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March 9, 2009 |
| Here are the Web's best new links about compliance and cost aspects of plan operation, design and policy. |
www.ftwilliam.com (Adv.)
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1.) Exchange specifications, documents and forms between the ftwilliam.com servers and your systems in real time via ftwLink. 2.) Batch print all required amendments. 3.) Batch print Combined Annual Notices (e.g., Safe Harbor, QACA, EACA, TACA and QDIA) for ALL DC plans in one step. 4.) Other powerful batch and group printing features in the document and government forms software. 5.) Outstanding customer service. Talk to a real person the first time and don't wait hours for an answer. Or if you prefer, just send us an email. Isn't it time you experienced a few benefits! Call us today 800.596.0714 or email sales@ftwilliam.com. |
[Official Guidance]
Text of IRS Notice 2009-20: Update for Weighted Average Interest Rates, Yield Curves, and Segment Rates (PDF)
4 pages. Excerpt: "This notice provides guidance as to the corporate bond weighted average interest rate and the permissible range of interest rates specified under §412(b)(5)(B)(ii)(II) of the Internal Revenue Code as in effect for plan years beginning before 2008. It also provides guidance on the corporate bond monthly yield curve (and the corresponding spot segment rates), the 24-month average segment rates, and the funding transitional segment rates under § 430(h)(2). In addition, this notice provides guidance as to the interest rate on 30-year Treasury securities under §417 (e)(3)(A)(ii)(II) as in effect for plan years beginning before 2008, the 30-year Treasury weighted average rate under §431(c)(6)(E)(ii)(I), and the minimum present value segment rates under §417(e)(3)(D) as in effect for plan years beginning after 2007." (Internal Revenue Service)
[Guidance Overview]
What Not to Do As a Plan Fiduciary
Excerpt: "About a month ago, U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Duggan ruled in favor of the plaintiff in a case regarding plan contributions. According to Fred Schneyer at planadviser.com, the plaintiff, Paul Safran, sued his former employer LDS Contractors, Inc., owned by Frank Donagrandi, because Donagrandi 'misled participants into thinking LDS was making its required annual contributions despite his responsibilities as a plan fiduciary'." (The Precept Employee Benefits Blog)
[Guidance Overview]
Defined Benefit Pension Plan Annual Funding Notice for Single-Employer Plans
Excerpt: "The notice requirements apply to plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2008. Plans are required to furnish funding notices no later than 120 days following the close of each plan year. Therefore, many plans are required to provide their first funding notice no later than April 30, 2009. For small plans with 100 or fewer participants on each day during the plan year preceding the year to which the notice relates, notice must be provided by the due date (taking into account any extensions) for filing the plan's IRS Form 5500." (Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP)
[Guidance Overview]
Defined Benefit Pension Plan Annual Funding Notices - DOL Field Assistance Bulletin 2009-1 (PDF)
2 pages. Excerpt: "Model notices for single and multiemployer plans are provided in the appendices to FAB 2009-1. Although not mandatory, the models, if properly completed, will satisfy the content requirements. The annual funding notice may be given electronically, provided that the notice is reasonably accessible to participants, beneficiaries and other required recipients." (Kelly, Hannaford & Battles P.A.)
