PBGC Regulatory Agenda Released

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has released the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) regulatory agenda. The PBGC’s plans include action on a variety of proposed and final rules relevant to retirement plans and to its own functioning.

Proposed Rules

 

The proposed rules on the PBGC’s agenda include the following:

 

Valuation Assumptions and Methods: Interest and Mortality Assumptions for Asset Allocation in Single-Employer Plans and Mass Withdrawal Liability Determination in Multiemployer Plans. This proposed rule would update the interest, mortality and expense load assumptions used to determine the present value of benefits under the asset allocation regulation for single-employer plans and for determining mass withdrawal liability payments for multiemployer plans. 

 

Multiemployer Plan Guaranteed Benefits. This proposed rule would clarify and codify policies on the determination of guaranteed benefits for participants in multiemployer plans.

 

Examination and Copying of Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation Records. This proposed rule would modernize the rules for requesting and disclosing material under the Freedom of Information Act.

 

Improvements to Rules on Recoupment of Benefit Overpayments. This proposed rule would improve the PBGC’s recoupment rules.

 

Penalties for Failure to Provide Certain Notices or Other Material Information. This proposed rule would primarily codify the PBGC’s 1995 statement of policy for assessing and waiving monetary penalties for failure to provide certain required notices or other material information in a timely manner.

 

Miscellaneous Updates, Clarifications, and Improvements. The PBGC also plans to update, clarify and improve various regulations, including those that concern SECURE Act changes affecting premium rates, benefits payable in terminated single-employer plans, termination of single-employer plans and allocation of assets in single-employer plans.

 

 

The final rules on the PBGC’s agenda include the following:

 

Benefit Payments and Allocation of Assets. This final rule clarifies and codifies policies in the PBGC’s benefit payments and valuation regulations.

 

Methods for Computing Withdrawal Liability. This final rule would implement Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 changes affecting the calculation of withdrawal liability and provide simplified methods for how an employer’s liability is calculated upon withdrawal from a multiemployer plan.

 

Lump Sum Payment Assumptions. This final rule updates the interest and mortality assumptions used to determine and pay de minimis lump sum amounts under the benefit payments regulation.

 

Adjustment of Civil Penalties. This final rule is required annually to amend the PBGC’s civil penalty regulations to adjust for inflation the maximum penalty provided for in Sections 4071 and 4302 of ERISA.

 

Privacy Act Regulation; Exemption for Insider Threat Program Records. This is a finalization of an interim final rule amending the PBGC’s Privacy Act regulation to exempt a system of records that supports a program of insider threat detection and data loss prevention.

 

Procedures for the PBGC Guidance Document. This interim final rule provides the PBGC’s procedures for its guidance documents.