Defined Contribution Associate
CBIZ - Savitz
in PA

Pension Analyst
United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 919
in CT

Daily Recordkeeping Manager
Recordkeeping Firm in Phoenix, AZ
in AZ

Business Controls Leader
University of California Office of the President
in CA

Accountant, Employee Benefits
YMCA of the USA
in IL

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Industry Outlook: Emerging Trends in Consumer Driven Health Care
RECORDED
ConnectYourCare

Required Minimum Distributions Training
July 26, 2017 WEBCAST
Wolters Kluwer

Health Benefits Laws Compliance Assistance Seminar
August 9, 2017 in MN
Employee Benefits Security Administration [EBSA], U.S. Department of Labor

ESOP Companies and ESOP Fiduciaries: Standard of Fiduciary Duties, Pleadings Requirements, and Asset Sales
August 23, 2017 WEBCAST
Strafford

Fall ESOP Forum
October 3, 2017 in FL
National Center for Employee Ownership [NCEO]

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[Official Guidance]

Text of IRS Chief Counsel Memo 2017-18: Rollover of IRA Distributions from Failed Financial Institution (PDF)
"[An] IRA distribution made from a failed financial institution by the FDIC as receiver is disregarded for purposes of applying the one-rollover-per-year limitation, provided: [1] neither the failed financial institution nor the depositor initiated the distribution, and [2] no financial institution has assumed the IRAs of the failed financial institution."
Internal Revenue Service [IRS]

[Advert.]

IRS Determination Letter: Recent Changes and New Guidance

July 27 webinar. Learn how employers can ensure that their individually designed retirement plans, with various amendments and design changes, remain in compliance with the voluminous requirements for tax-qualified status. CE Credits. BenefitsLink discount

Transforming the Retirement Plan Participant Experience (PDF)
12 pages. "Engaging today's diverse segments is far from an exact science, but it is possible to create personalized experiences that that can be easily delivered across channels. When executed well, these relevant participant experiences can drive up participation by thirty percent. New solutions are coming to the forefront: self-service workflow tools hosted securely in the cloud; software that makes it easy to streamline content management; the ability to orchestrate experiences based on personas. With these recent innovations, market leaders are transforming their participant engagement strategies into more profitable realities."
Broadridge

A New Format for Plaintiffs' Complaints in ERISA Fiduciary Breach/Excessive Fee Cases?
"The investment industry is quick to try to defend a fiduciary's selection of actively managed mutual funds on the argument that ERISA does not require that a plan fiduciary only select the cheapest investment options.... [The Restatement of the Law (Third) of Trusts indicates] that a fiduciary still has a duty to select only those actively managed funds that provide a plan and plan participants with benefits that are commensurate with the added costs and risks resulting from the actively managed funds.... [T]he Restatement provides plan participants and their counsel with the perfect blueprint of providing the courts with an applicable fiduciary standard and proof to defeat any motion to dismiss."
The Prudent Investment Adviser Rules

Treasury Modifies Multiemployer Benefit Suspension Procedures
"The revised procedures [in Rev. Proc. 2017-43] are effective for applications submitted on or after September 1, 2017, and are intended to facilitate the department's review in light of its experience processing benefit suspension applications."
Conduent

Social Security COLA Projected to Rise 2 Percent
"[T]he Social Security and Medicare trustees projected that Social Security recipients would receive a 2.2 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in 2018. It would be the largest increase since 2012, when the COLA rose 3.6 percent. Social Security recipients received no cost-of-living adjustment in 2015 and just 0.3 percent in 2016."
AARP

[Advert.]

Reforms, Regulations & Retirement Realities

This October the nation's retirement industry elite will converge at ASPPA Annual, in our nation's capital, with insights from industry insiders, regulators, pundits and the nation's leading voices. Join us!

House Committee to Mark Up Proposed Legislation to Overturn DOL Fiduciary Rule
"On Wednesday, July 19 at 2:30 p.m., the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, chaired by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), will mark up the Affordable Retirement Advice for Savers Act (H.R. 2823). Introduced by Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN), the legislation would protect access to affordable retirement advice by overturning the Obama administration's fiduciary rule while ensuring retirement advisors serve their clients' best interests."
Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives

The Nuts and Bolts of ESOP Loans (PDF)
"There is a very high probability an ESOP will be leveraged during its lifecycle. When this leveraging occurs and the ESOP takes on debt to acquire company stock, a number of legal documents are drafted to record the terms of the transaction and the requirements of the involved parties. As the TPA of an ESOP, it is important to understand the reason these documents exist and the differences between ESOP internal loans versus external loans."
Blue Ridge ESOP Associates, via Plan Consultant

The Pernicious Impact of Unreported Deaths on Old Age Mortality Estimates
"[E]ven small rates of failure to match respondents can lead to substantial bias in the measurement of mortality rates at older ages. This type of measurement error is consequential for three strands in the demographic literature: [1] the deceleration in mortality rates at old ages, [2] the black-white mortality crossover, and [3] the relatively low rate of old age mortality among Hispanics."
National Bureau of Economic Research [NBER]

CalPERS 2017 Investment Return Exceeds Expectations
"[CalPERS] rode a strong year in the stock market and private equity investments to earn a return rate of 11.2 percent for the fiscal year that ended June 30 ... That's about double what CalPERS expected to earn this year. It's also a marked improvement over the previous year, when CalPERS' investment return rate was 0.61 percent. In the budget year that ended in June 2015, CalPERS' investment return rate was 2.4 percent."
The Sacramento Bee

Illinois Pension Payments to Eat Up Entire $5 Billion Tax Increase, and More
"Lawmakers overrode Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto of a $36 billion budget July 6, enacting it into law. Under the newly enacted budget, the state will spend around $7 billion for public sector pension funds. That means the entirety of the $5 billion income tax increase will go to pay for pensions, and nearly 20 cents of every dollar taxpayers send the state will go toward public sector pensions this year."
Illinois News Network

[Opinion]

Michigan Weakens the Retirement Security of Public School Employees
"How have Michigan state employees fared under the defined contribution-only plan? Very poorly. Earlier this year, the Michigan Office of Retirement Services reported that the median account balance for state employees is only $37,000. For workers who are age 60 or above and have worked for the state for at least 15 years, it is actually worse: only $36,000. This is hardly enough to retire with dignity as it would barely cover a year's worth of expenses in retirement."
National Public Pension Coalition

Executive Compensation: A Survey of Theory and Evidence
"[The authors] discuss evidence on the effects of executive pay, highlighting recent identification strategies, and suggest policy implications grounded in theoretical and empirical research. [This research] has two main goals.... [1] [T]ightly link the theoretical literature to the empirical evidence, and combine the insights contributed by all three views on the drivers of pay.... [2] [P]rovide a user-friendly guide to executive compensation, presenting shareholder value theories using a simple unifying model, and discussing the challenges and methodological issues with empirical research."
National Bureau of Economic Research [NBER]

McDermott Appoints Todd Solomon to Lead Employee Benefits Practice
McDermott Will & Emery LLP

SevenHills Benefit Partners, a Pensionmark Retirement Firm, is Certified for Fiduciary Excellence
Centre for Fiduciary Excellence [CEFEX]

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