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The Labor Committee of the New Jersey Senate will hold a hearing Dec. 3 on legislation that would create the New Jersey Secure Choice Savings Program, a state-run retirement plan for private-sector employees whose employers do not offer a retirement plan. Under the proposed plan, those employees...
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The Department of Labor (DOL) wants to know what you think about auto-portability.
In a Nov. 7 request for comments, the DOL noted that employees leaving their current place of employment with small account balances in the company’s 401(k) plan often either take a distribution of their retirement...
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Much is said about the need to increase retirement savings and access to plans, but a recent report on savings says that there is some good news about retirement savings.
In its annual savings trends report, Ascensus includes data on retirement savings in the results, and it notes that there are...
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CalSavers, the state-run retirement plan for private-sector employees whose employers do not offer a retirement plan, is set to launch a pilot on Nov. 19, Calpensions has announced.
The pilot is expected to start with about 20 diverse employers and grow to 50 or more. The first contributions to...
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The IRS has announced cost-of-living adjustments affecting dollar limitations for pension plans and other retirement-related items for tax year 2019. The 2019 limits are contained in Notice 2018-83, released Nov. 1.
The limits for 2019 are as follows:
The limitation under Code Section 402(g)(1)...
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Compliance can be a challenge for any employee benefit plan. But throw in additional factors and it can be even more complex. In an Oct. 24 session at ASPPA’s Annual Conference, Susan Diehl, President of PenServ Plan Services, Inc., looked at just such complications: status as church, governmental...
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With a 20-year history, many Americans have heard of the Roth IRA and its benefit of taking tax-free withdrawals during retirement. Some have heard of the Backdoor Roth — making nondeductible contributions to traditional IRAs and converting them to Roth IRAs. A new Roth savings strategy, being...
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A recent Wall Street Journal article raises the spectre of a retirement “crisis” in America. The WSJ article specifically claims Baby Boomers are less prepared for retirement than prior generations. In fact, society in general is much better off today than in the past. The article misrepresents the...
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The average individual 401(k) and IRA balances of Fidelity clients dipped a bit in the first quarter of 2018 compared to the previous quarter, but year-over-year increases remained strong.According to Fidelity Investments’ most recent quarterly analysis of retirement savings trends and behaviors,...
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Robert Kaplan, the American Retirement Association’s Director of Technical Education, provided a look at recent regulatory and legislative developments in a May 22 ASPPA webcast.Kaplan began the Second Quarter 2018 Washington Update webcast with a discussion of fiduciary rules. He noted that the U....
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The IRS has suggested that employers and organizations refresh IRA holders’ knowledge of, and attention to, what they can do and are required to do concerning their accounts. In Outreach Corner 2018-5, which it issued on May 8, the IRS offered sample language for that purpose.The IRS suggests...
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The Wall Street Journal reports that the Labor Department is examining whether Wells Fargo has been pushing participants to move money from their 401(k)s into more expensive IRAs at the bank.The report (subscription required), which attributes the story to “a person familiar with the inquiry,” says...
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The Maryland Small Business Retirement Savings Program and Trust, which provides retirement plan coverage for employees in the Old Line State whose employers do not offer retirement plans, now has an executive director and CEO.
David Belnick, who had served as Program Director at Nationwide...
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Not only do individual account assets make up a large portion of the financial assets of those who own them, but those with individual accounts have significantly higher net worth levels than those without them, according to new research by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).Based on an...
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Following in the footsteps of several other states, the Empire State is moving forward with its own voluntary retirement savings program for employees who are not offered a plan through their employer.At a March 30 press conference, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced that he had reached an agreement...
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The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently “vacated” the DOL’s fiduciary rule and exemptions. What does that mean for recommendations to participants that they take plan distributions and roll them over to IRAs?Well, according to the latest blog post from noted ERISA attorney Fred Reish, “It means a...
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There is still some time to make a contribution to an IRA and be able to claim it on a 2017 tax return — but not much. The IRS issued a reminder on March 20 that anyone with an IRA may be eligible for a tax credit or deduction on their 2017 tax return if they make contributions by April 17, 2018....
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The IRS on March 15 issued a reminder that the retirement plan participants and holds of IRAs and IRA-based plans who attained age 70½ during 2017 must starting receiving required minimum distributions (RMDs) by April 1, 2018.The deadline applies to all employer-sponsored retirement plans,...
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The IRS has issued revised versions of Form 8915A, Qualified 2016 Disaster Retirement Plan Distributions and Repayments. One form is for distributions taxpayers received in 2016; the other is for distributions received in 2017.Both forms are used to report qualified distributions from IRAs, Roth...
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The New Jersey Treasury Department is reviewing responses to its request for information (RFI) from private-sector firms to provide investment products for New Jersey’s Small Business Retirement Marketplace. It issued the RFI on Jan. 9 and accepted them through Jan. 26.The Garden State Treasury...
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