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[Guidance Overview]
FOIA Request to IRS for Information on Pension Plan's Participation in Voluntary Compliance Program Denied
"Retired employees who were participants in a pension plan submitted an FOIA request to the IRS, seeking copies of all the documents associated with the IRS' handling of their former employer's submission under the VCRP concerning pension payments that resulted in an IRS Compliance Statement. The requested documents included the full submission made by the employer and the pension plan administrators . . . ."
(Wolters Kluwer Law & Business / CCH)
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[Guidance Overview]
DOL's Final Rule on Providing Investment Advice to Participants (PDF)
"The rules for providing investment advice to participants in section 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts and annuities (IRAs) have been clarified, and what was once prohibited under ERISA will now be permitted — subject to a number of conditions."
(Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP)
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[Guidance Overview]
Approaching Deadline for Defined Contribution Plans
"Employers who sponsor 401(k) or other defined contribution qualified retirement plans and who chose to take advantage of the opportunity to suspend required minimum distributions during 2009 must amend their plans to reflect the suspension before the last day of the plan year beginning on or after January 1, 2011. This means that calendar year plans must be amended by December 31, 2011."
(McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP)
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MassMutual’s Award-Winning ERISA Advisory Services [Advert.]
MassMutual’s ERISA Advisory Services can help plan fiduciaries and other professionals by providing up-to-date information and easy-to-use tools that help simplify the process of maintaining the compliance health of your retirement plan.
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[Guidance Overview]
DOL Service Provider Fee Disclosure Regulations To Go into Effect in Early 2012
"Because plan fiduciaries will likely start receiving fee information that has never before been disclosed, the new rules will require plan fiduciaries to create and undertake some type of process to review the disclosures. Plan fiduciaries should consider whether its current process for periodically reviewing the reasonableness of its service arrangements is adequate in light of the new information that will be provided."
(Franczek Radelet P.C.)
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[Guidance Overview]
10 Common Plan Compensation Mistakes
"Below is a list of ten common mistakes made when calculating plan compensation for defined contributions plans. [1] Using Box 1 or Box 5 Wages. If your plan document says you use a W-2 or FICA definition of compensation, that does not mean you can automatically use a participant's W-2 box 1 or box 5 wages for compensation."
(Warner Norcross & Judd LLP)
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Employer Stock in Your 401(k): How Much Is Too Much?
"[Five years after Enron,] plenty of big corporations still have heavy concentrations of their own stock in retirement plans. Brightscope, a financial research firm, provided Reuters with a list of companies with the highest concentrations of their own shares in 401(k) plans."
(Reuters)
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Rising Pension Benefit at Age 50 Might Hurt Milwaukee County
"A pension benefit that allows Milwaukee County employees to retire at 50 or in rare cases even younger carries a price tag of up to $90 mil.lion - much higher than the estimate given when the benefit was approved in the 1990s."
(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
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Public-Sector Pensions Are Protected in California Constitution
"[The U.S. Constitution states that] 'No state shall . . . pass any . . . law impairing the obligation of contracts . . . ' As widely interpreted — most importantly by the courts (or so we laymen are told) — the clause means that pensions promised state and local government workers on the day they were hired cannot be reduced [even with respect to the rate of future benefit accruals, potentially including an increase in required employee contributions] without giving them a new compensating benefit."
(Los Angeles Times)
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USPS Pension Payments Could Finance Early Retirement
"At least 100,000 employees of the U.S. Postal Service could be offered early retirement buyouts under a Senate plan that lets the agency take back $6.9 bil.lion in pension overpayments to finance the incentives and to pay other debts that have pushed it to the brink of insolvency."
(Pensions & Investments)
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Overcoming Inflation in Your Retirement Plan
"I want to expand upon just how big of a difference it can make if investors can simply overcome inflation vs. having inflation (and taxes due to inflation) erode their portfolio over time."
(Seeking Alpha)
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Independent Fiduciary in DOL Probe Denies Charges He Stole Funds
"'My client has at all times been a prudent manager of the funds he is charged with overseeing,' his attorney, Dennis Charney, wrote in an e-mail to InvestmentNews. 'Simply put, [Matthew Hutcheson] has advised me that the funds are safe and have fared better than funds placed by other managers in other plans.'"
(InvestmentNews)
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Partial Plan Termination Determination
"The IRS is actively pursuing employers whose retirement plans may have experienced a partial termination event. It is important to note that the partial termination rules apply to both defined contribution and defined benefit plans."
(Warner Norcross & Judd LLP)
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'Pension Proposition 13' Taking Shape in California
"It is the most comprehensive pension reform language ever filed in any state in the country, yet less severe than Rhode Island's recent narrower, sharper proposals to actually freeze, modify and cut incumbents' benefits."
(Girard Miller on Governing.com)
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Planning a Successful Pension Funding Policy for a Public Pension Plan
"The goals of a pension plan funding policy — from contributions and budgetary predictability and benefit payment to the elements of a funding policy — are discussed in detail. In addition, this issue offers a comprehensive analysis of the elements of a funding policy: the actuarial cost method, the asset-smoothing method and amortization of the unfunded actuarial accrued liability (UAAL)."
(Segal)
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New Jersey Supreme Court to Decide Judges' Pension Dispute
"The move means the case will bypass the appellate level and be heard by the state's highest court. It also more quickly may bring to the fore a confrontation with Gov. Chris Christie, who wants the Legislature to pass a constitutional amendment for voter approval next November that he said would ensure the reforms are implemented."
(www.APP.com)
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[Opinion]
Rhode Island Struggles with Pension Overhaul
"The unions have pushed the legal question of whether state workers have a contractual right to their pensions through to the state Supreme Court. If the justices disagree with the unions and the changes become law, then Rhode Island may go from being a little state with a big pension problem to being a national model for pension reform."
(NPR)
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[Opinion]
Talking Points on PBGC Deficit: A Non-Event on the Horizon (PDF)
"The PBGC's entire deficit is a product of government-created artificially low interest rates, as explained in an article by Ken Porter, a leading actuary with over 30 years of experience, that was published by BNA on September 14, 2011."
(American Benefits Council)
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[Opinion]
Supercommittee Should Look at Pensions
"Here's one idea: Stop reimbursing the costs of pensions and other retirement benefits at huge, and hugely profitable, defense contractors. Over 10 years, such a move could save an estimated $30 bil.lion — the amount by which these pensions are collectively underfunded."
(The New York Times; free registration required)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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House Panel Tries To Intervene in Same-S.ex Marriage Case
"The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives asked a federal judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to grant it intervenor status, solely to defend section 3 of DOMA against challenges that it violates the equal protection clause, or substantive due process components, of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution."
(PG Publishing Co., Inc. )
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EBSA Creates Web Page to Assist Benefit Plan Participants
"'The new consumer assistance Web page and electronic inquiry/complaint process will provide quick answers to the most frequently asked questions and connect workers to experienced benefits advisers if assistance is needed.'"
(Littler Mendelson P.C.)
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Press Releases
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