Account Manager
National Retirement Services, Inc.
in NC

Actuarial Analyst
USI Consulting Group
in CT

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Midwest TPA Firm
in ANY STATE, IL, IN, KY

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Primark Benefits
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Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program Workshop
April 26, 2016 in WA
(Employee Benefits Security Administration [EBSA], U.S. Department of Labor)

Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program Workshop
April 27, 2016 WEBCAST
(Employee Benefits Security Administration [EBSA], U.S. Department of Labor)

Audit Trilogy Part III: Retirement Plans – The Audit Process from an Employer and the Accountant’s Perspective
May 24, 2016 WEBCAST
(ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits [JCEB])

Flexible Spending Accounts
June 2, 2016 WEBCAST
(Lorman Education Services)

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Today's Discussions on the BenefitsLink Message Boards

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[Guidance Overview]

PBGC Finalizes Changes to Section 4010 Annual Financial Reporting (PDF)
"PBGC's final regulation on ERISA 4010 filings of financial information on plan sponsors and their pension plans revises the waiver for plans with less than $15 million of unfunded liabilities, adds a smaller plan waiver, and cuts back reporting due to missed contributions and funding waivers. The revisions apply to information years beginning after December 31, 2015 (generally filings due on or after April 17, 2017)." (Xerox HR Services)  

[Advert.]

The 2016 Pension Answer Book

The most recent legislative, regulatory, and case law developments so you're never without the information you need to detect compliance and regulatory issues - ensuring you make the right decisions and avoid potential problems. Use code BENEFIT20 for 20% discount.

[Guidance Overview]

Proposed Nondiscrimination Relief for Closed DB Plans (PDF)
"The regulations provide a number of safe harbors and a general testing methodology, including ... [1] Defined contribution plans can be tested on the basis of benefits by converting the amounts allocated to employees to equivalent benefits. [2] A defined benefit plan can be aggregated with the employer's defined contribution plan and the combined plans are then treated as a single plan ... The minimum aggregate allocation gateway requires a minimum allocation rate ... for each non-highly compensated employee of up to 7.5% of compensation. [3] Defined benefit replacement allocations ... can be disregarded when determining whether a defined contribution plan has broadly available allocation rates." (Cheiron)  

Despite Industry Fears, DOL's Fiduciary Rule Will Be Just More of the Same
"One great fear investment advisers have about the impending DOL rule is that it essentially would force advisers to recommend the lowest-cost investment available for a client, regardless of the client's history of investing, risk tolerance or objectives. The lowest-cost product, those advisers say, might be what the [DOL] wants them to sell, but it certainly might not be the best product for every one of their clients. But [such fiduciary-like positions already are being taken by the SEC and FINRA; for example, in] an order this month that fined three AIG Advisor Group broker-dealers $7.5 million, the SEC made it clear that broker-dealers that don't sell the lowest-cost mutual funds in advisory accounts could get whacked." (InvestmentNews)  

Some Retirement Plan Record Keepers Resort to Aggressive Sales Tactics with Proprietary Products
" 'The record-keeping business doesn't make money, generally. Asset management does,' said Jason Chepenik, managing partner at Chepenik Financial. 'Record keeping for many of these vendors is only a means to an end -- to get access to participants to manage money.' ... Financial services firms with both record-keeping and asset management units often will discount their record-keeping services if a 401(k) plan uses their proprietary funds ... A standard discount is generally 5 basis points ... [which] represents a 20% reduction on an asset-based record-keeping fee of 25 basis points[.]" (InvestmentNews)  

Retirement Plan Reviews Often Miss the Mark in Terms of Frequency and Focus
"Many plan sponsors say they want to review their retirement plans more often than they currently do. Nearly three in five (57 percent) plan sponsors want advisors to help them review their retirement plans semiannually or more often, something that only 44 percent of sponsors report currently takes place ... However, sponsors who rely on advisors typically review their retirement plans more often than sponsors who do not use an advisor." (MassMutual)  

[Advert.]

ESOPs - A Valuable Tool for the Closely-Held Business

March 30 webinar - Understand the potential advantages for a company, the selling owners and the affected employees; the federal tax implications of creating an ESOP; and related corporate, financial and valuation considerations of an ESOP. BenefitsLink discount.

