May 25, 2022. "Beginning June 1, 2022, you'll be able to submit a Form 5300 determination application electronically at www.Pay.gov.... The IRS will continue to accept paper versions of Form 5300 through June 30, 2022.... Pay.gov will accept one additional PDF document (less than 15MB) as part of your submission.... The user fee for a Form 5300 submitted on or after January 3, 2022, is $2,700 (or $4,000 for multiple employer plans) if the plan does not qualify for the zero-dollar user fee in Notice 2017-1."  MORE >>

"What should you to do if you inherited an IRA or other retirement plan after 2019 and did not take a distribution in 2021 required under the ten-year payout rule as interpreted by the proposed regulations? The proposed regulations, effective for the year 2022, state that any reasonable interpretation of the rules as modified by SECURE will be deemed compliant.... [Be] prepared to take both 2021 and 2022 required minimum distributions by the end of this year."  MORE >>

"[B]roker-dealers and investment advisers should consider documenting plan costs and the comparison to the IRA costs. In addition, it would be good risk management to have internal processes to ensure that the rollover IRA is invested in a manner consistent with the written specific reasons given to the participant."  MORE >>

"The New York attorney general [has] filed a lawsuit to help more than 1,100 former employees of St. Clare's Hospital in Schenectady, New York, recover lost retirement benefits because of alleged 'negligent and intentional actions' by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.... Of those 1,100+ who lost their retirement benefits, 650 retirees lost all their pension rights and nearly 450 retirees received a single payment equal to 70% of their pension's value."  MORE >>

262 pages. "This year's Fact Book offers a wealth of information on our industry, with nearly 70 data tables providing a long history of the number and types of mutual funds, ETFs, closed‑end funds, and unit investment trusts; their assets and flows; and a wide array of other statistics, many of which are broken down by the fund's investment objective and other fund categories.... You will also find detailed discussions of recent industry trends ... as well as in‑depth analyses of current developments in investor behavior and retirement savings.... [T]he underlying data for all charts and tables are available on ICI's website."  MORE >>

"Last year, the percentage of working Americans nearing retirement age (defined here as 60 to 67 years old) who said they have enough money to retire was 26%. This year, that number has declined to just 22%."  MORE >>

"ESOP food companies laid off fewer workers than comparable non-ESOP companies in 2020, the year the pandemic struck: 2% vs. 5% ... and had fewer workers quit in 2020, with a median 6% quit rate for ESOP companies versus 20% for non-ESOP companies.... 89% of ESOP food companies offer an employer-paid health insurance plan, compared to 71% of non-ESOPs companies ... 86% of ESOP companies offer paid sick leave compared to 69% among the non-ESOP companies."  MORE >>

"[This post discusses an] alternative to reducing current discretionary spending -- keeping current year recurring discretionary spending unchanged but effectively reducing future planned recurring discretionary spending by assuming smaller annual future rates of increases in such expenses. While this approach technically still involves reducing discretionary spending, it may be more palatable to retirees who believe their discretionary spending will probably decrease as they age."  MORE >>

"Even though accompanying the annuity illustration will be an explanation of how to read and use the estimate, the average participant may not understand or take the time to read two pages of legal language. While it appears that the new requirement is not the best way to present information to participants, it may encourage participants to ask more questions and really start to think about their retirement income."  MORE >>

"[This article] is aimed at getting the human resources, benefits, and executive compensation functions of your organization ready for a potential sale or similar corporate transaction.... [K]ey considerations in the process that often arise early: [1] identifying, assembling, and analyzing documents that will be automatically triggered or impacted by the potential sale, and [2] determining the expected impact of the transaction on any outstanding equity compensation."  MORE >>