Regulatory Compliance

The Five W’s (or as they are sometimes called, Five W’s and one H) are questions whose answers are considered basic in information gathering in a variety of settings.There are a lot of questions that plan fiduciaries should ask, but here are five W’s and an H that every new plan fiduciary — or... READ MORE

The Department of Labor (DOL), IRS and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) on Dec. 3 released advance copies of the Form 5500 Series to be used for 2015 reporting.Filings on 2015 forms can be submitted to EFAST2, the electronic system by which the Form 5500 is submitted, through approved... READ MORE

The final version of the 2015 Form 5500 was released on Dec. 3 and, in a victory for ASPPA GAC, the new IRS compliance questions were made optional (at least for the 2015 plan year). As has been reported in prior ASPPA Connect articles as well as ASPPA asaps, the IRS had proposed a number of new... READ MORE

Legislation that would amend the rules for church plans in a variety of ways is now before both chambers of Congress. Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio) introduced the House version of The Church Plan Clarification Act of 2015, H.R. 4085, and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) introduced the Senate version, S. 2308.... READ MORE

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) has issued its annual report, which shows that in federal fiscal year (FY) 2015 the agency paid millions of dollars to support multiemployer pension plans and billions to people covered by pension plans that failed. The report also shows that the PBGC... READ MORE

The good news is that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has established a date for issuance of a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for the Personalized Investment Advice Standard of Conduct.The bad news? That date, according to the SEC Office of Management and Budget’s fall agenda, is... READ MORE

Plan fiduciaries should be careful when they choose, and retain, auditors. That may seem obvious, but the Department of Labor (DOL) has been pursuing an effort to provide information about plan audits and advising care in the selection of auditors.In “DOL’s Audit Quality Outreach Continues,” Morgan... READ MORE

The IRS will be holding a hearing on proposed regulations relating to the administration of a multiemployer plan participant vote on an approved suspension of benefits under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (MPRA). The hearing will take place on Dec. 18.The proposed rules the hearing... READ MORE

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White on Nov. 18 faced some tough questions from members of the House Financial Services Committee from both parties concerning her agency’s work on setting a uniform fiduciary standard of conduct. White was testifying before the committee... READ MORE