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Regulatory Compliance
ASPPA Executive Director and CEO Brian Graff opened ASPPA’s first-ever virtual conference May 14 with a discussion of “the elephant in the room” — the Department of Labor’s (DOL) reproposal concerning the definition of who is a fiduciary.Graff noted that the proposed regulation is “mammoth,” but...
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ASPPA’s first-ever virtual conference on May 14 provided its 600+ attendees more than critical information on important issues — it also afforded them an ideal opportunity to gain the expert speakers’ insights on particular situations and matters.DOL Fiduciary RuleIt’s no surprise that the...
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The Department of Labor (DOL) has announced a brief extension of the comment period on its fiduciary reproposal — and has set a date for a public hearing.The comment period for what the DOL calls the Conflict of Interest Notice of Proposed Rulemaking has been extended by 15 days — from 75 to 90...
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The DOL’s ERISA Advisory Council at its May 27-29 meeting will include examination of lifetime plan participation. The council will focus on preparing proposed notices and disclosures related to the recommendations the council made in its 2014 report, “Issues and Considerations Surrounding...
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Legislation introduced recently in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate would require retirement plans to include an “annuity equivalent” on participant statements.In the House, Reps. Luke Messer (R-Ind.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.) introduced the Lifetime Income Disclosure Act (H.R. 2317...
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The Form 5500 is part of the bread and butter of the federal government’s information gathering concerning employers and employee benefit plans. But authority to use it is not eternal. The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA) has asked the Office of Management and...
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“The big picture is huge. It is very much a radical reshaping of our landscape at this point.” With that, David N. Levine, Principal, Law Group, Chartered, opened the recent ASPPA webcast, “The Conflict of Interest Proposal: How it Works and What it Means.” Pete Swisher, Senior Vice President and...
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The IRS has put in place new ways to correct elective deferral errors in 403(b) and 401(k) plans. The IRS on May 6 updated its webpage concerning these corrections; it also included coverage of these changes in Issue 2015-5 of Employee Plans News.These methods are contained in Revenue Procedure (...
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The effective dates of changes the IRS Employee Plans division made to processing of determination letters for retirement plans vary by form, the IRS has reminded filers and retirement professionals.The new effective dates are part of revised processing procedures that apply to all determination...
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The DOL’s ERISA Advisory Council is set to seek solutions to difficulties plan participants experience in understanding their choices in pension risk transfer transactions. The goal of the DOL’s 2015 Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans is to create model notices and...
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All is not lost for some small retirement plans that were late in filing certain required retirement plan returns. The IRS on May 1 issued a reminder in news release IR-2015-74 that eligible small businesses can file the returns by June 2 and not suffer the penalties they would otherwise face.The...
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ASPPA took the IRS up on its invitation to comment on the 2015-2016 Priority Guidance Plan and in a comment letter filed on April 30 has made suggestions to the IRS regarding projects and guidance it should pursue during the period covered by the plan.ASPPA said that it believes that every item on...
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All is not lost for some small retirement plans that were late in filing certain required retirement plan returns. The IRS on May 1 issued a reminder in news release IR-2015-74 that eligible small businesses can file the returns by June 2 and not suffer the penalties they would otherwise face. The...
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The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has proposed updates to accounting standards for defined benefit and defined contribution plans. The FASB Emerging Issues Task Force put together the proposals, which are contained in an FASB Exposure Draft issued on April 23.The topics the exposure...
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The Department of Labor (DOL) has filed a lawsuit alleging that a profit-sharing plan lost more than $4 million when fiduciaries engaged in self-dealing and conflicted transactions involving plan assets when they caused the plan to pay excessive fees.Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central...
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The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has updated its treatment of the measurement date of an employer’s defined benefit obligation and plan assets. The FASB issued the update in Accounting Standards Update 2015-04, “Compensation — Retirement Benefits” (Topic 715). The proposals apply to...
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The headlines are all about the impact of the Department of Labor’s new fiduciary proposal on financial advisors — but the effects could be widespread, extending to third-party administrators (TPAs) and recordkeepers as well.On May 5, an ASPPA webcast will bring you up to speed on the historical...
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Recent reports have suggested that the IRS may soon be placing strict limitations on the ability of plan sponsors to obtain a determination letter for individually designed plans.At this year’s ASPPA Chicago Regional Conference, Sunita Lough, Commissioner of the IRS Tax Exempt and Governmental...
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The Department of Labor will not extend the 75-day comment period for its conflict-of-interest rule, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said April 23.Asked about his response to requests by industry groups to extend the comment period, ThinkAdvisor reports that Perez said: “The comment period is 75 days...
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The IRS in a recently released private letter ruling (PLR) said that transfers of surplus pension assets can be used to cover health benefits funded under a Code Section 401(h) account. The IRS issued PLR 201511044 on Dec. 19, 2014 to the company that requested it, but only recently made it public....
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