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September 18, 2003 - 13,400 subscribers
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ASC - QUALITY SOFTWARE FOR THE PENSION INDUSTRY FOR OVER 20 YEARS ASC provides complete automation for the pension office, including: DC/401(k) and DB administration and valuation systems, sophisticated Compliance Testing, DV Direct Daily Valuation, Advanced Information Manager Database (AIM), and Single-Step Processing. All ASC Technical Support Members were experienced Pension Administrators or Actuaries before joining ASC -- and most have been with ASC for over 10 years.
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Senate Finance Committee Approves Pension Funding Bill
Excerpt: "The Senate Finance Committee yesterday approved a wide-ranging pension reform bill that would first ease and then toughen funding rules for traditional pensions while granting workers with 401(k) plans more investment freedom and their employers more latitude in providing investment advice." (Washington Post)
House, Senate Work on Pension Plan Interest Rate Relief
Excerpt: "Companies burdened by their pension obligations would get temporary relief while their workers would win new retirement plan protections under legislation approved Wednesday by the Senate Finance Committee. Senior House Republicans also introduced a narrower bill ... Both measures would change the formula under which companies calculate how much they must set aside in their employee pension plans." (AP via Washington Post)
Grassley Release Summarizing Terms of Pension Bill Approved by Finance Committee (PDF)
Excerpt: "The NESTEG Act includes new diversification rights for company stock in plans; new disclosure requirements for transaction suspension periods, or black-outs; and new disclosure through periodic benefit statements and retirement savings information. A detailed summary follows. Grassley's legislation also includes a series of reforms to rein in executives' ability to defer payment of tax on their compensation." (U.S. Senate Committee on Finance)
JCT Description of Finance Committee Chairman's Modification to Pension Bill (PDF)
Excerpt: "The proposal providing that benefit improvements would be prohibited, the plan would be frozen (no accruals resulting from additional service, age or salary growth), and lump sum payments would be prohibited if a plan is sponsored by a firm with a below investment grade rating for two of the past five years and if the fair market value of assets is less than 50 percent of current liability for vested benefits under the plan, is effective after December 31, 2006." (U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on Taxation)
Overview: Beneficiary's Interest In Plan Through QDRO Was Exempt From Bankruptcy Estate
Excerpt: "Profit-sharing funds that were transferred to another profit-sharing account via a QDRO were excludable from the transferee's bankruptcy estate, because, under ERISA, the transferee was a beneficiary of the plan, according to a U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Wisconsin." (CCH News & Information Library)
Overview: Court Rulings Question Legality of Cash Balance and Pension Equity Plans (PDF)
10 pages. Excerpt: "Federal courts in Illinois recently handed down decisions involving cash balance and pension equity plans. On July 31, a district court, in Cooper v. IBM, ruled that the pension equity and cash balance formulas in IBM's pension plan discriminated against older workers. Then on August 1, a court of appeals ruled, in Berger v. Xerox, that participants who received lump sums under Xerox's cash balance formula were underpaid." (Buck Consultants)
Disclosing Cash Balance Formulas
Excerpt: "The authors recommend that corporations should fully disclose the cash balance formula, including the interest rate; disclose the payment option for employees vested under cash balance plans; and continue disclosure in subsequent years, as the corporation's way of handling the 'wear-away' effect." (The [New York State Society of CPAs] CPA Journal)
FASB Statement No. 150 and ESOPs
In the latest installment of his column on the NCEO's site, attorney David Johanson discusses the implications of FASB statement no. 150 for ESOPs, stating that he is confident that Statement 150 does not require ESOP companies to alter their ESOP accounting practices at this time to report any additional liabilities. (National Center for Employee Ownership)
Opinion: Stable Value's 401(k) Future Is Brighter Than You Think
Excerpt: "Recent developments have not only halted the decline in the use of stable value in 401(k) plans, but will likely reverse it." (David Wray of the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America)
The Growing War Between Public Pension Funds and Private Equity Firms
