On August 31, 2018, President Trump signed an executive order outlining the administration’s priorities for American retirement plans. Emphasizing that as many as 34 percent of workers do not have access to a workplace retirement plan, the order outlines the administration’s plan for increasing workplace retirement plan availability. The first... Read More
On April 23, 2018, the DOL released Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) 2018-01 relating to (1) plan investment in “economically targeted investments (“ETIs”), (2) the exercise of shareholder rights and (3) investment policy statements. We will address the first of these topics in today’s post. Generally, ETIs are investments that promote... Read More
On April 3, 2018, The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a summary judgment decision against Susan Wengert who had sued the plan administrative committee of the Majors Plastics ESOP, the personal representative of the Timothy McConnell Estate and the Trustee of the Timothy McConnell Trust in federal district court... Read More
The IRS announced on April 5th that the agency is seeking input on whether (and how) the individually designed retirement plan determination letter program should be expanded for the 2019 calendar year. Notice 2018-24 requests stakeholder comment regarding additional situations in which sponsors of individually designed plans should have access... Read More
Part 1 of this series summarized a plan’s duty to search for missing participants and discussed the current and possible future sources of law that create that duty. This Part 2 compares each agency’s current minimum search requirements as well as the proposed search requirements in the Retirement Savings Lost... Read More
In the past year, the Department of Labor (DOL) has drastically increased audits of retirement plans with participants – or beneficiaries – who cannot be located in conjunction with the distribution of owed benefits. The DOL has directed its attention to Form 5500 filings disclosing high numbers of terminated vested... Read More
As mentioned in our recent blog, the date for complying with the new disability claims procedures (April 2, 2018) is rapidly approaching. In addition to making sure disability plans comply with the new rules, employers should also be reviewing other ERISA plans, such as qualified retirement plans and nonqualified deferred... Read More
29 C.F.R. §2560.503-1 The DOL’s revised ERISA disability claims procedures regulations will be taking effect early next month, and plan sponsors should take a hard look at plan processes over the next few weeks to ensure compliance. The new requirements apply to disability benefit claims filed after April 1, 2018,... Read More
On November 27, 2017, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced that it is adjusting the maximum earnings subject to the Social Security tax for 2018 to $128,400. As we have previously posted, the SSA had announced that it would increase the maximum earnings to $128,700. The SSA made the adjustment... Read More
