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2015 Employment Tax Year in Review
December 3, 2015 WEBCAST
(EY)

Employer Forum on Worksite Wellness
January 27, 2016 in IL
(Midwest Business Group on Health)

Becoming an S Corporation ESOP
May 24, 2016 WEBCAST
(National Center for Employee Ownership [NCEO])

Don't Do That With Your ESOP
June 7, 2016 WEBCAST
(National Center for Employee Ownership [NCEO])

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[Official Guidance]

Text of PBGC Interest Rate Update for December 2015
"The December 2015 interest assumptions under the benefit payments regulation will be 1.25 percent for the period during which a benefit is in pay status and 4.00 percent during any years preceding the benefit's placement in pay status. In comparison with the interest assumptions in effect for November 2015, these interest assumptions are unchanged." (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation [PBGC])  

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[Guidance Overview]

Do You Need to Send an Annual Notice to DC Plan Participants?
"[A] table provides a list of the content and deadlines for the most common notices that plan sponsors may need to distribute. It includes: [1] Traditional Safe Harbor 401(k) Notice; [2] Qualified Automatic Contribution Arrangements (QACA) for a Safe Harbor 401(k) Notice; [3] Eligible Automatic Contribution Arrangement Notice; [4] Qualified Default Investment Alternative Notice (QDIA); [5] Non-Safe-Harbor Automatic Contribution Arrangement Notice; and [6] Annual participant fee disclosures." (Alston & Bird LLP)  

Why Investors Still Don't Know Their 401(k) Costs
"Fee disclosures are buried deep in 401(k) plan documents.... 401(k) fees are still complex and confusing to the average investor.... It can be dizzying for a financial adviser to pick apart these expenses let alone the average plan participant. Some plans will show you the cost per $1,000 you pay for being in the plan, but ... giving plan participants a simple dollar amount that they pay annually to be in the plan would be much simpler.... Many participants still lack the knowledge on how their largest retirement assets function." (The Wall Street Journal; subscription may be required)  

Senate HELP Committee Looks at Multiple-Employer Plans
"[T]he U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) hosted a hearing October 28 on retirement plan options for small employers.... Despite the diversity among the four pension and retirement industry leaders giving testimony, all four agreed that multiple-employer plans (MEP) have the potential to be an effective means to deliver retirement savings benefits, both for small employers and their employees. MEPs would mitigate the top small-employer objections -- cost, administrative burden and fiduciary concerns -- that surfaced in a poll of 850 small employers conducted [earlier] this year." (Institutional Investor)  

Pension Risk Increases Slightly for Fortune 1000 Plan Sponsors in 2015
"After rising from 74% in 2012 to 88% in 2013, average funded status for Fortune 1000 pension plans fell back to 81% in 2014. Among companies that have been in the Fortune 1000 over the last three years, the median Pension Risk Index (PRI) ticked up slightly over the last year -- from 1.2% to 1.3%. In last year's analysis, median PRI scores had improved, falling from 1.8% to 1.2%." (Towers Watson)  

Five Reasons More DC Plans Don't Offer Retirement Income Options
"[1] There is no legal requirement to provide a lifetime income option.... [2] The safe harbor for selecting an annuity provider doesn't feel very 'safe.' ... [3] Operational and cost concerns linger.... [4] Participants don't take advantage of the option when offered.... [5] Participants aren't asking for it." (Nevin Adams, American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries [ASPPA])  

Senate Approves Final Defense Bill with Military Retirement Reforms
"The $607 billion National Defense Authorization Act calls for a new military retirement system beginning in 2018 that requires new service members to participate in the $443.3 Thrift Savings Plan. The Department of Defense will make an automatic 1% contribution to TSP accounts, and can match up to 4% more, for up to 26 years of service. To pay for that, the current defined benefit plan, which covers service members staying 20 years or more, will reduce benefits by 20% and decrease a disability calculation." (Pensions & Investments)  

New York Governor Cuomo Announces Pension Plan Credit for Military Service
"Cuomo and lawmakers will craft a measure to be included in next year's budget that would give honorably discharged veterans who work in state or local governments the chance to purchase up to three years credit on their public pensions. The announcement comes barely two weeks after Cuomo was criticized by veterans' advocates for vetoing a similar measure. Cuomo, at the time, cited its cost and the bill's failure to identify a funding source as the reasons for his veto." (New York Daily News)  

Why Advisory Firms Need an Employee Ownership Plan
"While an internal ownership strategy is often associated with a succession plan for owners beginning to think of retirement, [Rick Schwartz, of Schwab Advisory Services] said it's more accurate to think of employee ownership as a business continuity plan. Many owners don't transition ownership to an internal successor because they are either unprepared, have not identified a strong internal successor or don't know how to set one up for the new owners." (On Wall Street)  

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Pemex Says Union Pact to Reduce Its $90 Billion Pension Burden
"Petroleos Mexicanos reached an agreement with its union to create individual retirement accounts for incoming workers and to raise the retirement age, easing the company's pension liabilities. Mexico's state-owned oil producer, which last month reported the biggest quarterly loss in its history, said it increased the retirement age to 60, from 55, for workers that have been with the company for less than 15 years. The agreement was stipulated by the government in exchange for absorbing part of the current $90 billion that Pemex holds in pension obligations." (Bloomberg)  

Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plan Guidance from the IRS Appears to Be on the Horizon
"In a notice published in 2007, the IRS announced its intent to issue new regulations under Code Section 457(f) in an attempt to harmonize Code Sections 457(f) and 409A. Over eight years later, we are still waiting for that guidance. The wait may soon be over, however, because IRS officials informally have indicated that this guidance is 'very, very close' to be released, probably by the end of this year or early in 2016. The two pieces of guidance presumably will not be issued at the same time." (Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP)  

Supreme Court Ponders Scope of ERISA Plan Recovery Rights
"Some of the Justices seemed to agree that plans really need to track participant litigation and join lawsuits in their early stages even if that clashes with ERISA's goal of streamlining health and retirement plan administration. But Chief Justice John Roberts noted that plans may have a difficult time even knowing there's been a settlement, and they may be facing an opponent determined to dissipate, commingle and hide funds." (Thompson SmartHR Manager)  

Supreme Court Justices Seem Dubious of ERISA Plan's Right to Recover Medical Costs
"The biggest problem [the Plan's attorney Neal Katyal] faced was that the Court's earlier cases had explained that the limitation of the ERISA regime to 'traditional' equitable remedies excluded a group of 'ancillary' damage-like remedies that were available in equity. So pretty much every time he tried to argue that equity had permitted some particular remedy that looks like the remedy he seeks here, one of the Justices would break in to suggest it was only ancillary." [Bd. of Trustees of the National Elevator Industry Health Benefit Plan v. Montanile, No. 14-11678 (11th Cir. Nov. 25, 2014; oral arg. Nov. 9, 2015)] (SCOTUSblog)  

Schwab Advisor Services Announces Recipients of the 2015 IMPACT Awards
Charles Schwab Corporation

Rally Health’s Rally Connect Enables Consumers to Locate Doctors and Hospitals and Better Understand the Quality and Cost of Their Health Care
Rally Health, Inc.

Social Security Helps America Plan for Retirement
Social Security Administration

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