[Guidance Overview]
What's New with PBGC Premium Relief
"[This post highlights] three new PBGC premium relief items: 1. Seven Day Rule—for waiver of late premium penalties in 2011 and later. 2. 'Alternative' premium method election relief—for 2010 and later years. 3. Waiver of certain 'alternative' method penalties—for 2008 and 2009."
(Van Iwaarden Associates)
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[Guidance Overview]
DOL Guidance on Electronic Disclosure Under Participant Fee Disclosure Regulations
"Plan administrators who make the required disclosures in accordance with the Technical Release will not be subject to enforcement action by the DOL. Notwithstanding this guidance, employers should watch out for future guidance as this is merely interim relief and final regulatory guidance is expected in the future."
(Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart PC)
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Barney Frank to DOL: Revise Fiduciary Rule on Retirement Plans
"In his Sept. 15 letter to Solis, Frank admits that 'some ERISA rules may need to be updated' but said doing so must not be done in 'a way that has adverse effects on the choices available to consumers, municipalities, pension plans and others.' He then urges Solis to 'withdraw and repropose your rule in coordination' with the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)."
(AdvisorOne)
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Tool Helps Plan Sponsors Focus on Income in Retirement
"Putnam, a money management firm, announced last week that it is making available to plan sponsors a product called Lifetime Income Score, a tool it says will give employers a way to help boost employees' retirement savings."
(Employee Benefit News; free registration required)
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How Companies Helped Hasten the End of Retirement Plans and Benefits.
"Over the past two decades, companies have cut pensions, slashed retiree health coverage and killed other benefits. Many have reduced their contributions to 401(k)s as well. Companies say they are the victims of a 'perfect storm' of unforeseen forces: an aging work force, market turmoil, adverse interest rates."
(Portfolio/Penguin via The Wall Street Journal)
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Evolving Retirement Plan Market Presents New Opportunities for Advisors (PDF)
"In the wake of recent industry and regulatory developments, advisors in the retirement plan industry have a great opportunity to reflect on their roles and clearly identify how they want to deliver value to clients. In order to be successful, however, advisors have to know where to look for help."
(The Standard)
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Your Fiduciary Duty: Fidelity Bonding
"[ERISA] requires that all employee benefit plans have a fidelity bond. If it's been awhile since you reviewed the amount of your fidelity bond, make a note to check it to be certain that you are adequately covered."
(the401kcpa.com)
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401(k) Record Retention: What To Keep and for How Long?
"When it comes to 401(k) record retention and document storage, remember that your number one goal should be to have materials preserved in a format that allows for quick and easy retrieval. It's appropriate to store plan records electronically whenever possible."
(Cambridge Investment Research, Inc.)
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Prescience 2015: Expert Opinions on the Future of Retirement Plans (PDF)
"In a fast-changing environment, retirement plan sponsors, providers, consultants and advisors need a clear, forward-looking vision of the retirement plans landscape so they can invest in the development of products, services, systems and processes that will meet the needs of plan sponsors and participants well into the future."
(Diversified Retirement Corporation)
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A Mandatory Workplace IRA Bill Re-Introduced
"This week U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman introduced the Automatic IRA Act of 2011, which will, according to a press release, 'give nearly 42 mil.lion Americans an easy, effective way to take responsibility for their fiscal futures and plan for a secure retirement'."
(PLANSPONSOR.COM)
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Will You Need 135% of Your Salary in Retirement?
"[A]ccording to research conducted by Dan Ariely, people need 135% of their final income to live the way they want in retirement. The reason for this astounding difference has to do largely with the way Ariely, a professor of economics and behavioral finance at Duke University, did his research. Instead of asking people to ballpark how much of their final salary they will need, he asked . . . . questions geared to assess the quality of life that people expect in retirement."
(MarketWatch, Inc.)
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BrightScope Spotlights 401(k) Plans, Thanklessly
"In 2009, Mike and Ryan Alfred . . . introduced a rating for most of the big 401(k) plans and gave poor scores to many of them. In Act 2, the brothers and their company, BrightScope, put the names and disciplinary records of thousands of stockbrokers and investment advisers up on the Web where anyone could find them."
(The New York Times; free registration required)
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Do You Know What You Are? ERISA Titles Matter
"Knowing your title also creates clarification as to what your duties are, and what they are not. . . . What you are defines your risks and responsibilities."
(Fox Rothschild LLP)
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How Privatized Social Security Works in Galveston
"Government employees in Galveston, Brazoria and Matagorda Counties have controlled their private retirement plan for 30 years. They opted out of Social Security before Congress changed the law in 1983 to prevent others from withdrawing. Though the private program has its critics -- and some say it does not provide all of the important benefits many destitute Americans claim through Social Security -- many in these counties consider their system superior."
(The New York Times; free registration required)
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Hybrid Rhode Island Pension Benefits Backed by State Treasurer
"On Thursday, she outlined some specifics that proposal will include. [Raimondo said her as-yet unwritten proposal will include a hybrid state-pension system that includes elements of the current defined-benefit plan along with a defined-contribution component, similar to 401(k) plans, which are driven by investment markets."
(The Providence Journal Co.)
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Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board Approves 9 Percent Budget Increase
"Significant costs for 2012 include the introduction of a Roth 401(k) plan, scheduled to launch early next year; a $3.5 mil.lion boost to update data and call centers; a $2.1 mil.lion jump in personnel costs with a planned staff restructuring; and a $3.4 mil.lion one-time expense associated with the agency's move to a new office."
(Government Executive)
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[Opinion]
On the News Media's Treatment of Fees, Regulation and Wrap Fees
"[An interesting article from the New York Times, directed at plan participants who may want to increase the returns in their 401(k)s by decreasing the costs in their plans and of their investments] is not interesting so much for what it says—nothing in it is likely to be very surprising, or even new, to most regular readers of this blog—but more for two points that it illustrates . . . ."
(Stephen Rosenberg of The McCormack Firm, LLC)
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[Opinion]
California Pension Wars Will Be Fought at City Hall
"The real issues of reform now shift from the weird world of Sacramento to California's cities and counties. Even legislators in the craziest of them—San Francisco obviously comes to mind—are more likely to pass needed reforms than those in the state Capitol, where interest-group politics trumps everything else."
(Orange County Register Communications)
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[Opinion]
Pension Abuse Reportedly Widespread
"[W]hat about the pension abuses that occur routinely in the private sector -- abuses that benefit the sponsoring companies but hurt their workers? I'm referring to the abuses exposed in 'Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers' by award-winning Wall Street Journal reporter Ellen Schultz."
(Bankrate, Inc.)
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[Opinion]
Mississippi State Representative Urges 'Caution' on Tampering with Retirement System
"Neither Gov. Haley Barbour nor I will be around if a future Legislature chooses to look at PERS. I also take issue with the governor's plan to use up to a quarter mil.lion dollars of federal stimulus money to hire a new team of professional financial analysts to study PERS. This money could have been better spent helping plug holes in our current budget."
(www.clarionledger.com)
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[Opinion]
Why Rick Perry Is Wrong about Social Security
"Perry's solution is to return the sponsorship of government retirement programs to the states, which he insists can handle the job better than the federal government. As evidence he points to an alternative retirement plan set up by Galveston and two other Texas counties in the early 1980s . . . . The Galveston program is basically a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan. You get out of it what you put in, along with the employer's match and investment gains on the total."
(Los Angeles Times)
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[Opinion]
Gov. Cuomo Deserves Praise for His Public Pension Plan, According to Organization
"Gov. Cuomo should be praised for his pension proposal, which sharply reduces current defined-benefit levels for local as well as state workers. If enacted, Gov. Cuomo's proposals would save New York City $30 bil.lion over 30 years, while the state and other public employers would save $93 bil.lion."
(www.poughkeepsiejournal.com)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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Should Congress Cut Its Pay or Benefits?
"In April, [an] Ohio Democrat introduced the Shared Retirement Sacrifice Act of 2011, which would require lawmakers to wait until the age of 66 to collect their pensions. Currently, lawmakers can retire as early as 50 with a full pension depending on how long they served."
(Cable News Network)
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General Motors May Offer Bonuses and Reopen Plant
"In what is being viewed as a landmark deal, the union also preserved health care and pensions and improved profit-sharing for its roughly 48,000 members who work at G.M."
(The New York Times; free registration required)
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Press Releases
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