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[Guidance Overview]
PBGC Regulatory Agenda, Fall 2015
Items in the Proposed Rule stage are: [1] Missing Participants; [2] Mergers and Transfers Between Multiemployer Plans; [3] Valuation Assumptions and Methods, including Interest and Mortality; and [4] Benefit Payments. Items in the Final Rule stage are: [1] Multiemployer Plan Partitions; [2] Benefit Determinations and Plan Valuations for Statutory Hybrid Plans; and [3] Financial and Actuarial Information Reporting, including Changes to Waivers.
(Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation [PBGC])
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[Guidance Overview]
DOL Expresses Support for State-Sponsored ERISA Programs
"The Interpretive Bulletin makes clear that, in the DOL's view, the above approaches do not undermine ERISA's exclusive regulation of ERISA plans.... Whether private employers will broadly embrace -- or even adopt -- state-supported retirement plans remains to be seen. However, it is clear that states could be powerful new entrants into the retirement plan marketplace. With this Interpretive Bulletin, the DOL has given states the green light to move pursue strategies that encourage increased adoption of retirement plans by in-state employers."
(SunGard Relius)
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Bills Aim to Clarify Church Plan Rules
"The bills, both called the Church Plan Clarification Act of 2015 (S. 2308, H.R. 4085), would correct several legal and regulatory issues that such pension plans face, lawmakers said in a news release Nov. 19.... The legislation would tackle five distinct issues, including rules on controlled groups, grandfathered defined benefit plans, automatic enrollment, transfers between 403(b) and 401(a) plans, and 81-100 trusts, the release said."
(Bloomberg BNA)
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2015 Survey of Plan Sponsors: Satisfaction with Service Providers
"[This] annual Defined Contribution Survey measures and evaluates the satisfaction levels of 401(k) and other DC providers according to feedback from their plan sponsor clients. Major defined contribution providers are rated in 23 areas of participant/sponsor services. The information collected is intended for plan sponsors to gauge their plans against their peers."
(PLANSPONSOR)
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SEC Chairman to House Committee: Fiduciary Initiatives That Could Reshape Advisor Industry Are 'Actively in Process'
"Lawmakers are expressing deep concern about fiduciary issues that could reshape the advisor industry even as the head of the SEC took to Capitol Hill to defend the proposals.... Several lawmakers registered their opposition to a separate fiduciary proposal under way at the Department of Labor ... The most impassioned critique came from David Scott (D-Ga.), who charged the Labor Department with veering into an area under the SEC's jurisdiction."
(On Wall Street)
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Will State-Run Plans Help Close the Coverage Gap?
This article is an interview with ERISA attorney David Levine. "[O]ne important challenge that I think DOL should answer and will have to answer is why the federal government doesn't think the provider community is capable of delivering open MEPs, but somehow the state governments are going to be successful.... The DOL has said it has carefully designed its guidance to work with the states on this. As they move forward, I would not be surprised if we hear pretty serious opposition if the private sector thinks this goes too far -- a process reminiscent of the fiduciary-rule debate even."
(PLANSPONSOR)
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Universal Savings Accounts (USAs) Introduced
"Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Representative David Brat (R-VA) are introducing companion Senate-House bills to create Universal Savings Accounts (USAs). The accounts are like supercharged Roth IRAs.... Anyone 18 years of age or older could open a USA, contribute up to $5,500 after-tax a year, and use the tax-free withdrawals for any purpose at any time. Funds would be invested in bonds and equities, and grow tax-free. USA accounts would allow individuals to decide what to use their savings for and when, without Congress micromanaging their choices, as they do with other accounts."
(Cato Institute)
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[Opinion]
Whose Responsibility is Socially Responsible Investing?
"Two things, at least, are troublesome here. One is EBSA's inconsistency over time in the emphasis it places on fiduciary caution, and the embrace of investment considerations that have little if anything to do with generating returns for participants and beneficiaries. Second is the unmentioned, but no less real, matter of just what is 'socially responsible.' One need look no farther than America's democratic political system to know that there is no fool-proof consensus on what is moral, ethical, or socially responsible."
(Todd Berghuis, for Ascensus)
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[Opinion]
ERISA, Fiduciary Duty and the Art of Skinnydipping
"The law imposes a duty on plan sponsors to conduct a thorough, objective and independent investigation of potential plan investment options. The problem is that, to put it bluntly, most plan sponsors have absolutely no understanding as to how to properly conduct such an investigation and therefore, the evidence suggests that, in many cases, they do not do so, hoping that they will not get caught."
(The Prudent Investment Adviser Rules)
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[Opinion]
Politics and Investment Options Don't Mix
"From 2004 to 2009, Amex Oil and Amex Tobacco outperformed the S&P 500 with positive returns on investment, while three out of four of the Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) funds we measured produced negative returns that were even worse than the S&P 500. This is not to say that 'sin' funds always outperform socially responsible funds, but pension fund managers would be failing their fiduciary duty by judging an investment on politically correct, socially conscious factors that may have nothing to do with economic performance. The Department of Labor should be obligated to investment and product neutrality, lest they ruin the retirement plans of many."
