Advertisement
News Archive
The IRS has issued initial guidance to help employers with implementation of pension-linked emergency savings accounts (PLESAs).
Authorized under the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, PLESAs are individual accounts in defined contribution plans—designed to permit and encourage employees to save for...
READ MORE
“Best condition this century.” Or, “improved” but “fragile.” Both are characterizations of the state of pensions in 2023; which applies depends on which pension system one is talking about.
Better, But…
State and local pension plans saw improvement in 2023, but there is still plenty of room for...
READ MORE
“If this is the law, then that would be news to Congress and the regulatory agencies, which have declared for decades that forfeitures can be used in this manner,” says a motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging a fiduciary breach in offsetting employer contributions with forfeitures.
The motion to...
READ MORE
From New England to Key West, from the Atlantic to the Great Plains, there are bills before state legislatures that would expand retirement plan coverage for certain public-sector employees.
Rhode Island
Rep. Patricia Serpa (D-West Warwick) on Jan. 5 introduced HB 7026, a measure that would...
READ MORE
With several references made to the movie Groundhog Day, witnesses testifying at a House subcommittee hearing to examine the DOL’s proposed investment advice fiduciary rule suggested the proposal goes beyond its legal authority and called on Congress to act before the guidance ends up in litigation...
READ MORE
The Department of Labor (DOL) announced a final rule on Jan. 9 that it says will help employers and workers better understand when a worker qualifies as an employee and when they may be considered independent contractors. It will take effect on March 11, 2024.
The rule provides guidance under the...
READ MORE
Like a snowflake dancing on the breeze uncertain where to land, how private-sector pension plans fared was a bit indeterminate in December, according to a variety of analysts.
This continues the neither-fish-no-fowl results reported in November and that have held sway since August, with some...
READ MORE
While many financial services firms and related trade groups have expressed their opposition, several high-profile firms have come out in support of the latest iteration of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposed fiduciary rule, officially known as the "Retirement Security Rule: Definition of an...
READ MORE
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) has updated the instructions for filing premiums as well as the portal through which they can be filed.
Rules Are Rules
Sections 4006 and 4007 of ERISA and the PBGC’s Premium Regulations require that premiums be paid to the PBGC; every plan covered...
READ MORE
The IRS has updated the instructions for Form 8606, which is used to report contributions and distributions, as well as conversions, from IRAs—including Roths.
Form 8606, Nondeductible IRAs, is used to report:
Nondeductible contributions to traditional IRAs;
Distributions from traditional,...
READ MORE
The IRS has announced that it is postponing electronic filing of the Form 5558, Application for Extension of Time to File Certain Employee Plan Returns, through the Department of Labor's (DOL) EFAST 2 system until Jan. 1, 2025.
The IRS attributes this to administrative issues concerning EFAST-2....
READ MORE
A new study finds that two-thirds of people are confident they will be able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle in retirement, but diving deeper into the data shows that sentiment varies dramatically across demographic segments.
Overall, roughly 1 in 4 Americans (24%) strongly agree they are...
READ MORE
With an increase in longevity and the demise of corporate pension plans, it is hardly a surprise to note there are more “older” Americans in the workforce, at least when analyzing demographic trends in recent decades.
Pew Research Center recently did just that—quantifying how quickly the cohort is...
READ MORE
A billion-dollar plan has come to terms—cash and non-monetary terms—with participant-plaintiffs represented by Capozzi Adler that had made claims the plan paid $77 per participant, when plans of similar sizes were paying as little as $25 per participant.
The suit had been filed against Advance...
READ MORE
New results from the Retirement Clearinghouse’s Auto Portability Simulation (APS) model further reveal the potential for auto portability to dramatically increase retirement savings.
Based on new assumptions that increase the model’s predictive accuracy, the firm’s resulting paper—Revisiting...
READ MORE
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) has work to do in order to accomplish its mission and better serve plans and participants, says a just-released report by the PBGC Participant and Plan Sponsor Advocate.
The 2023 Annual Report of the Participant and Plan Sponsor Advocate Pension...
READ MORE
There is a “common wisdom” in our business that suggests that all plan sponsors are, more or less, alike; that large plans are the inevitable early adopters of trends that, sooner or later, trickle down to plans of all sizes.
Consequently, those who make their living trying to discern trends and...
READ MORE
Editor’s note: This is Part I of a two-part series. This article originally appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of Plan Consultant magazine.
As a best practice, we know that plan sponsors should have a retirement plan committee and have regular committee meetings.
Do plan sponsors do this? And...
READ MORE
In our comment letter submitted to the Department of Labor (DOL) on Jan. 2, 2024, the American Retirement Association (ARA) expressed support for—yet specific issues with—the department’s proposed definition of “fiduciary investment advice” and amendments to PTE 2020-02.
The rulemaking package,...
READ MORE
A number of lawsuits have recently been filed regarding the alleged misuse of forfeitures—but just a couple of months ago a plan was sued—and lost—a case brought by the Labor Department for not following the plan document’s forfeiture provisions.
According to the Labor Department, on Dec. 27, 2017...
READ MORE