Automatic Enrollment for 401(k) Plans April 2015 Newsletter McDonald’s may have been the automatic enrollment pioneer 30 years ago, but it wasn’t until 2008 when the new Pension Protection Act rules kicked in that it really started to gain serious momentum. Since that time, articles have regularly extolled the virtues and almost every new…
DetailsTiming is Everything February 2015 Newsletter For years now, we have been hearing from the Department of Labor (DOL) about the importance of depositing employee 401(k) deferrals and loan payments as quickly as possible. While that continues to be the case, it seems that there is not nearly as much commentary about when to deposit…
DetailsYear-End Compliance Testing Overview December 2014 Newsletter The end of the calendar year is fast approaching which means the plan year end for many qualified plans. It will be time for plan sponsors to collect complete employee data to enable their service providers to perform the numerous compliance tests required to retain the plans tax…
DetailsHardship Distributions from 401(k) Plans October 2014 Newsletter Manager’s office. It’s Zachary, a fairly new employee who entered the company’s 401(k) plan last month. He’s been deferring $40 a week into the plan, which means he has accumulated $160 by now. But last night his cable TV was shut off because he couldn’t afford to…
DetailsThe Ultimate Plan Sponsor Checklist August 2014 Newsletter While they don’t have a book called Retirement Plan Sponsorship for Dummies, they should. So in the interim, here is a checklist that plan sponsors should review that can help them develop good practices and avoid unnecessary liability in their stewardship of retirement plans for their employees. Do…
DetailsReady or Not, Here it Comes…the PPA Plan Restatement June 2014 Newsletter It’s time again to participate in that never ending ritual of qualified retirement plan restatements. As legislation affecting retirement plans is enacted, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires all plan sponsors to restate or “rewrite” their plans to conform to current law. For…
DetailsThe Continuing Evolution of the Safe Harbor 401(k) Plan April 2014 Newsletter The safe harbor 401(k) plan roared onto the scene in 1998 as a new design that allowed company owners and other highly compensated employees to maximize their salary deferrals even when other employees contributed at relatively low levels. Over the last 16 years,…
DetailsBoomerang Employees: Rehires and Retirement Plans February 2014 Newsletter A boomerang employee (as we will use that name in this article) is, quite simply, one who leaves and then comes back to work…a rehire. As is so often the case, the retirement plan rules related to rehires are quite different than those that apply to other…
DetailsDown with DOMA December 2013 Newsletter Signed into law in 1996, the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is a small law that has caused big controversy. Introduction and Background DOMA is small in the sense that it consists of only three sentences, making it shorter to include the full text of the law here…
DetailsHow Do You Spell Relief? E-P-C-R-S October 2013 Newsletter Retirement plans are complicated beasts. The Pension Protection Act of 2006 was more than 1,000 pages long; one of the main reference books that retirement plan professionals use is more than 7,000 pages long; and there are countless other sets of rules and regulations that add…
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