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Employee Benefits Jobs
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Webcasts and Conferences
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[Guidance Overview]
Mandated Payroll Deduction IRA Opportunity for Employees in Illinois
"An employer excluded from the mandate because it has fewer than 25 employees or has been in business less than two years can nevertheless elect to let its employees participate in the program.... The statute does not require that employees actually be covered by the qualified plan for the employer to be exempt from the program mandate. Therefore, a qualified plan that covers fewer than all employees, or that has a significant waiting period for new employees, should still suffice to keep the employer and all its employees out of the program's mandate."
(Dentons)
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[Guidance Overview]
Puerto Rico Cost-of-Living Adjustments for 2015 (PDF)
"[M]ost Puerto Rico limits are identical to their U.S. counterparts, but there is one notable exception. In 2015, Puerto Rico participants in a dual-qualified 401(k) plan may contribute up to $18,000 on a pre-tax basis. However, participants in a Puerto Rico-only qualified '401(k)' plan may only contribute a maximum of $15,000."
(Prudential)
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How to Invest During a DB Plan Termination
"There's not much left that can be done to reduce the liabilities. But the assets are a different story. Presumably, the plan has followed an investment strategy up to this point. Perhaps that strategy involved in vesting heavily in equities for (hopefully) larger returns, or it may have more explicitly hedged pension funding risk by using a strategy to closely match assets with liabilities. Whatever the strategy has been, the commencement of a plan termination demands another look at the investment strategy."
(P-Solve LLC)
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Is an Individually-Directed Account Program Right for Your Professional Services Firm?
"Current best practice is to maintain a relatively tight fund menu of nine or fewer diversified mutual funds, including a family of target retirement date funds as the default option.... [T]his approach may not address the preferences of plan participants who are also sophisticated investors, such as high-status partners with large 401(k) balances. It also fails as an enticement for star recruits with big rollovers, people who typically have an outside investment advisor."
(BMO Retirement Insights)
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De-Branding the 401(k) Fund Menu (PDF)
"[T]he disruption of investment fund menu strategies that results when superstar investment managers change teams presents an opportunity for sponsor-fiduciaries to rethink their commitment to a brand-based investment fund menu. The alternative -- a white-label, multi-manager strategy -- can often reduce costs, improve returns, diversify risk and encourage participants to focus on fundamentals."
(Russell Investments)
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Post-Dudenhoeffer Company Stock Litigation (PDF)
"The Kodak and RadioShack cases demonstrate that the plaintiffs' bar is willing to test the post-Dudenhoeffer waters, looking for opportunities to bring claims based on poor performance, while avoiding claims based on over-valuation. Plan sponsors and fiduciaries of plans being maintained by struggling companies are considering hiring an independent fiduciary to monitor the company stock fund in the company's plan. Others are considering either freezing the company stock fund or terminating the fund altogether."
(Groom Law Group)
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[Opinion]
Expectations for Defined Benefit Plans in 2015
"Multiemployer plans are jointly administered by representatives of the union and the participating employers. However, the union representatives have historically had more control over the administration of such plans. Thus, the suspensions [of benefits] are likely to come slowly and in moderation. If this in fact occurs, we will still be looking at a relatively bleak picture for multiemployer plan funding at the end of 2015."
(McDonald Hopkins)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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Legislative Focus on Pay Ratio and Taxation Expected to Intensify
"On the first day of the 114th Congress, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi reintroduced the CEO/Employee Pay Fairness Act, indicating that the tax treatment of executive compensation will again be a potential flashpoint. The bill would prevent companies from deducting compensation for senior executives and other employees in excess of $1 million unless they provide pay increases to U.S. employees that on average exceed average increases in inflation and productivity growth. It is also expected that legislation to limit or eliminate nonqualified deferred compensation will be introduced, although it is not clear how far either proposal will go under Republican control."
(HR Policy Association)
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[Guidance Overview]
IRS Revises Procedures for Determination Letter Processing for 2015
"The announcement sends two important messages to plan sponsors and their advisors. First, be sure each determination letter filing is complete and satisfies all procedural requirements in Revenue Procedure 2015-6. Second, file applications early and respond promptly to any IRS requests -- both to prevent application files from being closed and, more importantly, to avoid running out the clock on the remedial amendment cycle."
(Thomson Reuters / EBIA)
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[Guidance Overview]
IRS Updates Procedures for Letter Rulings, Determination Letters, and Other Guidance
"Internal Revenue Bulletin 2015-1 contains the annual update and restatement of eight IRS revenue procedures governing letter rulings, determination letters, and other IRS guidance, including guidance about employee plans. Each revenue procedure supersedes its 2014 counterpart.... No-ruling areas added to the 2015 list include: [1] whether there has been a partial termination of an employee plan ... [2] whether a plan is a governmental plan; [3] whether an arrangement is a specified health insurance policy or an applicable self-insured health plan for purposes of the PCOR fees to fund research on patient-centered outcomes; [4] whether an employer is required to make an assessable payment under the employer shared responsibility rules; and
[5] whether an insured group health plan satisfies the nondiscrimination requirements added by health care reform."
(Thomson Reuters / EBIA)
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Press Releases
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David Rhett Baker, J.D., Editor and Publisher
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