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Regional Sales Director
The Newport Group
in ANY STATE

Defined Contribution Plan Administrator
Stanley Benefit Services, Inc.
in NC

Retirement Consulting Group Representative
New York Life Retirement Plan Services
in NJ

Pension Administrator
Professional Pension Planners, Inc.
in NY

Daily Val Administrator
NestEggs, Inc.
in FL

Retirement Plans Specialist
Gensler
in CA

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Do’s and Don’ts: How to Draft Effective Restrictive Covenants & Avoid Traps for the Unwary
May 28, 2014 WEBCAST
(Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.)

Health Benefits Laws Compliance Assistance: The Affordable Care Act, the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act and More
May 29, 2014 WEBCAST
(Employee Benefits Security Administration [EBSA], U.S. Department of Labor)

Health Plan/PBM Strategies to Manage Specialty Drug Coupon Programs
June 5, 2014 WEBCAST
(Atlantic Information Services, Inc)

The Challenges of Private Exchange Open Enrollment: A Case Study of Walgreen Co.
June 9, 2014 WEBCAST
(Atlantic Information Services, Inc)

Designated Roth Accounts and Roth Conversions
June 10, 2014 WEBCAST
(McKay Hochman Co., Inc.)

PPA Pre-Approved Plans Workshop - Corbel Document - Philadelphia
June 17, 2014 in PA
(SunGard Relius)

401(k) Plan Workshop 2014 - Philadelphia
June 18, 2014 in PA
(SunGard Relius)

Tax Forms Workshop: 5500 and More - Philadelphia
June 19, 2014 in PA
(SunGard Relius)

Facing the Retirement Readiness Epidemic: How to Design an Education Campaign for Optimal Success
June 19, 2014 WEBCAST
(Pension Consultants, Inc.)

Using Benchmarking Data to Set Out-of-Network Rates for ACOs, Narrow Networks and Exchange Products
July 23, 2014 WEBCAST
(Atlantic Information Services, Inc)

2014 IRA Online Institute
September 2, 2014 WEBCAST
(Ascensus)

View All Webcasts and Conferences

[Guidance Overview]

Handout for IRS Phone Forum on Related Employers (Controlled and Affiliated Service Groups), May 22, 2014 (PDF)
57 presentation slides. Topics covered: [1] Controlled Group: A group of businesses that have common ownership attributes. [2] Affiliated Service Group: A group of businesses that have some common ownership attributes [a] less than otherwise required to form a controlled group, and [b] perform services for each other. (Internal Revenue Service [IRS])  

[Advert.]

Please join us for our 3rd Annual ftwilliam.com Customer Conference!

Sign-up for our 3rd Annual ftwilliam.com Customer Conference, August 3-5 in downtown Chicago! Earn CE credits while learning about the latest industry news and trends, interacting with your peers, and learning more about your ftwilliam.com software tools.

New IRS Late Filer Program for 5500-EZ
"The program is available to any plan eligible to file Form 5500-EZ, including owner-only plans ('one participant plans') and certain foreign plans. However, if the IRS has sent a penalty assessment letter (CP 283) to the employer, it cannot use the program. If the plan is subject to ERISA, and therefore cannot file Form 5500-EZ, the plan should use the DOL Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance program instead." (SunGard Relius)  

July 1 FATCA Effective Date Looms for Foreign Retirement Plans
"[FATCA's] broad definition sweeps in many traditional employee benefit programs including non-U.S. retirement plans (whether defined benefit or defined compensation in design), non-U.S. executive and employee stock programs, and other benefit designs. Unless specifically excluded from FATCA's scope, these plans likely face substantial registration and compliance burdens under the law. In many cases, foreign benefit programs that are required to register with the IRS must do so before July 1, 2014." (Miller & Chevalier Chartered)  

How Much Are Public Sector Pensions Shrinking? Often, a Lot
"You'd have to be living in a cave not to have heard that many states are bailing out struggling pension plans by cutting benefits. But how will that affect workers in those states? Researchers who have been sorting through the cuts say the picture isn't pretty." (Reuters)  

