BenefitsLink |
 |
 |
| November 16, 2007 |
| Here are the Web's best new links about compliance and cost aspects of plan operation, design and policy. |
Today's sponsor is ASPPA
(Click on company name or banner to learn more.)
| The ASPPA 401(k) Leadership Award |
| Do you know someone who has made a lasting impact within the 401(k) industry? If so, nominate them today for The ASPPA 401(k) Leadership Award. This new award, sponsored by Morningstar, will be given out at The ASPPA 401(k) SUMMIT in Orlando, Florida on Sunday, February 10th. Nominations are being accepted until midnight , Friday, November 30th. Don't let the opportunity pass to make known those who make a difference and are working for America's retirement today. |
(a) New Guidance Documents
Text of Sample Notice for 401(k) Plans to Participants Regarding Automatic Enrollment and Default Investment (PDF)
7 pages. Excerpt: "To aid plan sponsors in satisfying the requirements of the IRS's proposed regulations for the 2008 plan year -- the first plan year that a plan may include a QACA or EACA -- the IRS is posting [this] sample 'Automatic Enrollment Notice' on its website that satisfies notice requirements under Code sections 401(k)(13) and 414(w) for a hypothetical QACA that permits EACA withdrawals and has certain other characteristics. Following coordination with the IRS, the DOL has indicated that use of this sample notice also satisfies the notice requirements under ERISA sections 404(c)(5) and 514(e)(3) and the DOL's default investment regulation for a hypothetical plan for which a fiduciary may wish to obtain relief under the regulation." (Internal Revenue Service)
Special Edition of IRS 'Employee Plans News' Announcing Model Notice for Automatic Enrollment (PDF)
2 pages. Excerpt: "The IRS has posted a sample notice that plan sponsors may use to inform participants about their rights and obligations under the 2006 Pension Protection Act's (PPA) 'eligible automatic contribution arrangements' (EACAs) and 'qualified automatic contribution arrangements' (QACAs). The Service recently published proposed regulations on EACAs and QACAs, and employers adopting such plans when they first become available in 2008 must furnish a notice to participants at least 30 days before the beginning of each plan year. The sample notice is for a hypothetical QACA that permits EACA withdrawals and has certain other characteristics." (Internal Revenue Service)
Information Copy of 2009 Revised Form 5500 Annual Return/Report (PDF)
Very large file (7 MB); 127 pages. Excerpt: "This document contains revisions to the Form 5500 Annual Return/Report forms, including the Form 5500 Annual Return/Report of Employee Benefit Plan and a new Form 5500-SF, Short Form Annual Return/ Report of Small Employee Benefit Plan . . . . Some of the forms revisions will apply on a transitional basis for the 2008 reporting year before all of the forms revisions are fully implemented for the 2009 reporting year as part of the switch under the ERISA Filing Acceptance System (EFAST) to a wholly electronic filing system (EFAST2)." (Internal Revenue Service; Employee Benefits Security Administration; Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation)
Text of Final DOL Regs Conforming Existing Regs to Changes in 2009 Form 5500 Annual Return/Report (PDF)
22 pages. Excerpt: [A] general summary of the form and instruction changes is included in this preamble as background for the required cost/benefit and regulatory impact analyses." (Employee Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Department of Labor)
(b) News
U.S. Labor Department Announces Changes for 2009 Form 5500 Annual Return/Report of Employee Benefit Plan
U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
DOL Announces Changes to 2009 Form 5500
Excerpt: "The U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), the Internal Revenue Service and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) announced the publication of revisions to the Form 5500 annual return/report for plan year 2009." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)
Document Revealed in Airline Fuel/Pension Funding Controversy
Excerpt: "The memo recently given to us by a Continental pilot may shed light on why minimum fuel landings are on the rise. While telling pilots that management will 'respect their authority and judgement' on how much fuel they decide to carry, the memo then warns that 'adding fuel indiscriminately... ultimately reduces profit sharing and possibly pension funding.'" (ABC Inc., WABC-TV New York)
Court Rebuff Ends State's Fight Over Interest Owed to CalSTRS
Excerpt: "CalSTRS Chief Executive Jack Ehnes hailed the court decision, saying it will send a warning against future raids on public pension funds. 'Vesting rights of pensions must be protected,' he said." (The Sacramento Bee)
Court Throws Out Cash Balance Distribution Challenge
Excerpt: "A federal judge in Kentucky has ruled that cash balance plan participants who sued more than five years after receiving lump sum distributions waited to long to go to court." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)
SEC to Fund Providers: Speak English
