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Growing Suburban Philadelphia TPA Firm
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Review Findings of New Study -- Pensionomics 2014: Measuring the Economic Impact of Defined Benefit Pension Expenditures
July 30, 2014 WEBCAST
(National Institute on Retirement Security)

Midwest ESOP Regional Conference
September 11, 2014 in IL
(ESOP Association)

2014 Private Health Insurance Exchange Congress
October 27, 2014 in NV
(Global Media Dynamics)

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[Guidance Overview]

IRS Releases Premium Tax Credit Rules and Draft Forms
"Insurers and self-insured health plans will provide a Form 1095-B to each of their enrollees and members, and file these forms, together with a transmittal Form 1094-B with the IRS. Large employers must provide a Form 1095-C to each employee, and transmit these, together with a transmittal [Form 1094-C] to the IRS. Exchanges will provide their enrollees a Form 1095-A. Individuals who receive premium tax credits will file a Form 8962 ... while individuals claiming an exemption from the individual mandate will file a Form 8965. Though the forms are not accompanied by instructions, they are quite straightforward and track closely the earlier released rules." (Timothy Jost for Health Affairs)  

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Download Bloomberg BNA's "ACA Shared Responsibility Reporting" so you can understand how the IRS plans to enforce employer reporting requirements, which will be compared with tax returns, ultimately resulting in IRS assessments.

[Guidance Overview]

IRS Issues Regs, Forms and Additional Guidance on Exchange Penalties and Subsidies
"The rules and guidance are designed to help individuals and businesses calculate both their penalties if they don't have health coverage, and subsidies, if they are eligible, to help them pay for coverage. The draft forms give an idea of the format in which IRS will be asking companies and individuals to report on the health coverage they had in tax year 2014." (Thompson SmartHR Manager)  

[Guidance Overview]

IRS Publishes Draft Versions of Forms for New ACA Employer Reporting Requirement
"[T]he reporting requires collection and disclosure of information including, but not limited to, the following: Social Security numbers of employees, spouses and dependents; ... Number of full-time employees for each calendar month; Total number of employees (full-time equivalents) for each calendar month; ... Employee's share of the lowest-cost monthly premium for self-only, minimum value coverage for each calendar month; and Applicable Section 4980H safe harbor for each calendar month." (Hill, Chesson & Woody)  

New Obamacare Enrollment Data Indicates Decline in Employer-Based Healthcare Coverage
"[D]uring the last quarter of 2013, enrollment in individual-market coverage declined by nearly 500,000 individuals, but then increased in the first quarter of 2014 by just over 2.7 million individuals. For the combined six-month period, the result was a net enrollment increase of just over 2.2 million for the individual market.... [O]ver the six-month period, net total enrollment for all three segments of the private coverage market increased by just over 520,000 individuals. Thus, the reduction in employer-sponsored coverage offset 77 percent of the gain in individual-market coverage during the period." (The Heritage Foundation)  

Health Plans Learn to Accommodate Information-Hungry Consumers
"A decade ago, health plans worked with employers to manage almost all health benefit decisions, leaving consumers relatively unaware of the costs associated with their healthcare needs.... Today, employers and consumers are more frequently choosing plans with higher deductibles; more than 15.5 million Americans are enrolled in such plans ... As a result, more effectively engaging with consumers has become a high priority for health plans to remain competitive and maintain customer satisfaction. To meet these new challenges, [one insurer] has focused on three key aspects of healthcare consumerism: education, administrative and financial." (Healthcare Payer News)  

Employer-Provided 'Free' Parking May Be Taxable
"This information letter offers a useful reminder that 'free' parking for employees may result in taxes for both the employee and the employer (since the employer pays a portion of FICA, as well as FUTA taxes). While the fair market value of employer-provided parking often falls short of the maximum excludable amount, monthly parking costs in major cities may regularly exceed the excludable maximum." (Thomson Reuters / EBIA)  

HSA Contributions May Produce Large Lifetime Accumulations and Tax Savings (PDF)
"HSAs provide account owners a triple tax advantage. Contributions to an HSA reduce taxable income. Earnings on the assets in the HSA build up tax free. And distributions from the HSA for qualified expenses are not subject to taxation.... This paper examines the amount of money an individual could accumulate in an HSA over his or her lifetime. It also examines lifetime tax savings from HSA contributions. Limitations of an HSA are also discussed." (Employee Benefit Research Institute [EBRI])  