Employers Seek to Simplify 401(k), Other Retirement Plans
"[As] they seek to get more employees to participate, the companies offering these plans are taking some decisions out of the hands of workers, just like pensions do.... in recent years, companies that offer 401(k) plans have been adding features that simplify and automate decisions.... Auto enrollment and escalation ... Fewer [investment] choices ... Different target funds ... Education innovations." (AZCentral)  

Matching Contributions in Your ESOP: Things You Should Know
"The 401(k) plan and ESOP should have identical plan years to ... help minimize the chance of exceeding contribution limits.... [T]he plan sponsor can contribute the matching contribution in stock or use a part of the cash contributions earmarked for loan payments that release shares held in suspense.... The vesting of matching contributions must satisfy one of two minimum vesting schedules.... Matching contributions will need to satisfy the average contribution percentage test or ACP test.... To avoid the ACP test, the plan sponsor may choose to make a safe harbor match." (Principal Financial Group)  

Annual California State Report Begins Showing Pension Debt
"New rules from the Governmental Accounting Standards Board are directing state and local governments to report more of their pension debt ... Following the old rules, the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report last year only reported the pension debt for single-employer state plans, a $3.2 billion obligation for judges and a closed plan for legislators. The new report this month for the fiscal year ending last June 30 includes the debt for the five plans in the main CalPERS fund, $39.4 billion, and the state share of more than a third of the CalSTRS debt, $22 billion." (Calpensions)  

Developing a Reasonable Spending Budget Is More Than Just 'Tapping' Your Retirement Savings
"[A recent Nuveen] report presents five decision rules to guide retirees when making withdrawals from accumulated savings during retirement. The Nuveen decision rules are very similar to the decision rules developed by Jonathan Guyton and William Klinger ... [T]he Guyton Decision Rules do not coordinate with fixed income annuity/pensions and they do not directly consider a bequest motive.... [T]he Actuarial Approach (with or without reasonable smoothing) provides a better approach than the Guyton/Nuveen decision rules for [1] developing an initial spending budget and [2] keeping subsequent year's spending budgets on the right track." (Ken Steiner, FSA Retired)  

Occupations and Work Characteristics: Effects on Retirement Expectations and Timing
"This project uses detailed occupational categories and work characteristics ... to provide ... information about relationships between occupations and their characteristics and retirement expectations and outcomes; and to shed some light on which occupations and associated characteristics might encourage or discourage longer working lives.... Jobs that ... respondents say entail less physical effort, less stress, and jobs that have not increased in difficulty in recent decades, and those in which people can reduce hours if desired, are associated with longer work." (Michigan Retirement Research Center [MRRC])  

[Opinion]

American Retirement Association Statement for House Ways and Means Tax Policy Subcommittee Hearing on Proposals Relating to Fundamental Reform of the Income Tax System (PDF)
"[R]epealing all income taxes in favor of a national consumption tax would discourage businesses, especially small businesses, from maintaining a workplace retirement plan and seriously undermine the private employer-sponsored retirement system. The current income tax incentives are a primary reason small business owners consider offering a retirement plan." (American Retirement Association [ARA])  

Life Insurance and Retirement Plan Benefits: Are Your Clients Achieving Their Intended Goals?
"Individuals may not rely on many of the traditional rules of construction for probate asset dispositions to conform their designations to their intended goals, particularly as those goals change. This is particularly the case for benefits from ERISA plans ... [It] is advisable for an individual to ... consider beneficiary designations in the context of the disposition of his or her other assets ... [and] consider the extent, if any, it is advisable to make his or her estate or a trust the plan beneficiary in order to provide the desired beneficiaries with the desired benefits, if a plan's designation terms do not permit the desired choices to be made directly." (Albert Feuer, via SSRN)  

Former Executive's Deferred Benefit Claim Nixed
"At issue in the case was the standard of review applicable to a top hat plans ... Noting that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit hasn't addressed the appropriate standard of review for top hat plans, [Judge Richard J. Leon] applied the deferential standard, following the circuit's directive to review benefit decisions under this standard when discretion is given to the administrator." [Peck v. Selex Systems Integration Inc., No. 13-00073 (D. D.C. Mar. 24, 2016)] (Bloomberg BNA)  

Prudential Retirement to Offer Student Loan Genius’ 401(k) Feature to Clients
Prudential Retirement

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