[Guidance Overview]
Investment Advice to Participants: What The 'Final' DOL Regulation Means
Excerpt: "This bulletin examines the effect of the regulation on broker-dealers and registered investment advisers that provide investment advice to 401(k) plan participants and IRA beneficiaries (referred to collectively as 'participants'). We first discuss the regulation and then suggest steps that firms should begin taking now to come into compliance with the new rules, whether or not they are effective in their current form." (Reish Luftman Reicher & Cohen)
[Guidance Overview]
403(b) Plans Information Sharing Data Elements Questions & Answers (Last Updated - March 6, 2009)
Excerpt: "The SPARK Institute today announced that it has posted new answers to additional technical questions it has received regarding its 403(b) Plans Information Sharing Data Elements Best Practices. 'These new questions and answers supplement those that were posted on February 3, 2009,' said Larry H. Goldbrum, General Counsel of The SPARK Institute. The new questions and answers, along with previously answered questions and other materials related to the Best Practices, are on the Institute's web site at http://www.sparkinstitute.org/comments-and-materials.php. 'Anyone interested in information related to the Best Practices should check the web site regularly for answers to the latest questions and other updates,' Goldbrum said." (The Spark Institute)
Review of a Discussion on Target Date Funds
Excerpt: "Since the inception of target-date funds, it has been debated whether the 'target date' is the end or just a bump in a road. A panel at PLANSPONSOR's Future of Asset Allocation Funds conference in Sarasota, Florida, had differing perspectives about where the glide path should be at the target date. T. Rowe Price's Director of Asset Allocation and Portfolio Manager Richard Whitney said T. Rowe (like some other fund managers) views target-date funds as a lifetime solution. He said 65 is not a 'magic' number; it is just the number when a participant stops accumulating. Whitney said that the T. Rowe program tries to offer a good investment program that is also behaviorally friendly, as individuals have a difficult time dealing with the complexity of the market." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)
Listing of IRS Published Guidance for January-February 2009
The target page links to guidance published by the Service relating to retirement plans: Treasury Regulations; Revenue Rulings; Revenue Procedures; Notices; and, Announcements. (Internal Revenue Service)
Retirement Plan Design: Four Perspectives
Excerpt: "Many companies in financial distress are beginning to take action in response to the economic crisis by closing their DB plans or by eliminating or reducing their savings plan contributions. It remains to be seen how widespread this will become. Those companies with a healthier balance sheet can afford to take a holistic view of the retirement plan and the added value it creates for employees, rather than respond in a knee-jerk way out of a desire to control costs or eliminate risk. Regardless of what drives retirement redesign, we suggest that sponsors consider four essential perspectives - external, cost and risk, employee, and employer - to clarify their objectives in offering or amending their retirement provisions. These four perspectives can be applied more generally to other employee benefits and to the total rewards package." (Mercer LLC)
Use of Target-Date Funds in 401(k) Plans, 2007 (PDF)
32 pages. Excerpt: "Of the 401(k) plan participants in the EBRI/ICI 401(k) database who were found to be in plans that offered target-date funds, 37 percent had at least some fraction of their account in target-date funds in 2007. Target-date funds held about 7 percent of total assets in 401(k) plans and the use of these funds is expected to increase in the future. The Pension Protection Act of 2006 made it easier for plan sponsors to automatically enroll new workers in a 401(k) plan, and target-date funds were one of the types of approved funds specified for a 'default' investment if the participant does not elect a choice." (Employee Benefit Research Institute)
2009 Wilshire Report on State Retirement Systems: Funding Levels and Asset Allocation (PDF)
19 pages. Excerpt: "Financial data on public retirement systems lack the timeliness and uniform disclosure governing pension plans sponsored by publicly traded companies, making it difficult to conclude a study with data that is both current and consistent across systems. For this reason, our study methodology involves collecting data during the first one and a half months of each calendar year with the objective of acquiring as many reports as possible with a June 30 valuation date from the previous year." (Wilshire Consulting)
Reallocation Versus Rebalancing of Your Portfolio
Excerpt: "The allocation of many portfolios has changed as a result of significant movements in financial markets, especially over the last six months. Given this broad disarray in financial markets, advisors might find a brief discussion about the difference between (1) rebalancing a portfolio's current asset allocation and (2) outright changing a portfolio's target asset allocation to be of interest." (Morningstar)
Mandatory Retirement Policy Creeps Closer
Excerpt: "President Barack Obama is promoting two proposals that would deliver two more blows to the voluntary nature of the private retirement system. In his 2010 budget blueprint unveiled Feb. 26, President Obama proposed requiring employers sponsoring 401(k) or similar defined contribution plans to offer automatic enrollment. A second proposal would require employers without existing retirement plans to enroll their employees in a direct-deposit individual retirement account." (Pensions & Investments)
Obama's Budget Requires Workplace Retirement Plans
Excerpt: "Of the several ways President Barack Obama's proposed $3.6 trillion budget will produce change in the workplace, one should particularly cause HR executives and benefits professionals to sit up and take notice. The Obama administration seeks to give employees enhanced retirement protection by requiring employers to create an automatic workplace retirement plan." (Human Resource Executive Online)
Connecticut Settles 'Secret' Pension Annuity Fees Case
