The Department of Labor’s Veterans Employment and Training Services (“VETS”) issued a new fact sheet (“Fact Sheet”) to help employers better manage their pension obligations under the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (“USERRA”). USERRA creates certain rights and protections for uniformed service members. For example, under USERRA, service... Read More
Employers sponsoring 403(b) plans should be aware that we are nearing the deadline for adopting a pre-approved 403(b) plan that provides relief for any documentary noncompliance back to January 1, 2010 (or, if later, the effective date of the plan). As a reminder, adopting a pre-approved plan is the only... Read More
The IRS has issued guidance (Rev. Proc. 2019-20) expanding the determination letter program for certain individually designed plans. The IRS had previously announced in 2017 that the determination letter program for individually designed plans would be limited to initial plan qualification and qualification on plan termination. Since that time, the... Read More
On February 21, 2019 attorneys for Andrew Wong, a participant in the T-Mobile USA Inc. 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan & Trust, filed a class action complaint in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts against FMR LLC, Fidelity Management Research Company, Fidelity Management Trust Company and several other affiliates. The basis... Read More
IRS Annual Limits on Qualified Plans for 2019 By Jeffrey P. Cairns The Internal Revenue Service has released the 2019 cost-of-living adjustments affecting dollar limits on benefits and contributions for qualified retirement plans. The Notice providing the cost-of-living adjustments is available here 2018-83. The Service announced the Health Savings Account... Read More
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