If the headlines in this newsletter aren't clickable for you,
please use the online, clickable version at:
https://benefitslink.com/2004/2004_05_03_retirement.html
(click or copy-and-paste the above address into your web browser)

BenefitsLink
Retirement Plans
Newsletter		To BenefitsLink home page Fill your job openings fast by advertising on BenefitsLink

May 3, 2004 - 13441 subscribers
Today's sponsor: Actuarial Systems Corporation

(Click on company name or banner to learn more.)

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.

(Please visit our sponsors. We try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)
Text of SEC Letter Responding to Hard 4 p.m. Close
Excerpt: "Attached is a response from SEC Chairman William Donaldson to a March 22 letter signed by several members of the House of Representatives that outlined potential problems for retirement plans and participants if the SEC were to implement its proposed 'hard 4 p.m.' cut off for receipt of mutual fund purchase and redemption orders." (ERISA Industry Committee)

House Ways and Means Committee Releases 2004 'Green Book' with Stats on PBGC, Social Security
Excerpt: "The Green Book provides updated data on major programs within the Committee's jurisdiction, as well as related programs and issues. Compiled by the Ways and Means staff with the assistance of the Congressional Research Service and various Federal agencies, since its first publication in 1981 the Green Book has become an important reference guide for legislators, program administrators, scholars, and interested citizens." (U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means)

Rollover of a Participant Loan
Excerpt: "A participant loan that fails to satisfy the taxation requirements (Code ยง72(p)) is taxable to the participant as a distribution. However, for rollover purposes, the plan must determine whether the loan is taxable to the participant as a 'deemed distribution' or as a 'distribution of a loan offset.'" (SunGard Corbel)

Reporting Defaulted Loans
Excerpt: "Reporting defaulted participant loans is one of the more challenging aspects of plan administration. In order to report a defaulted loan properly, a practitioner must understand the difference between a defaulted loan treated as a deemed distribution and a defaulted loan that the plan offsets." (SunGard Corbel)

Another Question is Answered in the Who's the Employer Q&A Column
Wife & Husband are both medical doctors. They have separate offices, separate businesses and separate profit-sharing plans, but they share 3 employees. These 3 employees would work over 1,000 hours if one combines the hours between the 2 offices, but they do not work over 1,000 hours at either office. Should they be covered by one of the profit-sharing plans? (BenefitsLink.com)

Web Site Overhaul Scheduled for Federal Government's Thrift Savings Plan
Excerpt: "The Thrift Savings Plan is revamping its Web site to reduce the number of paper statements that are mailed out and to better communicate with its 3.2 million participants ... TSP staffers said they have consulted with a sampling of site users, and found that participants wanted a less complicated portal." (GovExec.com)

Text of Mercer Comment Letters to FASB on Cash Balance Plan Accounting
Target page includes links to letters dated April 27, 2004 and April 14, 2004. (Via ERISA Industry Committee)

CalPERS Aims To Raise the Bar For Money Managers
Excerpt: "In a move that reflects the increasing clout that large pension plans wield in the financial industry, the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) has adopted a new code of ethics that external money managers must accept if they want to do business with the state." (BenefitNews.com)

Pension Board Probe Doesn't Stop Perks in Milwaukee
Excerpt: "Ethics Board Chairman John Carter has said he hopes the complaints send a clear warning to county employees not to feed at the public trough for personal gain. The ethics probe came after stories in the Journal Sentinel detailed how pension officials and often their spouses have benefited from entertainment, travel, lavish meals and other perks provided by pension-fund management firms and other consultants to the board." (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

Pension Fund Thief Sentenced in Indiana
Excerpt: "A former temporary worker at the $10 billion Public Employees' Retirement Fund was sentenced Friday to more than four years in prison for orchestrating the theft of $226,773 from pensioners." (IndyStar.com)

Opinion: Social Security Reform? Bad Lessons from Sweden (PDF)
Excerpt: "Powerful economic interests see a vast market and profit potential if social security can be even partially privatized. Even in a country like Sweden, with a long tradition of extensive social benefits, these economic interests have been able to make unfortunate inroads. What lessons can be learned from Sweden?" (Jan Hagberg and Ellis Wohner via Buffin Partners Inc.)

Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General

Equity Compensation Design Alternatives
Excerpt: "[A] growing number of investors and compensation consultants are beginning to question whether the traditional time-vested stock option plans are the most effective performance-based award, particularly in regard to compensation for key executives." (Beyster Institute)

Companies Change the Way CEOs Are Paid
Excerpt: "There's been a big shift in the way America's top executives are being paid, as once-ubiquitous stock options are replaced by restricted stock and other forms of pay." (AP via Washington Post; one-time registration required)

Opinion: Shareholder Scrutiny Gives Rise to New Kind of Office Politics
Excerpt: "[T]here's a new complication that promises to make the chief executive's job even rockier in coming years: the growing politicization of the office. Corporate leaders are increasingly being held to public account not only for shareholder returns, but also for the specific judgments they make in office." (Randall Rothenberg in the New York Times; one-time registration required)

Newly Posted Events

2004 NAGDCA Annual Conference
in Utah on September 10, 2004
presented by NAGCDA (National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators, Inc.)

ERISA At 30: The Decline of Private-Sector Defined Benefit Promises and Annuity Payments? What Will It Mean?
Nationwide on May 6, 2004
presented by Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI)

Hearing on Examining Long-Term Solutions to Reform and Strengthen the Defined Benefit Pension System
Nationwide on April 29, 2004
presented by U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee, Employer-Employee Relations Subcommittee

Implications For Benefits and Human Resources Same-Sex Marriage in Massachusetts
Nationwide on May 5, 2004
presented by Mellon Financial Corporation
Newly Posted Press Releases

Subcommittee Hears Options for Long-Term, Comprehensive Reforms to Strengthen Defined Benefit System, Worker Retirement Security
(Committee on Education and the Workforce)

Three Organizations Recognize Hodgson Russ Chair Dianne Bennett
(Hodgson Russ)

California's Workers' Compensation Problems Are Over--Or Are They?
(Clear Comp)

Nyhart Offers One Care Street Predictive Modeling For Self-Funded Employers to Reduce Healthcare Costs
(The Haelan Group)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Post a Help Wanted Ad

Benefits Attorney
for Nemeth Burwell, P.C.
in MI

Retirement Plan Administrator
for Howard Simon & Associates, Inc.
in IL

Enrolled Actuary / Actuarial Assistant
for Qualified Benefits, Inc.
in CA

Benefits Director
for Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP
in PA

Retirement Trust Professionals/Relationship Managers/Ops
for Reliance Trust Company
in GA

Director of Benefits
for Ohio Public Employees Retirement System
in OH

DC Systems Analyst (Defined Contribution)
for Standard Insurance Company
in OR

Operations Supervisor (PCS)
for ICMA Retirement Corporation
in DC

Handy Links:
Copyright 2004 BenefitsLink.com, Inc.; except that you can forward this email in full (including this boilerplate part) or otherwise reprint this email in full (including this boilerplate part) without obtaining our permission.

Published by:

BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
https://benefitslink.com/about.html
1298 Minnesota Avenue, Suite H
Winter Park FL 32789
(407) 644-4146
Fax: (407) 644-2151

Editor and Publisher: David Rhett Baker, J.D.

Housekeeping: