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March 20, 2009 |
| Here are the Web's best new links about compliance and cost aspects of plan operation, design and policy. |
DATAIR Employee Benefit Systems, Inc. (Advert.)
Software for Retirement and Cafeteria Plan Documents DATAIR EGTRRA sale! License our Plan Document System before 5/1/09 for a $500 discount. Choose your documents: Retirement Plans: 401(k)/Profit Sharing, 403(b), DB, Cash Balance Cafeteria Plans: 125, HSA, HRA Choose your formats:
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[Official Guidance]
DOL Announcement of Delay in Application of Final Regs on Investment Advice to Participants and Beneficiaries (PDF)
Excerpt: "This document postpones the effective and applicability dates of these final rules from March 23, 2009 until May 22, 2009, to allow additional time for the Department to evaluate questions of law and policy concerning the rules." (Employee Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Department of Labor)
[Guidance Overview]
DOL Annual Funding Notices Due for Calendar Year Defined Benefit Plans on April 30, 2009
Excerpt: "For plan years beginning after December 31, 2007, all defined benefit plans that are subject to Title IV of ERISA are required to provide certain annual funding notices to the PBGC, plan participants and beneficiaries, labor organizations, and, in the case of multiemployer plans, each participating employer. The notice must be provided within 120 days following each plan year. For a calendar plan year, the deadline for providing the notice is April 30, 2009. In Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2009-01, the DOL issued model notices . . . ." (Troutman Sanders LLP)
[Guidance Overview]
Considerations in Implementing New Underfunded Pension Benefit Restrictions (PDF)
Excerpt: "Depending on the level of underfunding, plan sponsors may be required to restrict certain accelerated forms of benefit payments as early as April 1, 2009. If so affected, such a plan sponsor should explore options . . . . as well as consider how and when to explain the changes to plan participants." (Milliman)
[Guidance Overview]
Capturing Rollovers; Effects on Fiduciaries and Service-Providers of the DOL Regulation on Investment Advice for Participants
Excerpt: "n this bulletin, we examine comments made by the DOL in the Preamble to the regulation regarding recommendations by fiduciaries and service providers concerning distributions and rollovers from qualified plans to IRAs. We are currently advising RIA and broker-dealer clients on how to structure their rollover programs in light of this guidance . . . ." (Reish Luftman Reicher & Cohen)
New York State Pension Advisers Charged in Kickback Scheme
Excerpt: "The former New York state comptroller's top fund-raiser and pension investment chief on Thursday were arrested and charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks from money manager firms." (Reuters)
Industry Group Wants Money Market Mutual Fund Safeguards
Excerpt: "The Investment Company Institute is proposing sweeping changes to restore confidence in the $3.9 trillion money market mutual fund industry, including more transparency, tighter control over investments and prohibiting investments in second-tier securities." (Workforce Management)
ESOP Restatements and Submissions Present Opportunities
Excerpt: "[A]ll companies sponsoring ESOPs should be aware that their plan documents must be restated and submitted to the IRS every five years for a letter of determination of their tax qualified status. What they may not realize is that the ESOP restatement process offers potentially unrealized opportunities for cost efficiency, employer protection and creative re-design." (Chang Ruthenberg & Long)
Get Used to a 'Working Retirement'
Excerpt: " The recession is making clear what we've suspected for a long time. The concept of not working and embracing leisure for the last third of life isn't practical for most people." (Business Week)
California State Government Ponders Money Contribution Obligation to Public Employees' Retirement System
Excerpt: "The dramatic decline in Cal-PERS' value has had no impact on members' benefits which, fund officials emphasize, are protected by law. CalPERS provides about $11 billion annually in pension benefits, a figure that doesn't include health care. But the state of California and some 100 local governments are obligated to protect those pensions, and if CalPERS cannot do it because of its dwindling assets, then the state and other governments are obligated to step in." (Capitol Weekly)
PBGC Takes Over Virginia Foundry Retirement Plan
Excerpt: "A federal agency will take over the retirement plan for nearly 2,500 former and current employees of Lynchburg Foundry and two other foundries in Virginia because their parent company cannot afford to pay the benefits in the plan. Because of the change, some of the retirees covered by the pension plan might have a reduction in their benefits . . . . " (Lynchburg [Va.] News Advance)