Excerpt: "Federal securities regulators have given preliminary approval to plan to make prospectuses easier to understand and general improve mutual fund disclosures." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)
Former Employees Fighting to Receive Additional Pension Benefits They Say Were Promised Them Have Lost Second Legal Battle
Excerpt: "The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with U.S. District Judge Elaine E. Bucklo of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois that representations made to the employees were innocent mistakes and that anything told to them orally did not carry the same weight as what the court said were clear plan documents." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)
(c) Summaries of Guidance; Filed Comments
Overview: Final Regulations Relating to Default Investment Alternatives Under the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PDF)
3 pages. Excerpt: "Unlike the proposed regulations which conditioned preemption on compliance with the requirements of the proposed regulations, the final regulations make clear that the preemption supercedes any State law that would directly or indirectly prohibit or restrict the inclusion in a plan of any automatic contribution arrangement." (Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies)
(d) Trends, Surveys, Research
Firms Can Fatten 401(k)'s with Unused Vacation Days
Excerpt: "Employers can set up the system in a couple of ways: One way is to allow employees to elect to cash out unused vacation time at the end of the year or put those dollars in the 401(k). The money goes into the plan on a pretax basis as a contribution by the worker. Or a company with a use-it or lose-it vacation policy can contribute unused days as part of its contribution to the 401(k) . . . ." (Chicago Tribune)
A Discussion on 401(k) Plan Fee Legislation
Excerpt: "While it is not unusual for the courts, the Labor Department, or even Congress to focus attention on 401(k) fee issues, we are currently faced with the unique circumstance of each of them looking at precisely the same issues at exactly the same time. Trying to figure out how all of this will shake out is a little like trying to follow the bouncing ball -- and decisions by the courts or on Capitol Hill will have an impact on the Labor Department and vice versa." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)
The New Retirement Plan Landscape -- Changes, Challenges and Opportunities
Excerpt: "This full report expands the key findings outlined in the highlights report, providing additional detail on the funded status and funding, investment and benefit policies of the companies in the S&P 500. We also include results specific to the [several] economic sectors . . . ." (Mercer LLC; free registration required)
Notes on Conducting Plan Committee Meetings
Excerpt: "I recently met with several plan committees to educate the members on their responsibilities as fiduciaries. I thought you might like to know some of the most commonly asked questions -- and the answers. How often should the committee meet? The easy answer is: as often as is necessary. However, as a practical matter, plan committees tend to meet on a quarterly basis." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)
Report on Multinational Pooling and Captives: Global Pension Pooling (PDF)
6 pages. Excerpt: "[W]e found that the insurance regulations in the countries we examined did not prohibit use of a captive, any more than they would prohibit an insurer from purchasing legitimate reinsurance. Rather, the regulations can be viewed as a clear road map on how to use a captive." (Towers Perrin)
Greece Plans Pension Fund Mergers to Avert Crisis
Excerpt: "Greece's conservative government said on Thursday it will merge hundreds of state pension funds as part of planned reforms to make the system viable, despite failing to reach agreement with labor unions." (Business Insurance)
New Funding Pitfalls for UK Pensions
Excerpt: "To make sure that pension promises are kept and to address the increasing cost of longevity, the United Kingdom recently enacted new laws fundamentally changing the way in which UK pensions must be funded. This Commentary provides a brief overview of the key issues confronting UK businesses sponsoring underfunded pension plans." (Jones Day)
(e) Policy, Opinion, Advocacy
Opinion: Barack Obama and His Social Security Mistake
Excerpt: "Lately, Barack Obama has been saying that major action is needed to avert what he keeps calling a 'crisis' in Social Security -- most recently in an interview with The National Journal. Progressives who fought hard and successfully against the Bush administration's attempt to panic America into privatizing the New Deal's crown jewel are outraged, and rightly so." (The New York Times; free registration required)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Public Sector Letter on GASB-Mandated Disclosure of OPEB Liabilities (PDF)
Excerpt: "This issue presents an overview of options for mitigating OPEB liabilities, including retiree health care prefunding vehicles and plan design changes." (The Segal Group, Inc.)