Paying for Public Employee Health Costs
"Health insurance premiums for state workers have grown much less rapidly than premiums for those in the private sector. The share of health insurance premiums paid by public employees has been steady or has risen, whereas the share paid by private employees has fallen. For public employees, growth in employee premium share has been especially high in highly unionized states." (National Center for Policy Analysis)  

States Try to Protect Health Exchange Subsidies in Wake of Court Ruling
"[S]ome of the 36 states in which the federal government has a role in the exchanges are moving to shore up their status. Some are saying publicly that their exchanges have always been state-operated. Others are trying to make the case that they should be considered to have state exchanges regardless of federal involvement. Still others, such as Arkansas, are pushing ahead to take over their exchanges, which would likely free them from the effects of any court decision." (The Wall Street Journal; subscription may be required)  

Study Examines Medicare Advantage Cuts Per Congressional District
"[D]istrict-by-district data analysis finds that seniors in every congressional district in the U.S. will experience benefit cuts in 2015. On average nationwide, seniors will face an annual benefits reduction of $1,538 or 13.32%. The largest cuts per district are 26.16% and $4,796 per senior, both in districts in New York." [Full district-by-district data is available.] (American Action Network)  

[Opinion]

Text of Amicus Brief by ERIC Urging Supreme Court to Overrule Sixth Circuit Presumption of Vesting for Retiree Health Benefits (PDF)
"[T]his Court should apply the longstanding rule that the benefits and burdens of a contract do not survive the agreement's expiration (and thus do not vest for life) absent a clear and unequivocal statement to the contrary.... [If] the parties wish to negotiate lifetime healthcare benefits for retirees and their families, they are free to do so. But such lifetime benefits should not be a 'gotcha' sprung by the judiciary on employers who never intended to assume such costly and unpredictable burden." [M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, No. 13-1010 (on appeal from 6th Cir., cert. granted May 5, 2014)] (The ERISA Industry Committee [ERIC])  

[Opinion]

Text of Amicus Brief by SHRM and COLLE Urging Supreme Court to Overrule Sixth Circuit Presumption of Vesting for Retiree Health Benefits (PDF)
"The imperative to establish a uniform labor policy requires a consistent and easy to understand test for determining when, in the case of a health plan created in collective bargaining, retirees become vested in a right to receive health-care benefits that cannot be either terminated or altered after the contract itself has expired. The only test consonant with ERISA, federal common law under the NLRA, and general principles of contract law, is one which requires clear and unmistakable language evincing the plan sponsor's intention to vest retired participants in a right to receive such significant and costly employer- provided benefits in perpetuity." [M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, No. 13-1010 (on appeal from 6th Cir., cert. granted May 5, 2014)] (Society for Human Resource Management [SHRM] and Council on Labor Law Equality [COLLE])  

[Opinion]

Enrollees in Exchanges Need Only Pay 11 of 12 Months, Healthy People Can Wait and Only Pay 9 of 12 Months
"[W]ithout a correction to these regulations, no healthy person ever needs to pay for the last three months of his or her plan-year coverage. But carriers needn't worry too much about this shortcoming because taxpayers will help them shoulder the burden in their shortfalls during, at least, the first three years of PPACA under the Three R's 'Bailout' program." (Benefit Revolution)  

Executive Compensation: Governance and Litigation Considerations
"[C]ompany officers and directors have an obligation to make themselves aware of regulatory mandates as well as the activities of the plaintiffs' bar.... [It] is critical that they track what is going on in large shareholder land. Certain pension plans have been far from shy in taking their complaints to court.... Non-retirement plan investors are proving themselves to be no less active." (Good Risk Governance Pays)  

IRS and Treasury Officials Provide Informal Views on Various Employee Benefits Issues
"While some of the answers [to questions posed by the Joint Committee on Employee Benefits (JCEB) of the American Bar Association] clearly have broad significance, others are highly dependent on the factual scenarios presented ... For example, the remarks regarding stock fund investments do not mention the regulations that permit restrictions on the divestiture of stock fund investments when such restrictions are 'reasonably designed' to assure compliance with the federal securities laws. In addition to health care reform, the report also includes items of interest to sponsors of defined benefit plans, 403(b) plans, 457(b) plans, ESOPs, and nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements." (Thomson Reuters / EBIA)  

Changing the DC Advisor Value-Add Game, Maximizing Your Investment in DC Advisor Value-Added Programs
Chatham Partners, LLC

Penbridge Advisors and P-Solve Establish Alliance to Coordinate Pension Risk Transfer Advice and Fiduciary Asset Management Across the Pension De-risking Process
Penbridge Advisors

HERO, Mercer Unveil Next Generation HERO Scorecard
Mercer

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