill creating a state-run retirement...
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The American Retirement Association (ARA) submitted a comment letter Jan. 15, 2016 to the Department of Labor (DOL) concerning a proposed regulation under which an individual retirement account (IRA) plan, if established and maintained under a payroll deduction program mandated under state law,...
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Hi there and Happy New Year. I woke up this morning hoping I’d won the $1.5 billion Powerball, but unfortunately I hadn’t — apparently three other people will instead share my winnings. But then I realized that the way I live compared to most people in the world is already like winning the lottery...
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It seems that at many of the ethics roundtable discussions at ASPPA and ACOPA conferences, the question of abandoning a client shortly before a due date (such as 10/14) comes up. Most people regard this as both (a) undesirable and (b) a possible violation of the ethics codes. I wanted to...
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As previously indicated in Part 1 of this article, the suspension of benefits process can be very complicated. A phrase we often hear, “It depends on the specific set of facts and circumstances,” is very much applicable in applying the suspension of benefits rules. A variety of situations can arise...
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ASPPA’s offices will be closed on Monday, Jan. 18 in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Consequently, after the Jan. 15 edition, ASPPA Connect will next appear on Jan. 20.
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As we ring in the new year, we also enter that time of year when we focus on providing actuarial services to clients with calendar plan/fiscal years. In preparing for these calendar year clients, the actuary needs to be aware of the revised principles that are now imposed by the Actuarial Standard...
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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced the end of the determination letter program as we know it. Beginning Jan. 1, 2017, the IRS will no longer accept determination letter applications based on the 5-year remedial amendment cycle (see IRS Announcement 2015-19). Plan sponsors with EINs...
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Another year in the rear view mirror. My mother always told me that time goes by more quickly as you get older, and she was definitely right about that. Before looking ahead, I’d like to thank the dozens of ACOPA members who made last year a very productive one for us. We are all very busy people,...
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In December 2015, Judy Miller, Kurt Piper, Lynn Young and I went to Scottsdale, Ariz. to attend several actuarial inter-societal meetings.First, there was a meeting of the Council of U.S. Presidents (CUSP) meeting. CUSP used to be a committee of the American Academy of Actuaries and is currently an...
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The Employee Plans subgroup of the IRS Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities (ACT) is conducting a project on the IRS’ decision to eliminate most determination letters for individually designed plans, and is looking for practitioner input.As part of the project, the ACT has...
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The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) recently issued exposure drafts proposing accounting and financial reporting guidance related to fiduciary activities and pension issues.The Exposure Draft “Fiduciary Activities,” issued Dec. 8, would establish guidance regarding what constitutes...
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The IRS has updated, for 2016, “Instructions for Forms 1099-R and 5498: Distributions from Pensions, Annuities, Retirement or Profit-Sharing Plans, IRAs, Insurance Contracts, Etc., and IRA Contribution Information.”The instructions outline the following as changes that affect 2016 reporting....
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Retirement plan accounts benefited from higher deferrals and fewer plan loans in 2014, according to the Plan Sponsor Council of America (PSCA). The PSCA, in its 58th Annual Survey, found that plan participants increased their deferrals and took less from their accounts through plan loans that year....
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The Internal Revenue Service wants to encourage plan sponsors to correct certain plan failures — and they’re offering some financial incentives to do so.To encourage employers that sponsor 401(a) qualified retirement plans and 403(b) plans to correct plan failures through its Voluntary Correction...
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The Internal Revenue Service wants to encourage plan sponsors to correct certain plan failures — and they’re offering some financial incentives to do so.To encourage employers that sponsor 401(a) qualified retirement plans and 403(b) plans to correct plan failures through its Voluntary Correction...
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