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Employee Benefits Jobs
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Webcasts and Conferences
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Hand-picked links to the web's best news articles,
official guidance, jobs, webcasts and more.
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[Guidance Overview]
New IRS Private Letter Rulings Support Lump-Sum Windows for Retirees (PDF)
"Although the 2014 Rulings specifically rule only on the application of the Code section 401(a)(9) requirements, the rulings also make note of various other qualified plan requirements that could be implicated in connection with a Window.... [1] Benefit Restrictions ... [2] Spousal Consent and QJSA/QOSA ... [3] Benefit Limits ... [4] Minimum Present Value ... [5] Eligibility for Direct Rollover."
(Groom Law Group)
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Upcoming IRS Phone Forum: Retirement Plans After Windsor, June 26, 2014
"This program will discuss the impact of the Supreme Court's decision in United States vs. Windsor, Revenue Ruling 2013-17 and Notice 2014-19 on qualified retirement plans. The program will also address the Frequently Asked Questions that are posted on www.irs.gov that relate to the Windsor decision and qualified retirement plans. Please email [IRS with] your questions by June 19, 2014." [The above headline is a link to register for the live event; or click here to register for a rebroadcast on July 8, 2014.]
(Internal Revenue Service)
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Non-U.S. Retirement Plans Must Comply with or Claim Exemption from FATCA by July 1
"[T]he IRS has yet to publish the instructions corresponding to the final Form W-8BEN-E. The lack of instructions makes it difficult to complete the form properly, given the ambiguities inherent in completing the form.... We are hopeful the IRS will issue instructions shortly, in order to provide further clarification of these complicated issues. Before then, it is important for plan sponsors to confirm that their non-U.S. retirement plans are exempt from FATCA."
(McDermott Will & Emery)
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Significant Issues for 403(b) Plans in 2014
66 presentation slides. Topics include: [1] 403(b) plans: an overview; [2] Trends and issues; [3] Compliance; [4] Strategies and best practices; and [5] Up-to-minute regulatory updates.
(The Knowledge Group)
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Private Education 403(b) Plans, Part 3: Abandoning the Old Order
"Private education institutions plans face unique challenges: [1] Their plans tend to have many more investment providers.... [2] Vendors to their plans often focus more on how their investments are better than other vendors to the detriment of promoting general education, participant investment success, and general plan effectiveness and efficiencies. [3] Private education institutions have historically relied on incumbent vendors, with little or no investment review. In other words, the institutions do not have an 'oversight' culture and investment process in place."
(Fiduciary Plan Governance, LLC)
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[Advert.]
Download your free report: Final Regulations on the ACA Employer Mandate
Identify critical rules you will need to consider when implementing health care plan design and reporting systems for 2015. Download Bloomberg BNA's "Final Regulations on the ACA Employer Mandate" to get the latest on the ACA compliance standards facing benefits professionals.
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Has the 401(k) Fiduciary Unknowingly Put Employees in Peril?
"Since at least the 1990s, most 401k plan investment policy statements have incorporated the 'lessons' of Modern Portfolio Theory. In doing so, they integrated into their plan menu options -- whether they knew it or not -- the concept that volatility meant risk. Indeed, much of today's participant education programs continue to date back to that era, and investors are taught to look at their risk before all else. We now know this old paradigm has been replaced by a new paradigm that focuses on the investor's return requirement or Goal-Oriented Target."
(Fiduciary News)
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Millennial Survey Results: Pick Up Your Savings Pace
"While 80 percent of millennials, ages 22-33, say the Great Recession taught them they have to save 'now' to survive economic problems down the road, only about half (55%) are actually saving for retirement."
(The Wells Fargo Blog)
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401(k) Contributions Will Be Cash-Flow Negative in 2016
"[Cerulli Associates] estimates ... that $300 billion flowed into the system in 2012 while $276 billion flowed out as cash, as retirees made withdrawals or rolled over funds into IRAs. By 2016, inflows will increase to $364 billion, but outflows will increase to $366 billion Fund managers will face greater competition as workers role 401(k) funds into IRAs."
