BenefitsLink Retirement Plans Newsletter for February 19, 2001

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The BenefitsLink Newsletter -
Retirement Plans Edition

February 19, 2001

Today's sponsor: The Plan Sales System (click)

   The Plan Sales System is a comprehensive, 16-step system
for growing a retirement plan sales practice. It
provides detailed resources, contact names and numbers,
checklists, charts, handouts, letters, extensive
prospecting techniques, descriptions of current market
opportunities, and tools for planning and monitoring
sales activity.

Former Arizona Governor Ordered to Repay Pension Funds
Excerpt: "A federal bankruptcy court judge ruled today that former Arizona governor J. Fife Symington III must pay $18 million to six union pension funds to compensate them for money he borrowed for a failed development deal, a pension funds attorney said." (Washington Post)

Confusion Over Change In IRA Distribution Rules Slowly Easing
Excerpt: "[Philadelphia area] bankers say they are slowly catching up to new rules governing mandatory distributions from Individual Retirement Accounts, which have caused weeks of confusion for some bank employees and the older taxpayers to whom the rules apply." (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Wisconsin Retirees Await Word From Court On Pension Increases
Excerpt: "The law would provide an average 17 percent increase in the pension checks of thousands of retirees in the system, which covers most state and local government employees outside Milwaukee County, including public school teachers and Supreme Court justices." (Minneapolis PioneerPlanet)

Analysis of the New Re-proposed Required Minimum Distribution Rules
Noel's forte -- an extensive, insightful well-written analysis of long and technical IRS rules, written for practitioners. (Noel C. Ice, Esq. of Cantey & Hanger LLP)

Opinion: Element of Risk Darkens Social Security Reform Investment Proposal
Excerpt: "And what may go unnoticed in this simple equation is that folks are being asked to assume more responsibility, and risk, for their retirement than they assumed before.... I would say 401(k) plans have been a great success. But I would also say that, to at least some extent, they have made life a little more complicated, a little more stressful, for the ordinary employee." (Evansville [Ind.] Courier & Press)

Investing Isn't About Sex or Gender
Excerpt: "What do investing women want? If you read the investment books aimed at them and follow the brokers' girlie ads, it would seem that we want to be treated as a breed apart." (Jane Bryant Quinn, in the Washington Post)

Why the Young Don't Annuitize and the Old Don't Buy Life Insurance (PDF)
Published by the Centre for Pensions and Social Insurance (pensions-research.org). Excerpt: "This paper develops a model of demand for annuities and life insurance. In competitive insurance markets, this model predicts the paradoxical result that annuity purchases will fall with age and life insurance purchases will rise with age. We find that this result is sensitive to the inclusion of administrative costs and indeed administrative cost loadings can reverse the directions of this result ..." (Sandeep Kapur and J. Michael Orszag)

An Exploration of the Effects of Pessimism and Doubt on Asset Returns (PDF)
Link to a Working Paper available for downloading from the National Bureau of Economic Research. (Andrew B. Abel )

(Following items also appear in Welfare Plans Edition)

ERISA Advisory Council Schedules First Meeting for 2001
Excerpt: "New members are Shlomo Benartzi, Anderson School of Management, University of California at Los Angeles, investment counseling; Ronnie Susan Thierman, William M. Mercer, San Francisco, actuarial field; Thomas M. McMahon, Pacific Maritime Association, San Francisco, employer organizations; Robert P. Patrician, Communication Workers of America, Washington, DC, employee organizations, and Norman S. Stein, law professor, University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, general public." (U.S. Department of Labor)

SEC Issues Accounting Guidance for Stock Option Exercise Rescissions
Excerpt: "Recent press reports have been covering an unusual tax-motivated transaction that emerged in the latter half of last year whereby companies and certain employees have agreed to 'rescind' the previous exercise of a stock option.... The intent ... is to treat the previous exercise as if it had never occurred for income tax purposes (including the 'alternative minimum tax'), so as to eliminate employee tax liabilities incurred earlier in the year when stock prices were high ..." (Frederic W. Cook & Co., Inc.)

Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings (Post Yours!)

Executive Compensation & Benefits Consultant

for Clark Bardes Consulting/Compensation Resource Group, Inc
in CA, DC, GA, IL, NY, OH, TX

Senior Conversion Specialist

for Strong Capital Management seeks Senior Conversion Specialist
in WI

Benefits Consultant

for AARP
in DC

Benefits Manager (Firm Wide)

for Premier International Law Firm
in CA

Newly Posted Conferences (Post Yours!)

Vendor Management: Selecting & Managing Benefit & Other HR Service Providers

in IL on March 12, 2001
presented by WorldatWork

Vendor Management: Selecting & Managing Benefit & Other HR Service Providers

in IL on December 18, 2001
presented by WorldatWork

Vendor Management: Selecting & Managing Benefits and Other HR Service Providers

in NY on April 23, 2001
presented by WorldatWork

Vendor Management: Selecting & Managing Benefits and Other HR Service Providers

in TN on May 4, 2001
presented by WorldatWork

Vendor Management: Selecting & Managing Benefits and Other HR Service Providers

in CA on May 21, 2001
presented by WorldatWork

Vendor Management: Selecting & Managing Benefits and Other HR Service Providers

in CA on September 24, 2001
presented by WorldatWork

Practical Applications in Compensation & Benefits: A Total Rewards Perspective

in DC on April 2, 2001
presented by WorldatWork

Practical Applications in Compensation & Benefits: A Total Rewards Perspective

in CA on July 9, 2001
presented by WorldatWork

Practical Applications in Compensation & Benefits: A Total Rewards Perspective

in GA on August 20, 2001
presented by WorldatWork

Practical Applications in Compensation & Benefits: A Total Rewards Perspective

in MI on October 29, 2001
presented by WorldatWork