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Retirement Plans Newsletter October 16, 2018 |
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Jobs
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Webcasts, Conferences Choosing the Right Retirement Plan
Electronic Notices: Giving Disclosures in a Modern World [2018]
Mergers and Acquisitions [2018]
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Discussions |
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This Newsletter:
BenefitsLink Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter:
Message Boards Digest:
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Retirement Specialist|
Bankruptcy Filing Shifts Spotlight to Sears Pension Plans "Sears's bankruptcy includes a tangle of arrangements that put liens on the company's real estate and intellectual property as protection against spurning its pension debts, and illustrates how much contributions to the plans have weighed on the company's operations. Sears ... has two pension plans that held a combined $2.5 billion in assets and had a funding hole of $1.5 billion at the end of 2017, suggesting that Sears's plans are roughly 63% funded."
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[Advert.]
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Putnam 401(k) Dispute Sent Back to Trial Court by First Circuit "The First Circuit joined the Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth circuits in holding that once an ERISA plan participant shows a loss allegedly tied to a plan fiduciary's imprudent behavior, the burden then shifts to the fiduciary to show that the loss wasn't caused by the fiduciary. The Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh circuits have held differently." [Brotherston v. Putnam Investments, LLC, No. 17-1711 (1st Cir. Oct. 15, 2018)]
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Managing Re-Hires: Has There Been a Break-in-Service? "For purposes of applying the break-in-service rules, an employee taking maternity or paternity leave is credited with enough hours to avoid suffering a break-in-service during the leave. However, usually only one break-in-service is avoided. So, an employee taking leave for more than a year might still have a break. [Further], what otherwise would be considered a break-in-service will not be one if the employee's absence is due to Qualified Military Service."
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Stars Aligning for Corporate Plans to Take Derisking Actions (PDF) "A confluence of factors -- rising interest rates, robust US equity markets and tax reform-driven contributions -- have contributed to a significant rise in US corporate DB funded levels.... Prudent risk management practices suggest that corporate plans may want to consider the potential benefits of taking some risk off the table today."
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35 pages. "EBSA did not conduct effective oversight of the TSP for several reasons. [1] EBSA lacked an ongoing process for assessing changes in risks to the TSP over time.... [2] EBSA's oversight was not transparent.... [3] EBSA lacks sufficient legal authority to require the Board to act on its recommendations.... Notwithstanding the limits of its legal authority, EBSA needs to strengthen its oversight practices to provide greater assurance that plan assets and personal and financial information are safeguarded."
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[Advert.]
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Understanding the Building and Construction Industry Exemption to Withdrawal Liability "Employers that have common ownership must be cautious because withdrawal liability will be triggered if any entity in the same controlled group performs covered work without resuming contributions to the pension plan. Moreover, if withdrawal liability is triggered, any entity in the controlled group could potentially be responsible for paying that liability."
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"[The Actuarial Lifetime Retirement Income Estimator (ALRIE) Excel workbook] provides answers to ... [1] How much real dollar monthly lifetime income commencing X years from now will my current nest egg of $Y support? [2] How much real dollar lifetime income commencing X years from now will my projected future nest egg of $Z support? [3] What percentage of my future wages will I need to save over the next X years to increase my nest egg from $Y to $Z?"
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How You Can Become a 401(k) Millionaire "Savers are choosing a lower standard of living now with the goal of saving enough money to finance a number of years of living without working. In other words, their retirement.... [1] Save as much as you can in qualified retirement plans ... [2] If you are married, contribute 15% for both ... [3] Capture all the company match ... [4] Invest aggressively ... [5] Do not sell when the stock market crashes ... [6] Be disciplined in your approach ... [7] Do not take 401k plan loans ... [8] Don't be afraid to get advice."
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[Opinion]
Workplace Retirement Coverage Drops and the System Continues to Fail "Despite an aging workforce who are worried about retirement and despite $140 billion annual tax breaks, and despite relatively light regulation, retirement plan coverage at work (including defined benefit and 401(k)-type coverage) has declined over the last two decades. Just 40 percent of workers were covered by a retirement plan through their workplace in 2017, 4 percentage points lower than in 2014."
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[Opinion]
Sears' Bankruptcy, the PBGC's Debt and Your Retirement "[T]he very feature of pension plans that once made them attractive to employers -- those employers' ability to be flexible in their contributions, paying more into the fund to reduce tax liabilities when available cash permitted and paying in only the minimum when finances were tighter -- has produced a situation where the need to cope with an underfunded pension has added to the strain of a troubled company, even to the extent, in this case, of necessitating entering into special agreements with the PBGC in 2015 ... to 'ring-fence' certain assets to satisfy its minimum contribution requirement."
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Benefits in General |
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[Official Guidance]
Text of IRS Disaster Relief Announcement VA-2018-02, for Victims of Hurricane Florence in Virginia "Individuals who reside or have a business in Henry, King and Queen, Lancaster, Nelson, Patrick, Pittsylvania, and Russell counties and the Independent Cities of Newport News, Richmond, and Williamsburg may qualify for tax relief.... [C]ertain deadlines falling on or after Sept. 8, 2018 and before Jan. 31, 2019, are granted additional time to file through Jan. 31, 2019."
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"After additional disaster declarations by FEMA, the IRS has added more counties that are eligible for individual and public assistance in areas of Florida and Georgia affected by Hurricane Michael.... In addition, the IRS has also extended these deadlines for additional Hurricane Florence victims covered under FEMA public assistance declarations. This includes taxpayers in a number of counties in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia."
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Executive Compensation |
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Don't Miss an Opportunity to Optimize Retirement Within Your LTI Program "[C]ompanies would be well-served to audit the retirement features of their [long-term incentive (LTI)] programs to determine: [1] Whether there is a meaningful difference in equity treatment for retiring versus non-retiring employees, and the impact on employees' total compensation for the year of retirement; and [2] What the cost would be for providing more favorable equity treatment to retiring versus non-retiring employees, resulting in less forfeitures."
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Selected Discussions |
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Excluding Union Employees from Testing if Benefiting Under Different Formula I'm looking at a plan with pro-rata allocation. Plan includes both union and non-union employees. Employer is considering giving different allocations to union and non-union. If union employees are eligible for plan and allocation, can they still be excluded from 410(b) and 401(a)(4) as statutory exclusions?
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RMD Based on Value of Life Insurance in 401(k) Plan When calculating the Age 70‑1/25 Required Minimum Distribution on a participant account holding a life insurance policy, regarding the life insurance policy, does the RMD calculation include the value of the death benefit, does it use the cash value for the calculation, or does it include both?
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Working for a TPA? What's Your Caseload? For those of you who work for, or own, a TPA and administer retirement plans, what is the size of your caseload?
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Press Releases |
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Asia Pacific Association for Fiduciary Studies (APAFS) Investment Fund is Certified for Fiduciary Excellence
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Wagner Law Group Welcomes Attorney Katherine Brustowicz
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Most Popular Items in the Previous Issue |
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Best Practices in Providing Cybersecurity for 401(k) Accounts
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Text of PBGC Statement on Sears Bankruptcy Filing
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In Memoriam: ERISA Attorney Nick Saakvitne Dies at 66
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Connect
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BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
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(407) 644-4146
Lois Baker, J.D., President
David Rhett Baker, J.D., Editor and Publisher
Holly Horton, Business Manager
BenefitsLink Retirement Plans Newsletter, ISSN no. 1536-9587. Copyright 2018 BenefitsLink.com, Inc. All materials contained in this newsletter are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of BenefitsLink.com, Inc., or in the case of third party materials, the owner of those materials. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notices from copies of the content.
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