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43 Matching News Items

1.  Explaining ESSA: A Proposal to Protect the Surviving Spouses of New York
Albert Feuer and Anna Masilela, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Aug. 4, 2023
"This article explains how the proposed Equity for Surviving Spouses Act (ESSA) would ... [incorporate] into New York law the tried-and-true REACT approach that now protects the spouses of 100 million private employees. ESSA would entitle surviving spouses of New York public employees to a survivor retirement benefit at least equal to that of a joint and 50% survivor benefit form of the retiree's benefit, unless the spouse has waived such benefit on a plan form."
2.  A Brief Introduction to the New York Equity for Surviving Spouses Act
Albert Feuer and Anna Masilela, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
July 7, 2023
"[S]urviving spouses of New York public sector retirees: they may be left with no survivor benefits whatsoever, because the default benefit is an annuity during the life of the retiree. The Retirement Equity Act of 1984 (REACT)  ... protects the spouses of 100 million active private sector employees from such tragedies.... This article describes [New York's] proposed Equity for Surviving Spouses Act (ESSA) which would remedy this flaw by following the REACT approach."
3.  What is Complete Estate Planning for a Proprietor’s Retirement Plan Benefits?
Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Dec. 21, 2022
"The estate planning of an individual who owns a professional or other enterprise that maintains a tax-advantaged plan ... requires that measures also be taken so that soon after the death of the individual a person be authorized to invest plan assets, determine the plan beneficiary(ies) and benefit entitlements, give notifications of such determinations, and make plan distributions ... If this is not done, the delay in making investment decisions and giving the individual's beneficiary(ies) access to their plan benefits may place those benefits at substantial risk and expose the individual's estate to fiduciary liability claims."
4.  Would the Enhancing American Retirement Now (EARN) Act Enhance Retirement Equity?
Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Nov. 17, 2022
"The EARN Act ... should be revised to better enhance retirement equity ... Three major changes would help achieve this goal: [1] focus retirement incentives more quickly on those with inadequate retirement savings; [2] insure that those seeking to meet their reasonable retirement needs are the ones targeted for incentives; and [3] reduce the incentives for those with savings in excess of their reasonable retirement needs."
5.  Would SECURE 2.0 and RISE & SHINE Together Secure More Retirement Equity?
Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
June 14, 2022
"[SECURE 2.0 (HR 2954) and the RISE & SHINE Act (S 4353)] in concert would intensify rather than diminish retirement benefit disparities, while leaving tens of millions of American families and workers with insufficient savings to retire comfortably. The article analyzes those bills' provisions and describes: [1] those bills' provisions that would secure more retirement equity and how to improve those provisions, [2] those bills' provisions that would secure less retirement equity, and [3] provisions that ... if added to the bills would secure more retirement equity."
6.  Approaching Equitable Retirement Tax Incentives
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Oct. 19, 2021
"In September, the Ways and Means Committee of the House approved proposals to substantially improve the equity of retirement tax incentives for American workers. The new requirement that employers automatically enroll employees in a simple defined contribution plan, and the new refundable retirement savings tax credits, both do so. One major proposal needs to be added. Roth individual retirement accounts and annuities (IRAs) must be subject to the same required minimum distribution (RMD) rules as traditional IRAs."
7.  Is This the Time to Harmonize the Required Minimum Distribution Rules?
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Oct. 8, 2021
"Broadening [current legislative] proposals to require Roth IRAs to comply with the same required minimum distribution (RMD) rules that now govern employee benefit plans and traditional IRAs, would better implement the common-sense policy of using tax incentives to encourage adequate retirement savings by focusing on retirement savings."
8.  Mega-IRAs: Boon or Bane?
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Aug. 16, 2021
"The IRS should have the resources to challenge the tax exemption of any Mega-IRAs appearing to violate the current law.... There should also be statutory changes to direct tax incentives not at Mega-IRAs and their owners, but at improving the retirement readiness of American working families. This was why traditional and Roth IRAs were introduced and why they are called individual retirement accounts. [Specific] changes would help achieve this goal[.]"
9.  IRS Guidance About SECURE Act's Beneficiary RMD Provisions Requires Revision
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
May 17, 2021
"The return guidance incorrectly describes the 10-year rule as requiring annual distributions in each year following the participant's death even though the 5-year rule has no such requirement. Furthermore, when the participant dies after attaining the participant's required beginning date, the IRS guidance prevents a disfavored individual beneficiary from continuing to use the participant's life expectancy to determine annual minimum required distributions.... These limitations are not consistent with the stated purpose of the SECURE Act MRD provisions, the long-standing IRS regulations interpreting the MRD rules, or the amended MRD statute as a whole."
10.  Ethics, Earnings, ERISA and the Biden Administration
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Feb. 3, 2021
"[This] article introduces the current types of ethical investing, their history, their financial and ethical performance, and their pre-Biblical progenitors.... This article suggests how the Biden Administration may encourage ethical-factor investing by ERISA retirement plan fiduciaries. This may be done with revised ERISA regulations and other interpretative documents. No ERISA amendments would be needed."
11.  Ethics, Earnings, and ERISA: Ethical-Factor Investing of Savings and Retirement Benefits
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Jan. 19, 2021
"Two fiduciary and tax-qualification questions arise in the retirement/savings plan realm with respect to ethical factor investing. Fiduciaries of non-ERISA plans, such as many government plans, often must satisfy tax-qualification rules similar to fiduciary rules governing ERISA plans. To what extent may fiduciaries make available ethical-factor investment options to participants and beneficiaries, who self-direct their investments, such as those for 401(k) plans or 403(b) plans? To what extent may plan fiduciaries, make ethical-factor investments on behalf of participants and beneficiaries, such as those for defined benefit plans?"