(National Center for Policy Analysis [NCPA])
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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[Guidance Overview]
SEC Regulatory Agenda, Fall 2015
Items in the Proposed Rule stage include (but are not limited to): [1] Investment Company Advertising, Target Date Retirement Fund Name and Marketing; [2] Personalized Investment Advice Standard of Conduct; and [3] Rules Regarding Incentive Compensation. Items in the Final Rule stage include (but are not limited to): [1] Listing Standards for Recovery of Erroneously Awarded Compensation; [2] Pay Versus Performance; and [3] Reporting of Proxy Votes on Executive Compensation and Other Matters.
(Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC])
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[Guidance Overview]
DOL Regulatory Agenda, Fall 2015
EBSA items in the Proposed Rule stage are: [1] Conflict of Interest Rule -- Investment Advice; [2] Amendment to Claims Procedure Regulation; [3] Revision of the Form 5500 Series, including Implementing Related Regulations Under ERISA; and [4] Savings Arrangements Established by States for Non-Governmental Employees. EBSA items in the Final Rule stage are: [1] Amendment of Abandoned Plan Program; [2] Electronic Filing of Apprenticeship & Training Notices, and Top Hat Plan Statements; [3] Adoption of Amended and Restated Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program; and [4] Final Rules under the Affordable Care Act for Grandfathered Plans, Preexisting Condition Exclusions, Lifetime and Annual Limits, Rescissions, Dependent Coverage, Appeals, and Patient Protections. A Wage and Hour Division item in the Proposed Rule stage is: Establishing Paid
Sick Leave for Contractors, Executive Order 13706.
(Employee Benefits Security Administration [EBSA], U.S. Department of Labor [DOL])
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[Guidance Overview]
IRS Regulatory Agenda, Fall 2015
IRS items in the Proposed Rule stage include: [1] Determination of Governmental Plan Status; [2] Deferred Compensation Plans of State and Local Governments and Tax-Exempt Entities; [3] Indian Tribal Governmental Plans; [4] Additional Rules Regarding Pension Plan Funding and Benefit Restrictions; [5] Requirements Relating to Pickup Arrangements Under Section 414(h)(2); [6] Eligible Combined Plan (under Code section 414(x) as added by the Pension Protection Act of 2006); [7] Section 280A Deduction Limitation Regulations; [8] Update to Minimum Present Value Requirements for Defined Benefit Plan Distributions; [9] Contributions of an Employer Under a Plan That Does Not Meet the Requirements of Section 401(a), including Application of Section 404(a)(5); [10] Guidance With Respect to FATCA Coordination; [11] Application of Section 409A to
Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plans; [12] Collectively Bargained Welfare Benefit Funds; [13] Guidance Under Section 125; [14] Spousal IRAs, SEPs and IRA Technical Changes; [15] Implementation of Windsor; [16] Reporting and Notice Requirements for Deferred Vested Benefits Under Section 6057; [17] Application of Normal Retirement Age Regulations to Governmental Plans; [18] Requirements for Employee Stock Ownership Plans; [19] Extension of Time to File Certain Information Returns; [20] Nondiscrimination Relief for Closed Defined Benefit Plans; [21] Election to Include in Income in Year of Transfer; [22] Updated Mortality Tables for Determining Present Value; [23] Minimum Value of Eligible Employer-Sponsored Health Plans; [24] Administration of Multiemployer Plan Participant Vote on an Approved Suspension of Benefits Under MPRA; and [25] Section 72(t) 10% Additional Tax
Regulations. IRS items in the Final Rule state include: [1] Accrual Rules for Defined Benefit Plans; [2] Determination of Minimum Required Pension Contributions; [3] Notice to Participants of Consequences of Failing to Defer Receipt of Qualified Retirement Plan Distributions, including Expansions of Applicable Election Period and Period for Notices; [4] Reporting and Notice Requirements for Deferred Vested Benefits Under Section 6057; [5] Modifications to Minimum Present Value Requirements for Defined Benefit Plan Distributions; [6] Regulations Explaining How to Compute Unrelated Business Taxable Income (UBTI) of Voluntary Employees' Beneficiary Associations (VEBAs); [7] Removal of Rollover Allocation Rule From Designated ROTH Regulations; [8] Minimum Value of Employer Sponsored Coverage; [9] Transition Rules Relating to the Market Rate of
Return Requirements for Statutory Hybrid Plans; [10] Health Insurance Premium Tax Credit Additional Issues; [11] Health Insurance Provider's Fee; [12] Summary of Benefits and Coverage; [13] Suspensions of Benefits Under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014; [14] Suspensions of Benefits Under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (Temporary); and [15] Regulations Governing Organization of the Joint Board for the Enrollment of Actuaries. An OCC item in the Proposed Rule stage is: "Incentive-Based Compensation Arrangements."
(Internal Revenue Service [IRS])
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