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 →
Retirement Plans Those of you interested in data regarding the prevalence of certain features in 401(k) plans may find of interest the Interim Report on the Section 401(k) Compliance Check Questionnaire. This is the first report of the IRS on the extensive questionnaire that it sent to sponsors of 401(k) plans a year or so ago. ...
Retirement Plans There has been a lot of talk in Washington about deficit reduction, tax expenditures and tax reform. One of the largest identified tax expenditures is the exclusion for employer provided retirement plans, both defined contribution and defined benefit. I was at a seminar recently where the reported number for 2011 was...
ERISA and Other Benefits Litigation, Retirement Plans Most qualified domestic relations order (QDRO) cases are fights that affect the formerly married spouses and the plan sponsor or plan administrator. They do not typically affect the other participants in the plan. The case of Milgram v. Orthopedic Associates Defined Contribution Pension Plan (No. 10-862-cv. 2d Cir....
Payroll Most of us have heard that Congress finally extended the 2% payroll tax holiday for two months, namely, through February 29, 2012. In order to prevent highly paid employees from front loading their wages to take advantage of the payroll tax holiday for the entire $110,100 social security wage base, the legislation...
Health Care Reform This is the thirteenth in a series of articles about health care reform. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (the Act) amended Section 6041 of the Internal Revenue Code to expand the types of payees and payments that must be reported by business taxpayers beginning in 2012. Under the Act, a...
Health Care Reform This is the twelfth in a series of articles about health care reform. One year after the enactment of the health care reform legislation on March 23, 2010, changes are still being made on both the federal and state levels. This article addresses one recent federal policy and one state law change from the State of...
Health Care Reform This is the eleventh in a series of articles about health care reform. In October of this year, we published an article, available here, describing the new health care reform requirement that non-grandfathered fully insured health plans must not discriminate in favor of highly compensated individuals. We mentioned...
Health Care Reform This is the ninth in a series of articles about health care reform. This article addresses a provision of the Health Care Reform Law that has not gotten as much press as some of the other provisions, such as the requirement to cover adult children to age 26 or the elimination of lifetime limits on coverage. It...
Health Care Reform This is the eighth in a series of articles about health care reform. This Q&A focuses on new joint interim final regulations from the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Health and Human Services. The regulations address the internal and external benefit claims review...
Health Care Reform This is the seventh in a series of articles about health care reform. Q.1 What do the new rules require? A.1 The new rules require nongrandfathered group health plans and group and individual health insurance polices see previous grandfathered article to provide certain preventive services to enrollees under the...