(NewsMax MoneyNews)
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Illinois Gov. Quinn Signs Partial Chicago Pension Overhaul
"The law, which starts to take effect in January, addresses pensions for Chicago's municipal employees and laborers, affecting about 57,000 employees and retirees. It would nearly eliminate the $9.4 billion shortfall in those funds by cutting benefits and increasing contributions for both the city and employees."
(Associated Press)
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Fee Disclosure Proposals Focus on Better Marketing of the Low-Fee Message
"[The Center for American Progress (CAP)] makes three proposals: [1] A cigarette warning-type label for high fee funds... [2] Lengthening the time horizon/increasing the account balance with respect to which the impact of fees is shown... [3] Special rollover disclosure.... DOL may find the focus of the CAP report on how to market the 'high fee' issue useful. [The author] can 'imagine' (to use the rhetoric of the CAP report) DOL adopting CAP proposals 2 and 3."
(October Three Consulting)
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Understanding Cuts to Public Pensions
"This primer ... provides tools for assessing and understanding the true underlying health of public pension plans, the history behind any actuarial shortfalls, and the impacts on workers and taxpayers of proposed or enacted legislation that reduces pension benefits. The primer is organized as a series of 10 steps, although all may not be relevant in every situation. While it ends with a specific example of the percentage change in lifetime benefits, measured in real terms, received by a prototypical worker under four different pension plan changes, it provides guidance on using alternative measures as well."
(Economic Policy Institute)
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The Evolution of Company Stock in Defined Contribution Plans (PDF)
20 pages. Excerpt: "Since 2005, the incidence of company stock in DC plans has declined. Employer-directed contributions remain the dominant factor associated with participants holding a concentrated position in company stock. Participants in plans that direct employer matching contributions to company stock are more than twice as likely to hold a concentrated position (defined as more than 20% invested in employer stock) than plans without employer-directed holdings."
(Vanguard)
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DB Plan Sponsors Express Interest in Pension Risk Transfer Products
"Eight in ten employers who offer a [DB] plan expressed interest in pension risk transfer products ... The study found that half of the traditional DB plans were still open to new participants; while 36 percent of plans were partially frozen and another 14 percent were fully frozen. The study found that plans with more than $250 million in assets were more likely to be open to new participants than smaller plans (69 percent vs. 47 percent)."
(LIMRA)
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[Opinion]
Do Retirement Portfolios Aim at the Wrong Target?
"A recent report ... argues that target-date funds and pension plan sponsors in general are serving investors poorly because they're wrongly assessing risk, and they're not looking at relative valuations of stocks and bonds -- or at least not enough. The real risk for retirees, the authors say, is that they'll run out of money before they run out of time[.]"
(Conrad de Aenlle, for MarketWatch)
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[Opinion]
Text of NAPA Comments to SEC on Target Date Fund Names and Marketing (PDF)
"[NAPA recommends these statements be included in] disclosures to retirement plan participants investing in TDFs: [1] TDFs are not guaranteed investment options.... [2] A stated target retirement year is not a guarantee that a TDF investor will achieve a successful retirement by that date.... [3] TDFs are intended to be utilized as the sole investment option for its investors.... [4] TDF manufacturers and managers make a number of informed assumptions when constructing their TDF portfolio and their assumptions for the 'average' TDF investor may or may not reflect your own circumstances."
(National Association of Plan Advisors [NAPA])
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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[Official Guidance]
Text of IRS Rev. Rul. 2014-18: Section 457A -- Nonqualified Deferred Compensation from Certain Tax Indifferent Parties (PDF)
"Issue: Whether a nonstatutory stock option or a stock-settled stock appreciation right with respect to common stock of a nonqualified entity is a nonqualified deferred compensation plan subject to taxation under section 457A of the Internal Revenue Code[.] ... Law and Analysis: ... [N]either stock right [in the scenario presented in this ruling] with respect to common shares of Service Recipient granted to Service Provider is a nonqualified deferred compensation plan for purposes of section 457A(a) because each is either a nonstatutory stock option that meets the requirements of 1.409A-1(b)(5)(i)(A) or a stock appreciation right that meets the requirements of 1.409A-1(b)(5)(i)(B) and at all times by its terms must be settled, and is settled, in service recipient stock. The stock rights granted to Service Provider are accordingly exempt from section 457A."
(Internal Revenue Service [IRS])
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Press Releases
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