Excerpt: "A subsidiary of a Connecticut insurance and benefits broker has agreed to pay $470,000 and change its business practices after a state of Connecticut investigation into contingent fee practices in annuity purchases by pension funds. A news release from Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said the money from the settlement with USI Consulting Group, Inc. (USICG) of Glastonbury, Connecticut, will go to the state's general fund. Blumenthal had alleged the firm accepted concealed compensation from insurance companies who were selling Single Premium Group Annuity (SPGA) insurance contracts." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)
Pension Consultant Provides Fee Restitution to Clients
Excerpt: "The U.S. Department of Labor has reached a settlement agreement with Consulting Services Group (CSG) of Memphis, Tennessee, and its affiliated broker/dealer which provides for fee restitution to plan clients. According to a DoL news release, CSG has already paid $277,802.78 and agreed to pay a $27,780 in civil penalty. After an investigation by the Atlanta Regional Office of the department's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) into alleged violations of ERISA by CSG, David Meals, the firm's former chief compliance officer, and affiliated Trading Services Group Inc., the EBSA alleged the defendants received undisclosed and unauthorized compensation, and failed to timely provide promised commission rebates to certain ERISA plans from 2002 to 2006." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)
[Opinion]
Caution: When Used as Directed, 401(k)s are Hazardous to Your Financial Health
Excerpt: "401(k) participants are often told they can minimize risk by investing in lifecycle or target-date funds that automatically decrease their investment in stocks as they approach retirement. But research by the Congressional Research Service shows that even those who adopt this approach, gradually reducing their stock allocations from 65% to 50% of assets, face a significant risk of not being able to maintain their standard of living in retirement." (Economic Policy Institute)
[Opinion]
Savings Accounts for All: Simple, but Not Easy
Excerpt: "The notion of a 'universal' savings account is tantalizing. It suggests two possibilities: Giving everyone, no matter how large their employer, an easy way to save some money when they receive a paycheck, and eliminating the alphabet soup of 401(k)'s, I.R.A.'s, 529s and other accounts that we all have strewn about our financial lives. Unfortunately, what the president has in mind will probably not greatly simplify the existing system of savings. Nor is it completely universal, the way Social Security is." (The New York Times; free registration required)
[Opinion]
Comments on Legal and Policy Questions Relating to the Final Investment Advice Regulation (PDF)
4 pages. Excerpt: "[T]he portion of the Final Regulation which implements the non-statutory class exemption (i.e., the portion that does not relate to the statutory exemption from the prohibited transaction rule enacted in PPA) may expose participants and beneficiaries to conflicted investment advice without sufficient protection from the effects of an adviser's conflicts of interest. Furthermore, this exemption is contrary to Congressional intent." (American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries/Council of Independent 401 (k) Recordkeepers)
[Opinion]
The 403(b) Regs Experience Exposes '401(x)' Weakness
Excerpt: "There has been a discussion circulating around Washington for a number of years about the value of establishing a simplified Defined Contribution retirement system commonly referred to as '401(x)'. This program would create a single defined contribution program with a single set of rules to replace the 'alphabet soup' of DC plans currently in existence. . . . '401(x)' seems to be a program that is more centered on the self-interests of a handful of vendors for which such a program would save much expense; it is not one which is designed to benefit employers." (Giller and Calhoun)
[Opinion]
Diagnosing Behavioral Investor Types
Excerpt: "I have developed a method to more easily apply behavioral finance in practice which is based on more than a decade of research called Behavioral Alpha, which classifies investors into one of four behavioral investor types. An overview of this methodology was published in the October 2008 issue of the Journal of Financial Planning. This article explains the framework for Behavioral Alpha, and we will review each of the four behavioral investor types in the next four articles." (Michael M. Pompian via Morningstar)
[Opinion]
NCPERS Response to Recent Bloomberg Article
Excerpt: "A recent Bloomberg article indicates that public pension plans routinely set their assumed rates of return far above what could be expected, and that the funds manipulate their numbers by smoothing investment returns. . . . What the reporter doesn't note is that over the past 24 years, CalPERS has exceeded its expected rate of return 17 times, with eight of those years more than doubling the 7.75 percent assumed rate of return. The reporter doesn't note that despite the decline in the value of CalPERS assets last year, it beat the Dow -- which lost 34.34 percent -- by more than seven percentage points." (National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems)
SunGard (Sponsor)
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| EFAST2 – Are you ready to electronically file 5500 forms? |
| Form 5500 must be electronically filed, beginning January 2010. Modifying your existing procedures and routines and helping your clients understand how to collaborate with you electronically are essential to meet the new requirements of the EFAST2 system. SunGard’s Relius Government Forms 5500 Web Client provides you and your clients an efficient and easy way to gather all necessary information and electronically file 5500 forms and schedules. Contact John Latson at 800-326-7235, ext. 1100. |
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Yahoo Wins Severance-Plan Approval That May Aid Buyout Offers
Excerpt: "The Detroit pension funds argued in the Delaware suits that Yang used Yahoo's severance plan to thwart Microsoft by giving employees incentives to quit rather than work for a buyer. The plan, approved by Yahoo's board in the wake of Microsoft's bid, served as a 'quasi-poison pill,' investor advisory firm Glass Lewis Inc. said. A poison pill is a type of corporate-takeover defense. The severance plan required that workers be paid if their jobs were eliminated or altered after a change in control of Yahoo. The company said the policy was aimed at retaining employees. Investors complained that it made Yahoo more expensive to acquire." (Bloomberg L.P.)
