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 Stinson Leonard Street provide human resources professionals, plan fiduciaries, 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 →
Fiduciary Guidance, Form 5500s, Retirement Plans According to the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), one out of every four (25%) of 401(k) plans surveyed in a recent study had engaged in prohibited transactions as a result of non-compliant participant plan loans and/or real estate investments that were not...
Retirement Plans BenefitsNotes.com is not the only blog maintained by attorneys at Leonard, Street and Deinard. Dodd-Frank.com, developed and maintained by attorneys at Leonard, Street and Deinard, is dedicated to making sense of the complex Dodd-Frank legislation and helping businesses understand how it will affect them specifically....
ERISA and Other Benefits Litigation, Health Care Reform, Health Plan, Welfare Plans On Monday March 26th, almost exactly two years after its enactment on March 23, 2010, the United States Supreme Court will begin the first of three days of oral arguments relating to the health care reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (“PPACA”). The Supreme Court agreed to hear six...
Retirement Plans The Department of Labor recently posted the report of the ERISA Advisory Council on Current Challenges and Best Practices for ERISA Compliance for 403(b) Plan Sponsors. The report contains a good side by side comparison of 403(b) and 401(k) plans that may be of interest to plan sponsors eligible for both types of...
Retirement Plans The Department of Labor recently posted the report of the ERISA Advisory Council on Privacy and Security Issues Affecting Employee Benefit Plans. The report contains some good due diligence questions for plan sponsors to ask their service providers about privacy and security of personal identifiable information (PII),...
Compensation Questions, Payroll, Uncategorized, Welfare Plans Mary worked for IT, Inc. at its headquarters in Maryland. Her husband moved to New Jersey for his work and Mary moved with him. Mary continued to work for IT, Inc., writing computer code from her home in New Jersey and uploading her work to her co-workers in Maryland via the Internet. IT, Inc. withheld New Jersey...
Health Plan, Retirement Plans, Welfare Plans Most employers are aware that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman for federal law purposes, including federal tax and benefits law. For benefits governed by ERISA, this means that state laws that recognize same sex marriages are preempted. Although for...
Health Plan The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently said no. A group of seniors, including former US House Majority Leader Dick Armey, had sued the federal government to be allowed to accept Social Security payments, but decline Medicare coverage. They preferred to keep their private coverage to...
Compensation Questions, Payroll In many cases where the IRS claims that compensation is not "reasonable," the focus is on whether the compensation is too high to be deductible by the employer. The arguments are often reversed in the S corporation context. Because there is only one level of tax in the S Corporation, some owners try to minimize the...
IRAs, Retirement Plans I am of an age to be contemplating retirement (and I work in the field so that age may come sooner for me than for others). My parents are both in their late 80s; I had a grandmother who died a few weeks shy of her 100th birthday. So I have a personal interest in the risk of outliving one’s retirement...
