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March 12, 2009 |
| Here are the Web's best new links about compliance and cost aspects of plan operation, design and policy. |
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National Institute of Pension Administrators (NIPA) (Adv.)
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Maximize Your Savings at the 2009 NIPA Annual Forum & Expo (2009NAFE) Achieve maximum savings at the 2009NAFE! Register on or before March 23 and save $100 with the early registration discount. Register one employee and save $25, for each additional employee, save $75 off the full registration rate with NIPA’s Employee Discount Program. Book your hotel room at the Planet Hollywood’s new low rate of $109 per night! Visit www.nipa.org for details. |
[Guidance Overview]
Compensation and Limitation Charts, Updated Mar. 11, 2009
Chart 1 outlines 'A Short Plan Year as of 2007.' Chart 2 outlines 'A Participant Entering A Plan After the First Day of A Full Plan Year." (McKay Hochman Co.)
[Guidance Overview]
Rev. Proc. 2008-50: Some Changes to the EPCRS Non-Amender Rules
Excerpt: "Effective January 1, 2009 (or if chosen by the employer as of September 2008), the IRS released Rev. Proc. 2008-50, updating the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS). EPCRS is an IRS program that allows for plan sponsors to proactively correct mistakes, ultimately protecting a plan's tax-favored status. Included in the update are important rules regarding the process of voluntarily correcting a failure to amend a qualified retirement plan in a timely manner." (McKay Hochman Co.)
[Guidance Overview]
April 30 Deadline for Annual Funding Notices
Excerpt: "Employers that sponsor qualified defined benefit plans, including traditional pension plans and cash balance plans, will need to prepare and distribute a special notice to participants and certain other parties as soon as April 30, 2009. The 'Annual Funding Notice' must include substantial information regarding a plan's assets and liabilities. While recent guidance from the Department of Labor (DOL) provides a model form for this notice, collection of the information necessary to complete the form may be time consuming. Employers and their advisers should begin work now to be prepared to meet the distribution deadline -- particularly plans with calendar plan years, which are subject to the April 30 deadline." (McGuireWoods LLP)
[Guidance Overview]
Key PPA Funding Deadlines
Excerpt: "For most defined benefit plans, 2009 is the second year of the PPA funding regimen. Asset losses during the fourth quarter are history. But, there are three requirements and associated dates in April that take those losses into consideration. In this article, we review the options that plan sponsors have and the steps that they should consider." (JPMorgan Chase & Co.)
[Guidance Overview]
Final IRS Automatic Contribution Regulations
Excerpt: "On February 23, 2009, the IRS released final automatic contribution regulations. The regulations cover two major changes to 401(k) rules made by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA) - the PPA automatic contribution safe harbor and rules allowing the distribution of 'automatic' contributions where a participant elects out (within 90 days) of an automatic contribution program. Not all sponsors of automatic contribution programs will be interested in the safe harbor. Often, automatic contributions alone -- that is, without safe harbor matching contributions, vesting, etc. -- are sufficient to solve a sponsor's 401(k) nondiscrimination testing issues. But the new 90-day distribution rules are likely to be of interest to most sponsors of automatic contribution arrangements, particularly those with immediate eligibility." (JPMorgan Chase & Co.)
[Guidance Overview]
Defined Benefit Plan Annual Funding Notices
Excerpt: "The Pension Protection Act (PPA) requires an annual funding notice for most Defined Benefit (DB) plans that are subject to the PBGC. Under the PPA, the Department of Labor was required to provide a model annual funding notice not later than August 17, 2007. A model notice was released along with several Q&As on February 10, 2009 in Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2009-01 ('FAB 2009-1'). At the end of this article we provide annotated model annual funding notices with cross-references to the 5500 forms for single employer and multiemployer plans. However, we will first provide some basic background information on the new annual funding notice requirements." (Fort William LLC)
Watson Wyatt Pension 100: 2008 Disclosures of Funding, Discount Rates, Asset Allocations and Contributions
Excerpt: "[Watson] Wyatt has analyzed actual funded status for the 100 largest pension sponsors among publicly traded companies with year-end 2008 fiscal dates, as disclosed in their Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 10-K filings. During 2008, actual funding ratios in this group declined by an average of 28 percentage points. This article examines actual funding results at year-end 2008, the discount rate assumptions plan sponsors used to measure their liabilities, asset allocations, cash contributions to pensions in 2008 and expected contributions for 2009." (Watson Wyatt Worldwide)
Investment Company Institute Chief Favors Fiduciary Role for Advisers
Excerpt: "In what might come as a surprise to the organization's members, the head of the mutual fund industry's biggest trade group last week said that he supports the idea of requiring all financial advisers to act as fiduciaries. The fiduciary standard, which requires advisers to put their clients' interests first, 'does provide a higher standard of responsibility and accountability,' Paul Schott Stevens, president and chief executive of the Investment Company Institute of Washington, said in an interview after the group released a proposal for financial services regulatory reform." (Investment News; free registration required)