Newly Posted Events
(Post Yours!)2nd Annual Congress on On-Site Employee Health Clinics
in Nevada on June 1, 2009
presented by Global Media Dynamics
Craig P. Hoffman, APM to Deliver "Government Update - What Can We Expect in 2009?"
in New York on April 2, 2009
presented by ASPPA Benefits Council of New York
Employee Benefit Plan Filing Update with DOL and IRS - Recorded Webcast
Nationwide on March 9, 2009
presented by U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
Getting Ready for the 2009 Form 5500 and Electronic Filing - Recorded Webcast
Nationwide on March 9, 2009
presented by U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
Health and Welfare Plan Management for Mid-Sized Employers
in Illinois on June 7, 2009
presented by University Conference Services
Health Benefits Law Compliance - ERISA: Title I, Part 7 - Recorded Webcast
Nationwide on March 9, 2009
presented by U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
Health Benefits Law Compliance - Federal COBRA and Texas Continuation Coverage - Recorded Webcast
Nationwide on March 9, 2009
presented by U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
Health Benefits Law Compliance - What It Means to be a Group Health Plan Fiduciary - Recorded Webcast
Nationwide on March 9, 2009
presented by U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
Hot Topic: "New COBRA Subsidy Requires Immediate Action"
in New York on March 23, 2009
presented by WEB (Worldwide Employee Benefits Network ), New York Chapter
Important Employer Considerations in a Down Economy
in Colorado on March 18, 2009
presented by Denver Compensation & Benefits, LLC
Top Plan Operation Mistakes and How to Fix Them
in New York on March 19, 2009
presented by WEB (Worldwide Employee Benefits Network ), New York Chapter
Newly Posted Press Releases
(Post Yours!)Benefit Advisors Network Adapts Quickly To Provide Webinar On New COBRA Changes
Benefit Advisors Network
U.S. Labor Department Settlement With Memphis, Tenn., Pension Consultants Provides Restitution of Fees and Reforms for Arrangements with Plan Clients
U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
U.S. Department of Labor Sues Owner of Defunct Hillsboro, Oregon, Company to Recover More Than $147,000 in 401(k) Retirement Contributions
U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
How Account Balance Size Affects Retirement Plan Rollovers
Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI)
Over a Third of 401(k) Participants Able to Invest in Target-Date Funds Are Using Them; Growth Likely
Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI)
National Business Group on Health Unveils An Employer's Guide to Employee Assistance Programs
National Business Group on Health
Spectrum Pension Consultants, Inc. Opposes Washington State Senate Bill SB 5791
Spectrum Pension Consulting
CAPTRUST Financial Advisors Advances National Expansion Plans With The Acquisition Of Another Major Retirement Plan Advisor
CAPTRUST Financial Advisors
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
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Defined Benefit Consultant / Administrator
for Boyce & Associates, Inc.
in AZ
Defined Contribution/401(k) Administrator
for Boyce & Associates, Inc.
in AZ
Senior Consultant / Client Services Manager
for Boyce & Associates, Inc.
in AZ
HR/PR Outsourcing Service Delivery Manager
for Constantin-Control Associates
in MN, NC
Client Relationship Manager
for Benefit Systems, Inc.
in TX
DC Recordkeeper/Administrator
for Custom K, Inc
in PA
Defined Contribution/Pension Analyst
for The Standard
in OH
Retirement Plan Communication Associate
for John Hancock Life Insurance Company (U.S.A.)
in CA
EmployeeBenefitsJobs.com (Sponsor)
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