U.S. Employers Spend More Payroll Dollars on Benefits Than Canadian Firms
Excerpt: "Nearly half of U.S. employers estimate about 31% or more of their payroll budget goes toward employee benefits, while slightly more than half of Canadian companies indicate 11% to 30% of their payroll goes for workplace benefits, reports the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans." (Employee Benefit News; free registration required)
MetLife Study of International Employee Benefits Trends
Excerpt: "This inaugural edition of the MetLife Study of International Employee Benefits Trends reports on the results of our survey of both employers and employees across four countries that serve as a representative sample of different economic and workplace environments. Two of the countries -- the United Kingdom and Australia -- are mature economies. The other two -- India and Mexico -- are newly industrialized countries." (MetLife Inc.)
Two Goals for Executive Compensation Reform
Excerpt: "Most corporate law scholars who suggest reforming executive compensation worry about corporate governance problems that arise out of poor compensation design. Most politicians who suggest reforming executive compensation seem as or more worried about growing economic inequality. This essay briefly considers two arguments justifying legal scholars in ignoring the concern with inequality." (Social Science Research Network)
Risk Management of Benefit Plan Exposures (PDF)
4 pages. Excerpt: "Employee benefit risk is a new area of study for some risk managers. As many are considering using their captives to finance part of the risk, [we] felt this article would be useful to our readers." (Towers Perrin)
Newly Posted Events
Learn how to use our Plan document software
Nationwide on November 27, 2007
presented by ftwilliam.com
Using VEBAs to Manage Retiree Medical Liabilities
Nationwide on November 29, 2007
presented by International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans
Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFCP) Workshop - Free
in New York on December 14, 2007
presented by U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
What You Need to Know About Automatic Enrollment Arrangements and QDIAs
Nationwide on November 28, 2007
presented by ftwilliam.com
Newly Posted Press Releases
U.S. Labor Department Obtains $20 Million Settlement with Union Labor Life Over Retirement Plan Fees
U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
Council Welcomes PBGC Deficit Improvement But Urges Changes To Calculation Methods
American Benefits Council
AIG VALIC Introduces Independent Investment Advisory Services into K-12 403(b) Market
AIG VALIC
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
(Post a Job | View All Jobs |
RSS Feed )
Pension Consultants/Administrators
for Northern NJ Mid-Size Pension Consulting Firm
in NJ
OmniPlus Consultants
for Chesapeake Benefit Partners
in ANY STATE
Client Services Retirement Expert
for Kravitz - Louis Kravitz & Associates
in CA
Employee Benefits Opportunity
for Cincinnati Law Firm
in OH
Institutional Trust Consultant - Baltimore, MD and Richmond, VA
for BB&T
in MD, VA
Compliance Account Manager
for First Niagara Benefits and Consulting
in NY
Participant Services Representative I
for Standard Insurance Company
in TX
Defined Benefits Service Delivery Manager
for Affiliated Computer Services - Benefits Administration
in NJ
Retirement Plan Administrator
for Independent Retirement Plan Administration Company
in FL
Defined Contribution Plan Administrator
for New York Life Retirement Plan Services
in MA
Sales Broker Compensation Analyst
for Great-West Financial Services
in CO
Pension Plan Administrator
for Palmer Pension Services, Inc.
in GA
New Business Data Processor
for Standard Retirement Services
in PA
Regional Director, Defined Contribution Specialist
for Great-West Financial Services
in NY
TPA Regional Manager - Northeast Region
for Transamerica Retirement Services
in CA
New Business Data Processor
for Standard Retirement Services, Inc.
in PA
Sr. Retirement Specialist
for Brooks Brothers
in CT
Supervisor of Benefit Plan Administration
for The Guardian Insurance Company
in NY
Handy Links:
- View Today's Active Message Threads
- Using the Web for Employee Benefits Research (hypertext article)
- Employee Benefits Library
Subscribe to the BenefitsLink Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter, Too!
Sign-up form is at https://benefitslink.com/newsletter (free).
This newsletter is sent to you each workday except federal holidays.
This email has been published by:
BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
1298 Minnesota Avenue, Suite H
Winter Park FL 32789
(407) 644-4146
Fax: (407) 644-2151
David Rhett Baker, J.D., Editor
Copyright 2007 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.
Anyone can receive these emails; just have them sign up at this web page: https://benefitslink.com/newsletter/
Other useful links: