DATAIR Employee Benefit Systems, Inc.

Assistant 401(k) Administrator
QBI, LLC
in CA

Sales Consultant
Trinity Pension Consultants, Inc.
in OH

Retirement Plan Administrator
Pension Funds of Arizona, Inc.
in AZ

Associate Account Manager
Cammack Retirement Group
in NY

Account Manager
Cammack Retirement Group
in NY

401(k) Support Administrator
Blue Ridge ESOP Associates
in VA

Defined Contribution/Defined Benefit Systems Sales Representative
Datair Employee Benefit Systems, Inc.
in IL

Internal Wholesaler IRA
Aspire Financial Services LLC
in FL

401k Plan Consultant
USI Consulting Group
in CT

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31 Flavors of Rollovers
January 8, 2015 WEBCAST
(ASPPA [American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries])

Bona Fide HIPAA Security Risk Analysis and Risk Management
January 8, 2015 WEBCAST
(Clearwater Compliance)

Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Symposium
May 12, 2015 in TX
(Ogletree Deakins)

View All Webcasts and Conferences

[Official Guidance]

Text of Treasury Department Final Regs Governing Retirement Savings Bonds for Use by myRA Accounts
"The United States Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Fiscal Service, offers a new nonmarketable, electronic retirement savings bond for Treasury's new retirement savings program. The bonds will be issued to a designated custodian for Roth individual retirement accounts established under Treasury's program. This new savings bond is only available to participants in the retirement savings program and will protect the principal contributed while earning interest at a rate previously available only to federal employees invested in the Government Securities Investment Fund (G Fund) of their Thrift Savings Plan." (U.S. Department of the Treasury)  

[Advert.]

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Whether you need ASPPA credits before 2015, the latest on recent legislation or a refresher before testing season, ASCi's library of recorded CE webcasts is available at your convenience 24/7. Click here!

[Official Guidance]

Text of DOL Information Letter: myRA Accounts Facilitated by Employers Would Not Be Covered Under Title I of ERISA
"[We] do not believe Congress intended in enacting ERISA that a federal government retirement savings program created and operated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury would be subject to the extensive reporting, disclosure, fiduciary duty, or other requirements of ERISA, which were established to ensure against the possibility that employees' expectation of a promised benefit would be defeated through poor management by the plan sponsor and other plan fiduciaries.... Thus, given the character of the program, including its voluntary nature, its establishment, sponsorship, and administration by the federal government, and the absence of any employer funding or role in its administration or design, ... an employer would not be establishing or maintaining an 'employee pension benefit plan' within the meaning of section 3(2) of ERISA based solely on the facts that employees participate through payroll withholding contributions and that the employer distributes information, facilitates employee enrollment, and otherwise encourages employees to make deposits to myRA accounts owned and controlled by employees." (Employee Benefits Security Administration [EBSA], U.S. Department of Labor [DOL])  

[Guidance Overview]

IRS Advisory Committee Asks 403(b) Plan Sponsors and Service Providers to Participate Now in Confidential Online Survey About Plan Compliance Issues
The Employee Plans subgroup of the IRS Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities would like input from the 403(b) plan community -- plan sponsors and vendors/providers alike -- regarding the problems they face/see in administering 403(b) programs and what steps/actions they think the IRS could take to help facilitate the compliance process. Click here to participate in the survey (all responses are anonymous and will not be sent to the IRS). (Employee Plans Subgroup, IRS Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities)  

[Guidance Overview]

Treasury Releases Regs Governing Retirement Savings Bonds for myRA Accounts
"The Preamble to the final regulations provides that participants have the flexibility to withdraw their contributions at any time without a penalty. This is overly simplistic to the unwary and is not meant to imply that the entire account balance can be withdrawn without a penalty, however. The definition of a Roth IRA ... is incorporated into the final regulations by reference.... [P]articipants who withdraw taxable amounts (e.g., earnings) prior to age 59-1/2 could be hit with the 10% penalty tax. In addition, earnings may still be taxed if the account has not been in existence for at least five years." (Bloomberg BNA)  

[Guidance Overview]

Multiemployer Pension Reform Bill Passed by Congress, Obama Expected to Sign
"MEPRA reflects many of the recommendations included in Solutions not Bailouts, the Report issued by the Retirement Security Review Commission of the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans [NCCMP]. The one receiving the most attention is the provision that gives trustees of deeply troubled plans the ability to help their plans avoid insolvency by reducing some benefits (including benefits in pay status), subject to various safeguards and requirements. This Bulletin briefly describes the key provisions of MEPRA, which generally become effective for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2015." (Segal Consulting)  

[Guidance Overview]

Congress Passes Multiemployer Pension Reform (PDF)
"The Act permanently extends the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA) multiemployer plan critical and endangered status funding rules that had been scheduled to sunset at the end of 2014. It also includes a series of technical corrections and enhancements to the PPA funding rules, including significant new reforms that allow the trustees of multiemployer plans facing insolvency to apply to the [PBGC] for a suspension of benefits. In addition, the Act gives the PBGC greater flexibility in facilitating plan mergers and approving plan partitions. [In this article, the authors] provide an overview of each of these provisions, and address key questions regarding the relief made available by the Act." (Groom Law Group)  

[Guidance Overview]

What the Cromnibus Law Means for Multiemployer Pension Plans
"The PBGC is given the clear authority to promote and facilitate the merger of two or more multiemployer pension plans if the action is in the interests of participants and beneficiaries of at least one of the plans and not detrimental to any of the participants and beneficiaries involved.... [T]he PBGC is given the authority to order and finance a plan partition if a plan is in critical and declining status and has taken all reasonable measures to avoid insolvency and the PBGC expects that a partition will keep the plan solvent." (International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans [IFEBP])  

Text of Amicus Brief by Pension Rights Center to Supreme Court in Tibble v. Edison (PDF)
"Participants should be permitted to enforce the fiduciary duty to review and replace imprudent investments more than six years after the funds were chosen in light of the mechanics of the market for mutual funds available to 401(k) plans. Participants in plans managed by fiduciaries who do not comply with the duty to review and replace imprudent investments will pay unnecessarily high fees on their retirement savings. Further, insulating fiduciaries from claims challenging their failure to monitor mutual fund expenses after six years will reduce competition over fees and raise the cost of mutual fund investments in 401(k) plans, thereby eroding the retirement savings of American workers." [Tibble v. Edison International, No. 13-550 (9th Cir. Aug. 1, 2013; cert. pet. granted Oct. 2, 2014)] (Pension Rights Center)  

Lockheed Martin Case Puts 401(k) Plans on Trial
"Mike Alfred, CEO of Brightscope ... says 401(k) plans have become something of an afterthought at many companies ... probably because they do nothing to boost the company's bottom line. In the worst cases, funds can be chosen by mid-level employees who have little experience selecting investments and are often no match for a fund company's salespeople. Alfred says this is especially prevalent in the small plan market, where people tend to buy the products that are put in front of them. 'They don't oftentimes spend a lot of time analyzing alternatives,' he says. 'If they like the person that presented the product and the sales pitch is good, a lot of times that's the product that gets purchased.' " (MPR News)  

[Advert.]

The Corporate Benefits Summit brings together top HR/Benefits professionals

This Summit will focus on the current challenges facing the benefits and compensation industry. Topics include: Private Exchange Transition, Employer Mandate Final Regulations, Employee Engagement, The Global Health Issue, and Strategic Benefit Plan.

Attitudes Towards Retirement Readiness in 403(b) Plans (PDF)
"Half of organizations are equally concerned about all age groups of employees saving enough for retirement -- only 5 percent have no concerns.... About a quarter of organizations do not have a specific retirement plan education program.... 27.1 percent of employers feel that they have a responsibility to encourage savings, and a quarter think they do but would like to do more.... About half of plans consider automatic enrollment to be a way of improving participant outcomes, and half do not or are unsure." (Plan Sponsor Council of America [PSCA])  

The Importance of Workplace Retirement Plans and Guaranteed Lifetime Income (PDF)
"The latest [National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI)] update indicates that the percentage of households at risk of being unable to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living has improved slightly to 52 percent, from 53 percent three years earlier.... Twenty percent of households with a DB plan through their current employer are at risk of not being able to maintain their living standard in retirement, while 53 percent with only a DC plan are at risk. The percentage of households at risk jumps to 68 percent when the household does not currently participate in a workplace retirement plan of any kind." (Prudential)  

Review of ERISA Advisory Council Recommendations on Lifetime Plan Participation
"The recommendations focus primarily on getting terminating participants to leave their retirement savings in their (former) employer's plan. This has been presented by many as a solution to the 'leakage' problem. It's unclear, however, whether sponsors actually want to retain the assets of terminating participants. And the changes in sponsor practice which the [ERISA Advisory Council] proposes to encourage participants to do this -- post-termination loan initiation, brokerage and mutual fund windows, lifetime income options and stable value funds, allowing consolidation of multiple accounts and providing access to financial advice -- all come with a cost." (October Three Consulting)  

2014 in Review: Defined Benefit Plan Issues
"In 2014 there were several major DB policy developments, including a significant extension of MAP-21 funding relief, new mortality tables and the finalization of the hybrid plan regulations on 'market rate of return.' In addition, the year-end federal spending deal included ERISA section 4062(e) legislation. In this article [the authors] review these developments, beginning with the legislation Congress just passed." (BMO Retirement Insights)  

Should Plan Sponsors Adopt the New Mortality Tables?
"Some plan provisions would make the adoption of the new tables somewhat of a moot point. [For] a plan that pays lump sums ... the impact will be minimal as the table used for lump sums is not changing at this time. For cash balance plans, because the benefit is calculated as an account balance and not as a life annuity, extending life expectancy is largely irrelevant. Another facet to consider is the demographics of your plan. The new mortality tables are showing a bigger increase in cost for women as their life expectancy outpaced men. For plans that employ a union or industrial workforce, use of one of the sub-tables, such as the Blue Collar Mortality Table, probably makes more sense." (Findley Davies)  