12.  How an ERISA Fiduciary May Try to Save the World
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Dec. 21, 2020
"The Investment Duties Regulation, like prior DOL regulations, correctly permits ERISA fiduciaries to consider ethical factors ... to make investment decisions ... as long as those considerations do not reduce an investment's expected economic performance.... The Regulation, unlike the earlier DOL regulations, however, prohibits the managers of a Qualified Default Investment Alternative (QDIA) for a self-directed plan, such as many 401(k) plans, from being too overt in pursuing ethical factor investing. In particular, it appears an S&P Index fund may not be a permissible component of a QDIA because such a fund must exclude any new corporation with multiple class share structure, such as Zoom."
13.  New York Creditors' Rights to Assets in Inherited IRAs, and the Proposed Harmonization of Protections for Savings and Retirement Benefits Act
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Nov. 18, 2020
"The article discusses New York protections for a debtor's savings and retirement Benefits and the only Court decisions considering whether a creditor may enforce a claim against the judgment debtor's interest in an inherited IRA.... The article describes a proposed Harmonization of Protections for Savings and Retirement Benefits Act that would increase the coherence, clarity and equity of New York debtor protections for savings and retirement benefits by applying the current widely accepted paradigm that all similar benefits receive similar protections."
14.  Suggested Revisions to the DOL Shareholder Proposal
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Oct. 15, 2020
"[It] is advisable for the DOL to revise the proposal to be consistent with ERISA, and the DOL historical and current policy of permitting ERISA fiduciaries to engage in investor activism, if such activism does not reduce the plan's expected economic performance. The effect on the expected economic performance is determined for the appropriate investment horizon. The effect takes into account the actions of the fiduciary with respect to other portfolio companies of the plan, and the actions of other shareholders in the portfolio company."
15.  DOL Lacks a Convincing Legal Basis for Attempts to Discourage ESG/Sustainable Investing
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Sept. 25, 2020
"The [DOL] has proposed two sets of amendments to the ERISA fiduciary regulations that would discourage plans from making ESG/sustainable investment decisions (including selecting, keeping, or exercising ownership rights). These changes would affect not only ERISA plans, but would appear to have similar effects on all trusteed tax-exempt savings and retirement plans, such as those maintained for state and local employees. If adopted these proposals would dramatically reverse long-standing policies without any convincing legal basis. Moreover, these proposals may also discourage ESG/sustainable investing by state and local savings and retirement plans."
16.  The Proposed DOL ESG Regulation and the Public Reaction
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Aug. 20, 2020
"Many commenters suggested that the proposed regulations be significantly revised, and there appeared to be broad agreement on two revisions: [1] The regulation should permit an investment alternative may be a qualified default investment alternative for a self-directed plan regardless of whether the alternative makes any use of ESG/Sustainable consideration, such as using the S&P® index; and [2] The regulation should distinguish between the use of ESG/Sustainable considerations to determine the economic value of an investment[.]"
17.  The Premises of the DOL Proposed Reg for Selecting ERISA Plan Investments
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
Aug. 6, 2020
"The proposed regulations rely on incorrect premises. The most important incorrect premise is that careful, prudent, skillful, and diligent ERISA plan fiduciaries will, like the DOL and unsophisticated investors, rely on slogans, such as those denigrating or praising ESG/sustainable investing, to make direct or indirect plan investments.... The second most important incorrect premise is that plan fiduciaries may only use pecuniary factors to select and monitor investment options for participants and beneficiaries."
18.  Technical Corrections Needed to Facilitate COVID-19 Relief for Plan Participants Who Wish to Make Benefit Withdrawals
Albert Feuer, in Tax Management Memorandum, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
July 1, 2020
"[Notice 2020-50] does not discuss ... the significance of the phrase 'due to COVID-19.' Does the phrase apply to consequences due to a general lockdown rather than a specific COVID-19 incident at the business or not-for-profit entity associated with the individual or a member of the individual's household. If so, this ... raises the question why Congress does not take the same approach as that of Notice 2020-23, which makes cash-flow relief available to everyone.... [T]here is still a need for IRS clarification of Notice 2020-23 and the effect of its extension of due dates between April 1, 2020, and July 14, 2020, for all plan loans for all participants and until July 15, 2020."
19.  What Savings and Retirement Plans May and Must Do to Facilitate COVID-19 Loan Relief
Albert Feuer, in Tax Management Memorandum, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
June 18, 2020
"Plan administrators may permit participants and beneficiaries to access their own plan benefits to address their cash-flow problems without adverse tax consequences with more favorable plan loan policies.... Loan repayment relief and loan percentage increases will provide more vital COVID-19 relief than maximum loan amount increases because most plan accounts are substantially below the current $50,000 loan maximum."
20.  Proposed Technical Corrections for Cash-Flow Relief Provisions of the CARES Act for Individuals with Savings or Retirement Benefits
Law Offices of Albert Feuer, via SSRN Link to more items from this source
June 10, 2020
"The article discusses and proposes technical corrections to address ... [1] Is there a single certification procedure to determine who is eligible to access their own savings and retirement benefits? ... [2] Are those eligible to so obtain their own benefits defined sufficiently broadly? ... [3] Is there an unambiguous and intuitive method to determine the new amortization schedule for an eligible individual who wishes to take advantage of the CARES Act deferral of 2020 due dates for plan loans?"
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