The Fiduciary Duty to Avoid Conflicts of Interest in Selecting Plan Service Providers (PDF)
10 pages. Excerpt: "The purpose of this White Paper is to analyze the law relating to conflicts of interest that retirement plan fiduciaries may encounter in selecting the investments and service providers for 401(k) plans. As part of our analysis, we review several scenarios that raise issues about conflicts of interest and we analyze how those conflicts may violate the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ('ERISA')." (Reish Luftman Reicher & Cohen)
What to Consider Before Cutting the Employer Match
Excerpt: "In a recent PLANSPONSOR Plugged In Webcast, experts suggested that before cutting the match, plans can consider other cost-cutting strategies, such as renegotiating fees with the provider. 'I think you can go to your service provider...and improve your cost-benefit equation,' said Fred Reish, partner at Reish, Luftman, Reicher, & Cohen. He noted that service providers operating with asset-based fees right now are seeing their revenues go down and might be open to negotiation." (planadvisor)
Some U.S. Companies Making Voluntary Pension Contributions
Excerpt: "At a time when many corporations are starved for cash, more than two dozen companies ranging from MasterCard Inc. (MA) to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) are voluntarily contributing more than required to their pension plans. Their reasons are as varied as the businesses they run. Some want to beef up their pensions' assets to meet future funding requirements mandated by the Pension Protection Act. Others are eager to nab the tax benefit they can receive by putting more money into their plans, or to boost future net income by decreasing pension expense. There's also a group that would like to avoid liquidating securities at today's depressed prices as they pay out benefits to retirees." (Dow Jones & Company, Inc. via CNN.Money.com)
Evaluating Micro-Survey Estimates of Wealth and Saving
Excerpt: "This paper presents an overview of changes in household wealth accumulation and saving using wealth data from three micro-level surveys: Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We provide comparisons to the macroeconomic estimates of wealth accumulation and saving, explore problems in constructing household-level valuations of wealth, and assess the value of using household-level datasets to examine wealth accumulation and saving behavior in the United States." (Center for Retirement Research at Boston College)
The Aggregate and Distributional Effects of Differential Wage Growth on Social Security
Excerpt: "This study uses a dynamic microsimulation model to examine the aggregate and distributional consequences of alternative scenarios about the distribution of future wage growth among workers. We find fairly marked changes in projected Social Security benefit distributions, poverty, and long-term financing status with relatively modest changes in assumptions about wage differentials." (Center for Retirement Research at Boston College)
Defined Contribution Global Plan Management
Excerpt: "There is no question that defined contribution (DC) plans continue to grow in popularity around the world. Employers find them attractive for their funding flexibility and risk-shifting qualities. Some consider DC plans to be simpler than defined benefit plans, and while this may be true at a conceptual level, it is untrue at the governance and implementation levels. As DC systems proliferate and mature globally, they grow in complexity. Each local DC market has its own unique supplier community and market practices. For a multinational employer, the result is too often a 'stack' of inconsistent, overly complex local DC systems with little or no oversight." (Mercer LLC)
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DATAIR Employee Benefit Systems, Inc. (Adv.)
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5500 / PBGC / 1099-R / 5300 / FAS 158 Software from DATAIR DATAIR Pension Reporter System. Easy to use and economical for electronic and paper filing with instant access to forms and instructions. Live, expert support included. Choose from 4 modules:
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Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Executive Compensation: Rethinking Strategies for Challenging Times (PDF)Excerpt: "The economic downturn has caused many companies to evaluate their executive compensation programs more closely and in many cases make difficult decisions that respond to these challenging times. As a result, data regarding base salaries, annual bonuses and long-term incentives as reported by compensation surveys completed in Fall 2008 are already out-of-date. In response, Grant Thornton LLP conducted a survey of 227 U.S. companies in February of 2009 to better understand how the current economic downturn is impacting executive compensation programs." (Grant Thornton LLP via Financial Executives International)
Newly Posted Events
(Post Yours!)Employee Benefits Conference: Find Answers to Important Employee Benefits Issues
in New York on May 14, 2009
presented by Foundation for Accounting Education
Legislative Update and The Year Ahead in Healthcare Reform
in Pennsylvania on April 16, 2009
presented by ISCEBS, Greater Philadelphia Chapter
Newly Posted Press Releases
(Post Yours!)U.S. Pension Plan Funding Plunged by More Than $300 Billion in 2008, Watson Wyatt Analysis Finds
Watson Wyatt
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
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Senior Defined Benefit Data Analyst
for Diversified Investment Advisors, Inc.
in MA
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EmployeeBenefitsJobs.com (Adv.)
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Where the best employers find the best candidates! |
Handy Links:
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