Employee benefits are an important part of every employees' total compensation package. The continuously evolving landscape in the areas of health care reform, retirement plan design, and executive compensation makes it difficult for employee benefits professionals to keep up with relevant developments. The employee benefits attorneys at Leonard, Street and Deinard provide human resources professionals, plan fiducia- ries, actuaries, accountants, and others in the industry with practical and cost-effective assistance as they navigate through the complex laws, regulations and guidance that govern employee benefits plans. This blog highlights key developments in the employee benefits field and items of interest to our clients. Our Bloggers →
Cafeteria Plans, Health Plan, Retirement Plans, Welfare Plans As many of our readers know, on Tuesday, May 14, 2013, Minnesota became the twelfth state to recognize same sex marriages. The effective date of the change is August 1, 2013, which gives employers some time to react to the change and analyze its effect on their employment policies and benefits. We sent an Alert to...
Retirement Plans Various promoters have suggested to entrepreneurs that they use the assets in their 401(k) plans or IRAs to finance a new business. These programs are sometimes known by the acronym ROBS, or Rollovers as Business Start-ups. The basic structure involves the entrepreneur’s rollover from a prior employer of the amount...
Multi-employer Plans, Uncategorized I have blogged before [May 16, 2012, November 21, 2012, April 23, 2012, May 15, 2012, September 5, 2012] about the liability that can be imposed on businesses whose union employees participate in a multiemployer pension plan if the business ceases to participate in that plan. That liability is called withdrawal...
Health Plan Employers who sponsor health plans for their employees can purchase insurance contracts to fund those plans. Alternatively, employers can self-fund or self-insure those benefits, agreeing to pay the claims themselves. Many employers who provide self-funded plans also buy stop-loss insurance to cover the risk of...
Deferred Compensation and 409A, Executive Compensation, Payroll A taxpayer we will call John worked for a savings bank in New York that was acquired by Washington Mutual Bank. John participated in the New York bank’s supplemental executive retirement plan (SERP) and its deferred compensation plan, both of which were nonqualified deferred compensation plans. When Washington...
Multi-employer Plans, Retirement Plans Employers know that benefits under a retirement plan can be split between a participant and a former spouse in the event of a divorce under the terms of a qualified domestic relations order (QDRO). A domestic relations order is qualified if it meets certain technical requirements. A recent decision from the Minnesota...
Health Plan Many employers are offering wellness programs to employees in connection with their health plans and are aware of the HIPAA regulations that govern such programs. Although employers design their wellness programs to conform to the HIPAA guidance, they sometimes forget that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)...
ERISA and Other Benefits Litigation, Retirement Plans Most employers know that a married participant in a qualified retirement plan must name a spouse as beneficiary for at least a portion of the benefit unless the spouse signs a notarized written consent or the spouse cannot be located. A recent U.S. District Court decision, Gallagher v. Gallagher, involved a...
ERISA and Other Benefits Litigation, Welfare Plans ERISA requires that plans contain a reasonable claims procedure. Courts have generally required claimants to exhaust that claims procedure before filing a lawsuit. In addition, if the plan gives the plan administrator discretion to interpret the plan and decide claims, a court will often give deference to the plan...
Deferred Compensation and 409A, Executive Compensation My colleague Jeff Cairns blogged about a recent court case confirming the IRS’s position that discounted stock options can be considered noncompliant nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements under Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code. Unless structured to be exercised only on a fixed date or an allowable...
