Employee Benefits Jobs
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Webcasts and Conferences
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[Guidance Overview]
Text of IRS SARSEP Checklist, Revised September, 2014 (PDF)
"Every year it's important to review the requirements for operating your Salary Reduction Simplified Employee Pension (SARSEP) plan. Use this checklist to help you keep your plan in compliance with many important rules." [IRS Publication 4286.]
(Internal Revenue Service [IRS])
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Countdown to the Second Cycle D Filing Deadline
"Trustees of all multiemployer pension and annuity plans have until January 31, 2015 to submit to the [IRS] their Cycle D determination letter requests for the second five-year staggered determination letter cycle. These requests cover required and discretionary plan amendments for and since the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act of 2008 (HEART Act). This deadline applies even to those 'off-calendar-year' plans that filed in Cycle E last time."
(Segal Consulting)
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Multiemployer Benefit Plans: Implementing a Written Policy for Collection of Employer Contributions
"Multiemployer employee benefit plans have unique issues when it comes to employer contributions. In addition to the high number of different employers that may participate in a plan, employers often contribute at different rates, perhaps for different classes of employees, all according to Collective Bargaining Agreements that have different effective dates. These unique issues call for a specific written collection policy."
(Bond Beebe Accountants & Advisors)
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Penicillin, the Flu Vaccine, and Broccoli Just Did WHAT to My Pension Investment Strategy?!
"The new longevity tables, RP-2014, combined with a new longevity improvement scale, MP-2014, reflect a significant increase in life expectancy (about 2 to 3 years) for both current and future generations. And while this is exciting for us as individuals, knowing we may have a few more healthy years in retirement ... as a DB pension plan sponsor, you've got some serious work to do to understand and prepare for the looming implementation of these tables.... Depending on your current longevity assumptions, your liability may increase in the range of 5% to 10%."
(Vanguard)
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Creating Sustainable Retirement Income in 401(k) Plans Using Managed Risk Funds (PDF)
"[E]xposure to higher yields typically includes exposure to higher risk, which creates a dilemma for plan committees seeking ways to help their participants accumulate adequate sustainable retirement income.... One approach to resolving this dilemma is to offer managed risk funds as a designated investment alternative. Such funds are designed to permit participants to maintain exposure to equity investments while also stabilizing volatility and reducing the potentially devastating effects of sequence-of-returns risk."
(Fred Reish and Bruce Ashton of DrinkerBiddle, for Milliman)
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[Opinion]
Fiduciary Debate is '80% Political' -- Advocates Are Out-Lobbied by Wall Street Opponents
"Advocating for fiduciary principles involves both policy and politics. The current logjam in regulatory rulemaking at both agencies [the SEC and the DOL] fits the 80/20 rule: It's 80% political issues; 20% policy issues. Whereby, just a very small part of the reason for not proceeding is based on genuine differences of opinions based on the merits of the issues."
(Fiduciary News)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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Navigating Company Stock Regs with 10b5-1 Executive Trading Plans: Best Practices (PDF)
"Competitive equity compensation is essential for companies looking to attract, reward and retain top executives. To ensure executives' interests are aligned with the shareholders', packages frequently include complex performance awards. Maximizing the value of those equity awards plays a critical role in executives' ability to build wealth and achieve their financial goals. But managing equity programs can be complicated for employers and executives ... [M]ore than 70% of companies cited compliance factors as the biggest challenge in offering equity awards."
(Bank of America Merrill Lynch)
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The Effect of Employer Bankruptcy on Retiree Benefits, with Applications to the Automotive and Coal Industries (PDF)
"Benefits for retired employees are of particular interest to policy makers because of the growing number of retirees and forecasts indicating that some future retirees may not have the necessary financial resources to maintain their standards of living. Part of this congressional concern is what happens when bankrupt employers are unable to provide promised pension and health benefits to their retired employees.... After a discussion of these issues, this report provides three examples of bankruptcy proceedings where the retirees' pensions and health insurance benefits received substantial federal attention: the General Motors Corporation, the Delphi Corporation, and the Patriot Coal Corporation."
(Congressional Research Service [CRS])
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CEOs Get Paid Too Much, According to Pretty Much Everyone in the World
"For the countries combined, the ideal pay ratio for CEOs to unskilled workers was 4.6 to 1; the estimated ratio was about double, at 10 to 1. But there were some differences country to country. People in Denmark, for example, estimated the ratio to be 3.7 to 1, with an ideal ratio being 2 to 1. In South Korea, the estimated gap was much larger at 41.7 to 1. The ideal gap in Taiwan was particularly high, at 20 to 1."
(Harvard Business Review Blog Network)
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[Opinion]
A 2020 Vision: Flexibility and the Future of Employee Benefits (PDF)
26 pages. "In the future, personal health and financial well-being will embrace a broader view of income protection that includes not only health coverage and retirement savings, but also incorporates life insurance, disability and long-term care coverage in a much more integrated way.... It is critically important for policymakers to acknowledge that enlightened, bipartisan tax policy has been indispensable to the success of the employer-sponsored benefits system."
(American Benefits Council)
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Press Releases
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