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Employee Benefits Jobs
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Webcasts and Conferences
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Hand-picked links to the web's best news articles, official guidance, jobs, webcasts and more.
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The Required Minimum Distribution Rules Do Not Work Well with Longevity Annuities
"[Actuary Steve Vernon] has his hypothetical 65-year-old woman buy a Qualified Longevity Annuity Contract (QLAC), work half-time in retirement until age 70, defer Social Security commencement until age 70 and use some of her accumulated savings from age 65 until she commences Social Security to supplement her employment income until then.... But then Steve inexplicably has her run off the train tracks on her smart retirement train ride by using the RMD rules to determine her annual withdrawals from her accumulated savings. The RMD rules just don't coordinate well with her decision to buy the QLAC."
(Ken Steiner, FSA Retired)
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The Pitfalls for Participants of Choosing Longevity Annuities in 401(k)s
"[If] you are offered a longevity annuity, be sure to do your homework before signing on the dotted line. Ask the following questions. What insurance company is guaranteeing this plan? What happens if that company goes bankrupt? ... What happens if I die before my first payment? ... Will my payments keep pace with inflation?"
(Motley Fool)
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Target Date Funds: An Investment Fiduciary's Checklist
"In addition to standard due diligence on the underlying holdings, the investment fiduciary's checklist should include factors relating to the manager's philosophy and practices regarding portfolio composition, and strategic and tactical asset allocation. These include the use of active versus passive funds, correlation among holdings, glide path trajectory, volatility of the TDF's returns over time and whether a 'to' versus 'through' approach is used."
(InvestmentNews)
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Employers Must Appeal to Needs of Savers, Not Investors, to Boost Retirement Readiness (PDF)
"[P]articipants are pursuing a new vision of retirement. In the new vision, an individual's priorities and daily activities shift gradually over time, rather than changing drastically from full-time work to full-time retirement.... Plan sponsors should consider taking some or all of the following steps to help participants make the choices that are appropriate for their own unique paths toward retirement readiness: [1] Connect your Plan Design to retirement readiness... [2] increase employee engagement... [3] Address work force management implications."
(State Street Global Advisors)
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An Article of Faith: The Gratuity Theory of Pensions and Faux Church Plans
"This article ... concludes that the IRS position is inconsistent with the statute's unambiguous text and that the legislative history establishes that the 1980 amendments [to ERISA's definition of 'church plan'] were designed only [1] to allow plans established by churches to continue to cover employees of church-affiliated agencies and [2] to clarify that a church plan did not lose its status as such if it were maintained by an organization controlled or affiliated with a church whose purpose was to fund or administer the plan.... There are, however, two district court opinions taking the opposite position. At present, it seems possible if not probable that the Supreme Court will have to resolve the issue."
(Prof. Norman Stein, via Employee Benefits Committee, Section of Labor and Employment Law, American Bar Association [ABA])
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Detroit-Style Pension Cuts: Could It Happen in California?
"In California, pension debt is an unresolved issue in two cities that declared bankruptcy in 2012 about five weeks apart -- Stockton on June 28 and San Bernardino on Aug. 1. But the state law in California and the financial pressure on the two cities, both members of the California Public Employees Retirement System, are different from the situations in Detroit and Central Falls."
(Calpensions)
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[Opinion]
California Pension Reforms Don't Go Far Enough
"Only in California could a bill that requires 32 years to catch up and fund parts of the California State Teachers' Retirement System's current $74 billion in unfunded liability be hailed as a major reform.... In reality, [Gov. Jerry] Brown's reforms are weak and don't fix the pension mess."
(Orange County Register)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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Executive Compensation: Governance and Litigation Considerations
"[C]ompany officers and directors have an obligation to make themselves aware of regulatory mandates as well as the activities of the plaintiffs' bar.... [It] is critical that they track what is going on in large shareholder land. Certain pension plans have been far from shy in taking their complaints to court.... Non-retirement plan investors are proving themselves to be no less active."
(Good Risk Governance Pays)
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IRS and Treasury Officials Provide Informal Views on Various Employee Benefits Issues
"While some of the answers [to questions posed by the Joint Committee on Employee Benefits (JCEB) of the American Bar Association] clearly have broad significance, others are highly dependent on the factual scenarios presented ... For example, the remarks regarding stock fund investments do not mention the regulations that permit restrictions on the divestiture of stock fund investments when such restrictions are 'reasonably designed' to assure compliance with the federal securities laws. In addition to health care reform, the report also includes items of interest to sponsors of defined benefit plans, 403(b) plans, 457(b) plans, ESOPs, and nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements."
(Thomson Reuters / EBIA)
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Press Releases
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