Excerpt: "[A]s much as they love public funds, private equity firms are passionate about keeping their results, well, private. Their fondness for secrecy is crashing into the post-Enron demand for accountability. Court battles have ensued." (Slate)
Many Teachers Shun Retirement
Excerpt: "The [Florida] Legislature, which desperately needed to find more teachers because of class size limits approved by voters last fall, allowed school districts to extend the state's Deferred Retirement Option Program, or DROP, for another three years. Gov. Jeb Bush signed it into law in June." (AP via the New York Times; one-time registration required)
Report of the ERISA Advisory Council's Working Group on Fiduciary Education and Training
November 8, 2002. Excerpt: "[W]e heard from an extraordinary array of able and thoughtful individuals, some representing professional organizations and some speaking on their own behalf.... There were ... important differences in perspectives, but there was also a surprising amount of agreement on where education can help fiduciaries perform better. We strongly urge anyone interested in the issue of fiduciary education to read through the transcripts of our work group's hearings ..." (U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration)
Report of the ERISA Advisory Council's Working Group on Orphan Plans
November 8, 2002. Excerpt: "The problem of so-called orphan plans, defined contribution plans that have been abandoned by their sponsors and all other fiduciaries authorized to act on their behalf, has recently received increasing attention ... To most effectively deal with the problem of orphan plans, the working group recommended measures that would permit service providers in the private sector to terminate these plans." (U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration)
Seven Tricks for Saving
Excerpt: "If consumption control is a problem for you, or you just haven't developed the habit of saving, here are some tricks you can use to increase your net worth." (Motley Fool; one-time registration required)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Lavish Pay Deal Forces Grasso to Resign
Excerpt: "The chairman's decision to resign late Wednesday, a response to rising fury over the $139.5 million payout he received last month, leaves the NYSE searching for a successor under the scrutiny of its members, critics and federal regulators, who want big changes at the world's richest market." (AP via Washington Post)
Government Survey: Employee Benefits in Private Industry, 2003
Excerpt: "The proportion of employees covered by employer-sponsored medical care plans has fallen gradually over the last decade.... Just under half of private industry employees participated in an employer provided retirement plan.... These data are from the National Compensation Survey (NCS), which provides comprehensive measures of occupational earnings, compensation cost trends, and details of benefit provisions." (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Report of the ERISA Advisory Council's Working Group on Electronic Reporting by ERISA Plans
November 8, 2002. Excerpt: "[T]he Council limited the scope of its investigation to electronic reporting of Form 5500s to the Department of Labor, specifically through the Department of Labor's ERISA Filing Acceptance System (EFAST).... [T]he stakeholders in the current system testified that the EFAST system has many shortcomings.... [O]f the 1.2 million Form 5500 filings, only 1% of the reports were filed electronically for 1999 and only 3% were filed electronically for 2000." (U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Compensation Analyst
for Forum Health System
in OH
Quality Assurance & Training Specialist
for Transamerica Retirement Services
in CA
Vice President Medical Management National Sales
for Corporate Benefit Services of America, Inc. - www.cbsainc.com
in FL, MN
Plan Administrator - Compliance Testing and 5500 prep emphasis
for Career Consulting Services, Inc. - National Employee Benefits Placement
in IL
Senior Plan Administrator
for Decimal, Inc. - The Online 401(k)
in CA
Newly Posted Webcasts
(Post Yours!)
Consumer-Driven Health Care: Evidence from the Field
on September 15, 2003
presented by AcademyHealth
Newly Posted Conferences
(Post Yours!)
INITIATIVES FROM WASHINGTON THAT WILL AFFECT YOUR BUSINESS - ANNUAL LEGISLATIVE AND REGULATORY UPDATE
in NY
September 26, 2003
THE NEW YORK CHAPTER OF WEB
Newly Posted Press Releases
(Post Yours!)
New and Seasoned Investors Get the Investment Game Play by Play in New Book
(International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans)
The Newport Group Moves Up the Ranks Among Nation's Top Recordkeepers
(The Newport Group)
Labor Department Announces Proposed Effective Date of COBRA Regulations Will Be Delayed
(U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration)
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