| The BenefitsLink Newsletter - Retirement Plans Edition |  |
August 3, 2001 - 13,016 subscribers
Today's sponsor: Glasser LegalWorks (click)
You are invited to attend the nation's leading seminar on how recent cases affect claims, plan design and operations. Highlights of this year's program include: - Health Care Plan Litigation - Fiduciary Litigation - Preemption after Egelhoff - Aftermath of Pegram - Managed Care Litigation More details are available now in an online brochure: http://www.legalwks.com/conferences/erisa_lit/home.htm (click)
House Panel OKs Boehner Investment Advice Bill
Excerpt: "Under current law, the mutual funds, banks and insurance companies that administer 401(k)s can provide only general investment education directly to participants in those plans. They are prohibited from providing advice about a person's specific investments. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, would remove that barrier. It won voice vote approval Thursday from a subcommittee of the House Education and Workforce Committee, which is chaired by Boehner." (Associated Press via Yahoo! News)
Seventh Circuit Addresses Calculation of Benefits Under Firm's Floor-Offset Plan
An employer properly used 'deferred interest rates' to calculate pension benefits under its floor-offset plan for employees who terminated employment prior to attaining normal retirement age. This was the decision of the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in White, et al. v. Sundstrand Corporation, et al. (Spencernet)
Treasury Official Confirms Pension Reform Guidance On the Way
Excerpt: "Plan sponsors hoping for guidance on the implementation of the new pension reform provisions have a friend at Treasury - Benefits Tax Counsel Bill Sweetnam says he is still committed to having model amendments out by the end of August." (PLANSPONSOR.com)
The Fable of Fiduciary Liability and 404(c) Plan Design
Excerpt: "ERISA provisions on fiduciary liability can be very confusing. This article looks at the blurred lines surrounding plan design and fiduciary liability -- or are they blurred?" (Kilpatrick Stockton LLP)
Strategies for Company Stock in Your Portfolio
Excerpt: "If you want to reduce a large position in company stock, don't sell the stock all at once ... [use] reverse dollar-cost averaging. By selling a fixed amount at regular intervals, you should get a higher price on average for your stock than you would with a one-time sale." (mPower Cafe)
Social Security Study Commission Wants Comments, If You Can Provide Them in Next 13 Days
Excerpt: "The commissioners welcome comment from any individual or organization regarding how best to preserve and strengthen Social Security. Areas of particular interest are: how to financially sustain the Social Security system; [and] how personal accounts, if they are part of your Social Security solution, should be financed, structured and administered. The commissioners request that all comments be provided in writing and via e-mail to the Commission by Aug. 15." (President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security)
Opinion: Social Security's Catch-22
Excerpt: "While it was assumed the loan [to the Social Security trust fund] someday would be repaid, mostly with income-tax revenue, it now appears the debt will be absorbed mostly by Social Security payroll taxpayers, 53 percent of whom earn less than $20,000 a year.... Put another way, failure to repay Social Security effectively takes $286 billion from the pocketbooks of Americans earning less than $50,000 a year and gives it to Americans earning more than $50,000 annually." (Seattle Times)
Think Tank: 75-year Cost of Recent Tax Cut Is More than Twice Social Security's Long-Term Deficit
Excerpt: "If one listens to some pundits and policymakers, the tax cut is modest on size while the long-term Social Security shortfall is enormous.... such statements cannot all be true, because the size of the tax cut is more than double the entire long-term Social Security shortfall." (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)
Another Question is Answered in the Correcting Plan Defects Q&A Column
Can bottom-up qualified non-elective contributions ("QNECs") be used to correct an Actual Deferral Percentage ("ADP") failure under the Self-Correction Program ("SCP")? (BenefitsLink.com)
The Contingent Workforce: An Employee Benefits Perspective
Excerpt: "Claims by Contingent Workers -- The following summaries provide a brief overview of the worker identification issues and potential exposure facing employers today in the benefits arena." (Kilpatrick Stockton LLP)
Benefits Cost Increases Moderate Slightly, BLS Reports
The most recent Employment Cost Index released by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed that benefits costs in private industry continue to rise. According to the BLS's Employment Cost Index-June 2001, benefits costs for private industry workers increased 4.8% for the year ended June. 30, 2001. (Spencernet)
Burned Optionees May Get Some Relief
Excerpt: "Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who represents areas in the Silicon Valley ... [has] introduced a bill that would give those who exercised options in 2000 relief from paying AMT. Instead, the workers would owe taxes only on the difference between their strike price and the price of their shares on April 15, 2001, or--if they exercised shares before then--the amount of actual capital gains on the stock on the day the shares were sold." (CNET.com)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings (Post Yours!)
| 401(k) Investment Educator | for ADP, Inc. in GA |
| Employee Benefits Consultant and Sales Specialist | for RSM McGladrey, Inc. in IA, IL |
| Manager | for Lincoln Trust Company in CO |
| Conversion Specialist | for Paragon Consulting Group in CA |
| BENEFITS/PENSION SPECIALIST | for UJA-Federation of New York in NY |
| Account Executive/Client Services | for Diversified Investment Advisors in CA |
| Counsel | for Large, established and growing corporation based in New Orleans in LA |
| ERISA/Securities Attorney | for Diversified Investment Advisors in NY |
Newly Posted Conferences (Post Yours!)
| ABC Meeting: Non-Discrimination Testing - A Practical Discussion of the Basics | in FL on August 15, 2001 presented by ASPA Benefits Council - North Florida |
| ABC Meeting: Practical Aspects of the New Legislation (EGTRRA) and Other Current Developments | in GA on August 16, 2001 presented by ASPA Benefits Council - Atlanta |
| ABC Meeting: GUST Restatement Workshop | in FL on August 16, 2001 presented by ASPA Benefits Council - Central Florida |
| ABC Meeting: The New Tax Law, EGTRRA | in NY on September 5, 2001 presented by ASPA Benefits Council - New York |
| ABC Meeting: The New Pension Legislation - Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 | in NY on September 11, 2001 presented by ASPA Benefits Council - Delaware Valley |
| ABC Meeting: Atlanta ABC Annual Meeting | in GA on September 13, 2001 presented by ASPA Benefits Council - Atlanta |
| ABC Meeting: EGTRRA and GUST Restatement | in IL on September 13, 2001 presented by ASPA Benefits Council - Chicago |
| ABC Meeting: New Tax Law | in FL on September 25, 2001 presented by ASPA Benefits Council - Central Florida |
| ABC Meeting: EGTRRA Update | in FL on October 18, 2001 presented by ASPA Benefits Council - North Florida |
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Copyright 2001 BenefitsLink.com, Inc., but you may freely distribute this email newsletter in whole. This newsletter is edited by David Rhett Baker, J.D.
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