AIG Bonuses Are Further Insult to West Virginia Teachers, Attorney Says
Excerpt: "On behalf of a class of state teachers and school service personnel, [attorney] Harry Bell filed a lawsuit last year against former [West Virginia] state lawmaker Ramona Cerra, AIG and its subsidiaries and the state Consolidated Public Retirement Board. The lawsuit blames Cerra for persuading teachers to leave a defined benefit pension program for a 401K-style retirement plan administered by AIG." (West Virginia Record)
More Defined Benefit Plan Freezes Coming Next Year
Excerpt: "The number of U.S. companies freezing their pension plans this year will represent the tip of the iceberg compared with the volume in years to come, according to pension experts." (The Wall Street Journal)
[Opinion]
U.S. Health Reform Should Not Be Modeled on Massachusetts Health Insurance Law, Report Says
Excerpt: "Efforts to overhaul the U.S. health care system should not be modeled after the 2006 Massachusetts health insurance law because the law does not include cost controls, according to a report released on Tuesday by researchers at the Institute for America's Future . . . ." (KaiserNetwork.org)
[Opinion]
Principles for a New Retirement System in the USA (PDF)
49 pages. Excerpt: "Retirement USA is an initiative developed by organizations representing workers and retirees that are committed to working for a universal, secure, and adequate private retirement system for the future that supplements Social Security. The organizations launching the initiative are the Economic Policy Institute, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the Pension Rights Center, and the Service Employees International Union. This working paper documents the need for a new system, details principles that should guide the development of a new system, and provides examples of plans and proposals that incorporate these principles." (Retirement USA)
[Opinion]
After The Crash of '08, Maybe It's Time to Leave the Investment Driving to Professionals, Not Participants
Excerpt: "Although analysts and academics have only just begun the process of slicing and dicing the data relating to how 401(k) investments fared during the crash of '08 and how participants reacted (or didn't react), we have a couple of observations for your consideration . . . . " (Chang Ruthenberg & Long)
SunGard (Advert.)
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Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
[Guidance Overview]Fat Firefighters, Rescue Workers Alarm Researchers
Excerpt: "These conditions also carry a high price tag for government health, disability and pension plans . . . ." ([Wilmington, NC] Star-News)
[Guidance Overview]
TARP Curbs on Executive Pay May Have Some Bite
Excerpt: "[We] compare the compensation of CEOs at two banks -- one that took TARP money and one that didn't." (Wall Street Journal)
Research Shows Recent Executive Equity Grant Values Reduced by 28 Percent Year-over-Year (PDF)
Excerpt: "It is common, and relatively easy, to deliver . . . equity compensation year to year in an environment of stable and modestly rising stock prices; however, this is not the case when share prices have dropped 30 percent to 50 percent (or more) as we've seen over the past year." (Buck Consultants)
U.S. Births Break Baby Boom Record
Excerpt: "The 4,317,119 births, reported by federal researchers Wednesday, topped a record first set in 1957 at the height of the baby boom. . . . On average, a U.S. woman has 2.1 babies in her lifetime. That's the 'magic number' required for a population to replace itself. Countries with much lower rates -- such as Japan and Italy -- face future labor shortages and eroding tax bases as they fail to reproduce enough to take care of their aging elders." (AP via ChicagoTribune.com)
[Opinion]
Pension Busts and Market Booms Ahead as World Rides the Demographic Wave:
Excerpt: "The idea that aging will have a profoundly negative impact on the global economy has been around for decades but has been dismissed or taken a back seat to other more 'important' problems. Unfortunately, all the years spent avoiding the aging & pension problem has served to magnify the issue." (RGE Monitor)
Webcasts and Conferences
(Click to post your webcast or conference)"Making and Taxing Corrective Distributions After PPA" Archived Web Seminar
Nationwide on March 19, 2009
presented by SunGard Relius
Annual Educational Workshop
in Florida on April 23, 2009
presented by Florida West Coast Employee Benefits Council
Employee Benefits Jobs
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DC/401(k) Plan Administrator
for Shore Tompkins Actuarial Resources, LLC
in IL
Pension Administrator
for Altigro Pension Services, Inc.
in NJ
DB Consulting Actuary
for Hooker & Holcombe, Inc.
in CT
Defined Contribution Administrator
for The Benefit Practice
in CT
Pension Administrator
for AKT Retirement Plan Services LP
in CA
EmployeeBenefitsJobs.com (Sponsor)
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