Advertisement
Defined Contribution Plans
The IRS has announced that it has granted tax relief certain victims of Hurricane Michael in Florida. The IRS action includes relief from penalties on payroll and excise tax deposits due on or after Oct. 7, 2018, and before Oct. 22, 2018, which it says will be abated as long as the deposits are...
READ MORE
ASPPA is always providing information and insights that will be valuable to its members! Following is a summary of upcoming webcasts and events.
Live Webcasts
ASPPA Webcast: Operating Under the IRS Pre-Approved Plan Document Program
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
2:00 - 3:40 p.m. ET
Speaker: Richard...
READ MORE
There are many factors that affect a plan participant — or a prospective plan participant who has yet to join — and influence choices regarding retirement saving. A professor argues that employers and plan administrators would do well to be mindful of a factor many do not consider: individuals’...
READ MORE
Academics have long agonized over something they call the annuitization puzzle.
Simply stated, the thing academics can’t quite understand is the reluctance of American workers to embrace annuities as a distribution option for their retirement savings. Some of that is because they assume workers...
READ MORE
A program letter from the heads of the IRS Tax Exempt & Government Entities (TE/GE) division provides an update on the compliance, data, process and casework strategies the division plans to focus on in the coming year.
Not surprisingly, implementing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) will...
READ MORE
Defined contribution plans are the most common among private sector workers, reports the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). It found in a study it conducted in March that DC plans were the kind of retirement plans in which a majority of workers in all sectors but one that it measured...
READ MORE
Legislation has been introduced in the U. S. House of Representatives that would create a parallel government-run retirement savings program – and one that could undermine the 401(k), particularly for small business owners.The Portable Retirement and Investment Act of 2018 (H.R. 6990), just...
READ MORE
Just when you thought retirement plan projections couldn’t get any worse…
Last week the National Institute on Retirement Security released a report – “Retirement in America | Out of Reach for Most Americans?” that claimed that the median retirement account balance among all working individuals is...
READ MORE
Informing plan participants is not a suggestion. And much has been said of the need to make information provided to plan participants more readily understandable. But a specialist in retirement education and employee benefits communication has suggested that something else is in play in...
READ MORE
The House of Representatives approved legislation Sept. 27 that seeks to make it easier for businesses to offer retirement plans and for individuals to save for retirement. The Family Savings Act (H.R. 6757) now moves to the Senate, which may take up similar legislation in a lame duck session...
READ MORE
Principal Life Insurance Co. has won summary judgment in a case that had alleged the firm took excessive profits from the guaranteed investment products it sells to 401(k)s.The decision (Rozo v. Principal Life Ins. Co.), S.D. Iowa, No. 4:14-cv-00463-JAJ, order granting defendant’s motion for...
READ MORE
With the House of Representatives poised to take up the second round of tax reform, a couple of changes have been made to the retirement section of the legislation.On Sept. 25, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) offered a “manager’s amendment” to the Family Savings Act (H.R...
READ MORE
Collective investment trusts (CITs) have long been heralded as “the next big thing” in the DC industry, but a new report suggests that, in recent years, the market has turned a corner.
The third quarter 2018 issue of The Cerulli Edge—U.S. Retirement Edition finds that CIT adoption is finally...
READ MORE
More 401(k) plan participants held equities at year-end 2016 than before the financial crisis, but participants continue to shy away from investing in their own companies’ stock, preferring more diversified investments, new data shows.According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and...
READ MORE
The practice of retiring and retirees receiving benefits in some fashion has only been around for a little over a century, right? Wrong! It’s been around for thousands of years.In “The History of Retirement,” SageView Advisory Group outlines when retirement, and associated payments, began and how...
READ MORE
Step inside the chamber, and we will gaze at the crystal ball. ASPPA’s Sept. 11 invitation offered a look at seven trends in the retirement industry that will have a significant impact — and, in fact, already are.
In “Didn’t See THAT Coming: Seven Industry Trends Will Shape the Future,” American...
READ MORE
The price of recordkeeping services is not uniform; it can vary depending on type of retirement plan. A blog entry discusses why pricing for 401(k0S is different from that for 403(b)s.
In “The Differences Between 403(b) and 401(k) Pricing,” Michael Webb of Cammack Retirement offers some...
READ MORE
Several years back, I was talking with a colleague about the current state of the U.S. economy – and as a comparison point, I pointed to the mid-1980s.“I wasn’t even born then,” she said. At which point I realized that what I considered to be a relevant point of comparison was, to my coworker,...
READ MORE
You may have taken a summer vacation, but the average 401(k) balance kept right on working!
According to estimates from the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) based on the actual contribution records and investment choices of several million consistent participants in the EBRI/...
READ MORE
Americans continued to save for retirement through their DC plans, with most maintaining their assets allocations even as stock values edged down during the early part of the year.
In the first quarter of 2018, 5.1% of DC plan participants changed the asset allocation of their account balances,...
READ MORE