401(k) Geographic Trends
"San Jose, CA and San Francisco, CA stood out as the cities with the highest average Total Savings Rate. The typical US worker in these areas stash about 14.6 percent of their annual salary away in 401(k)s -- which includes both employee and employer contributions. Raleigh, NC was a close third with 14.0 percent, and Houston, TX and Hartford, CT rounded out the list of top savers with 13.9 percent and 13.8 percent, respectively.... McAllen, TX had the highest 401(k) loan usage, with 33.0 percent of retirement savers having an outstanding loan balance. Riverside, CA and Bakersfield, CA were close behind with 32.0 percent and 31.3 percent, respectively. El Paso, TX followed with 30.7 percent and Youngstown, OH had 29.9 percent." (Fidelity)  

[Advert.]

Targeted Strategies to Increase Your Defined Contribution Market Share

Hear directly from industry innovators, retirement platforms, advisors & consultants on everything from effective product positioning, to the latest news in plan design, QDIAs, and regulatory updates. Mention FMP164 for 10% discount.

Can the Teamsters Save Union Pensions?
"[The Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Trust (WCTPT)] is the best funded of 194 pension funds jointly sponsored by employers and local or regional units of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.... After the crisis the WCTPT used the fund's size to negotiate lower asset management fees.... Even at the height of the 1990s bull market, employers never took a contribution holiday, which was common at that time. The Western Conference's early decision, led by Beck, to diversify membership rather than build locals solely with truck drivers also helped." (Institutional Investor)  

Retiree Suit Threatens to Tip Flint, Michigan, Into Bankruptcy
"A group of city retirees is suing the city to stop proposed cuts to their health care benefits -- a $5 million annual burden that could force Flint to become Michigan's second-largest municipality to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, following on the heels of Detroit." (The Detroit News)  

New Orleans Loses Battle Over Contributions to Firefighters Pension Plan
"The U.S. Supreme Court Monday refused to block state court rulings requiring New Orleans to pay $17.5 million for its share of the fire department's retirement fund for 2010 through 2012. The Landrieu administration stopped making full monthly payments to the fund in July 2010. The city said it could not afford the payments, and argued that ambiguities in the law give the mayor discretion over the amount of the city contribution." (Washington Times)  

Findley Davies Pension Indicator, April 30, 2014
"This tool was developed to allow employers to mitigate their risk exposure by monitoring the estimated changes to their pension plan's funded status as it is reported for financial statement purposes under U.S. GAAP. [Three tables] provide the percentage change in the funded level of the plan: year-to-date, month-over-month, and 12-month change as of April 30, 2014 based on the investment mix and plan type." (Findley Davies)  

Ric Edelman Answers Child IRA Question and Reveals Today's Investors' Biggest Question
"You can't establish an IRA unless you have earned income, which most children lack. IRA rules also limit the amount you can contribute; there is no limit for the RIC-E Trust. And most importantly, the 'Child IRA' does not prevent the child from accessing the money prior to retirement. This is the most important element ... an irrevocable trust, meaning the child cannot touch the money. All financial advisors know that if the child is permitted to have access to the account, he or she will do so." (Fiduciary News)  

Retirement Security: Helping Workers Set Realistic Savings Goals
"Recent assessments suggesting that most Americans cannot afford to retire fail to reflect real-life patterns of income, consumption and savings over workers' lives. Although some workers are not saving enough for a comfortable retirement, the situation is less alarming than many studies have suggested. This analysis describes approaches to defining retirement income goals and some of the measurement flaws behind the dire retirement predictions." (Towers Watson)  

Pension Cashouts Expected to Rise in 2014
"[T]he three most important concerns ... are: [1] 'Interest rates are too low right now.' ... If a plan sponsor is looking to profit from the expectation of a rise in interest rates ... there are more efficient ways to achieve that than carrying terminated vested liabilities. [2] 'Paying lump sums will trigger a P&L settlement charge and impact our share price.' ... Even if settlement accounting were triggered, the market has become more savvy about adjusting earnings for pension expense ... [3] 'I don't want my employees to squander their pensions.' ... [O]ver 80% of lump sums over $50,000 are rolled over into an IRA or other tax-qualified vehicle." (Mercer)  

[Opinion]