Too Hot to Handle? The Truth About Retirement Plan Audits (PDF)
5 pages. "[A]voiding penalties and other enforcement actions from the DOL can be as easy as taking a few steps to prepare prior to a DOL audit. Effective preparation entails understanding how the retirement plan audit has evolved and changed over time, and what issues are top of mind for the DOL in its current audit investigations.... [S]taying attuned to just a few potential 'red flag' areas of retirement plan management can keep plan sponsors ahead of the audit game and provide them with peace of mind that their policies are in compliance with ERISA mandates." (Roland|Criss, via Journal of Compensation and Benefits)  

Review of ERISA Advisory Council Findings on Outsourcing of Employee Benefit Plan Services
"The EAC's recommendations, if acted on, would significantly improve current outsourcing practice, mainly by clarifying what the ERISA rules are. That clarification would make outsourcing contracting -- allocating liability between the sponsor and the outsourcing provider -- much easier and effective.... [T]he key issues are: [1] Can the sponsor fully delegate away named fiduciary responsibilities, with no residual 'select and monitor' responsibility/liability? And [2] if it cannot, what is the extent of those retained responsibilities/liabilities? Some bright-line guidance on those issues would be immensely helpful." (October Three Consulting)  

At Companies with DC Plans, Most Employees Participate, But Many Acknowledge Ignorance About Investing
"[A]mong private-sector employees who are offered a DC plan at work, 79 percent participate, up two percentage points from 2013. Eighty percent of public-sector employees eligible for a DC plan participate, up from 79 percent a year earlier. The research also reveals a continued decline of defined benefits in the private sector: in 2014, just 16 percent of employers offered them. While 401(k)s are wildly popular, over 40 percent of employees eligible for them at work are also saving for retirement outside of work." (LIMRA)  

[Opinion]

Disclosure 'Terrible,' Would 'Confuse' Investors
"The insurance advice industry is fundamentally opposed to anything that looks like a fiduciary standard.... They seem to be looking for some kind of disclosure-based avenue to being considered fiduciaries.... Investors want to feel they are being taken care of and getting good financial advice, but it's beyond their bandwidth to care about these distinctions between 'suitable' advice vs. 'fiduciary' advice and how those distinctions can lead to impairment of optimal financial advice and outcomes." (Skip Schweiss, via Fiduciary News)  

[Opinion]

Four Ways Congress Just Screwed Up Pensions
"[P]lan trustees have substantial discretion about how to allocate the cuts ... Retirees who are harmed cannot challenge the trustees' actions in court, even if those actions are arbitrary and capricious, or contrary to the interests of plan participants ... That's because this new congressional measure exempts the trustees from being fiduciaries when deciding whose benefits get cut, so retirees can't sue under the normal fiduciary claims. Oh, and there is no provision for automatic restoration of lost benefits if a plan's funding status improves." (The Huffington Post)  

[Opinion]

PricewaterhouseCoopers Comment Letter to FASB on Proposal to Simplify Benefit Plan Measurement Dates
"We support the Board's decision to simplify the accounting for Compensation -- retirement benefits (Topic 715) by providing a practical expedient for employers with fiscal year-end dates that do not fall on a calendar month-end. Permitting those employers to use the month-end closest to their fiscal year-end date alleviates the potentially difficult task of rolling forward or back the actuarial valuation of liabilities and the fair values of plan assets or otherwise documenting that such activity is immaterial." (PricewaterhouseCoopers)  

[Guidance Overview]

Advance Copies of 2014 Form 5500s: Avoid Penalties by Confirming Compliance
"The MEWA Form M-1 compliance information that was filed as an attachment for 2013 now appears as three new questions on the Form 5500.... Filers are now required to provide the total number of active participants at the beginning of the plan year and at the end of the plan year on both forms. Form 5500-SF filers now must provide the number of participants that terminated employment during the plan year with accrued benefits that were not fully vested.... New Line 4f requires plans in critical status to indicate the plan year in which a plan is projected to emerge from critical status or, if the rehabilitation plan is based on forestalling possible insolvency, the plan year in which insolvency is expected." (Solutions Law Press)  

The 2015 ABC's of Employee Benefits, Part 2
"From ERISA 510 to skinny plans and private health care exchanges, the ABC's of employee benefits outlines the issues benefit decision-makers need to be aware of in the coming year." (Ed Bray, in Employee Benefit News)  

American Benefits Council Applauds Enactment of Pension Provisions as Part of Government Funding Legislation
American Benefits Council

National Association for the Self-Employed Applauds Small Business Health Care Bill
National Association for the Self-Employed [NASE]

WellCare Appoints Operating Chief Kenneth A. Burdick CEO and Board Member
WellCare Health Plans, Inc.

Express Scripts Names New Chief Financial Officer
Express Scripts

CHS Health Services And Take Care Employer Solutions Announce New Name
Premise Health

SevenHills Benefit Partners Joins Pensionmark as its first Registered Investment Advisor in Minnesota
Pensionmark Retirement Group

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