More Musings on the New IRA Rollover Limitation
"Many were predictably upset that the Tax Court ruled as it did, reversing a long-held tradition and contradicting an oft-stated and oft-published IRS position. Perhaps more upsetting was the fact the IRS brought this case in the first place and didn't give credence to their own published guidance. Regardless of this, the statutory reference to rollovers in the Internal Revenue Code has not changed since 1978, and a plain-language reading of it -- while somewhat ambiguous -- can in all honesty be read as the Tax Court did, limiting rollovers to one per-taxpayer per year. The Tax Court took the position that our lawmakers intended to make access to IRA funds possible, but not so easy as to encourage abuses." (Todd Berghuis, for Ascensus)  

[Opinion]

Connecticut State-Run Retirement Plan for Private-Sector Employees Passes, More or Less
"Connecticut is one of several states ... that are in the process of implementing these public retirement plans ... They can solve several of the common problems with 401(k) plans: nonexistence (at many employers), low participation rates, investment risk, pre-retirement withdrawals, lump-sum distributions at retirement, to name a few. But they can't solve the underlying problem, which is that many people just don't make enough for saving 3 percent of their salary each year to make much of a difference.... If we really want to protect people against retirement risk, we need to actually spread risk by making either the funding mechanism or the benefit formula progressive, which means we can't regard the idea of the untouchable individual account as sacrosanct." (The Baseline Scenario)  

[Opinion]

SEC Needs to Fix Longstanding 'Mismatch' in Broker-Advisor Data to Advance Fiduciary Rule
"For far too long the [SEC] has failed to calibrate examination and enforcement data comparing inspection cycles and resulting enforcement violations between brokers and investment advisors. The mismatch in data collection and analysis can and should be fixed as critics of a fiduciary standard, in search of another trope, continue their calls for delaying or ending the SEC's consideration of a fiduciary rule." (fi360)  

[Opinion]

California Gov. Jerry Brown's Teacher Pension Contribution Proposal Falls Short
"For more than a decade, lawmakers have ignored the increasing shortfall. Consequently, the California State Teachers' Retirement System [CalSTRS] is now $74 billion underfunded, holding only 67 percent of assets it should have. Brown now wants to start paying down the debt this year. But he would stretch the installments until 2046, meaning it would take 32 years to restore full funding and that the debt would continue growing for the first 12 years. That's not fiscally responsible; it's merely less irresponsible than what lawmakers do now." (Daniel Borenstein, in Contra Costa Times)  

Controversy Over Coca-Cola's 2014 Equity Plan Proposal (PDF)
"Many commentators have linked the resistance to Coca-Cola's proposed 2014 Equity Plan to the Company's failure to adequately explain the plan's fungible share pool and/or to shareholders not considering the Company's typical equity mix in assessing the likely dilutive impact of the fungible share pool. Neither appears to be the case." (Meridian Compensation Partners, LLC)  

ERISA = Every Ridiculous Idea Since Adam
"ERISA serves important purposes in our society, but it also presents tremendous challenges and potential liabilities for good-intentioned employers who merely want to provide nice benefits to their employees. In the last few years, it seems like the employee benefits 'gotcha' list -- of things that employers can do to accidentally violate ERISA (and other laws) -- has grown exponentially. Employers have a basic understanding that ERISA requires a plan document, a summary plan description, sometimes a trust, etc. But ERISA requires much more." (McAfee & Taft)  

401k Widgets Introduces New Hosted Pension Calculators and Information Tools, Giving Retirement Plan Professionals a Powerful Tool to Drive Traffic and Win New Customers
PensionOnline

TRA Restructuring Efforts Place Increased Emphasis on Client Service
The Retirement Advantage [TRA]

U.S. House Committee Leaders Seek Documents, Briefing Regarding Inaccurate Health Care Subsidy Payments
U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee

Leading REIT Provider Joins First Trust Retirement Lineup
DST

CPA2Biz Changes Name to 'CPA.com'
CPA.com

Mercer’s Health Care Reform Made Simple Microsite Wins an IABC Gold Quill Business Communicators’ Award
Mercer

CEFEX Introduces Strong Data Security Requirements Into Certification Assessments
Centre for Fiduciary Excellence (CEFEX)

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