IRS Notice 2022-33 provides extensions to the amendment deadlines for certain provisions of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (“SECURE Act”), the Bipartisan American Miners Act of 2019...more
In June, the Senate committees with jurisdiction over retirement approved their versions of retirement reform legislation. The Senate bills are the Enhancing American Retirement Now Act (unnumbered, the “EARN Act”), which was...more
Over the years, many plan sponsors have accumulated surplus assets in their pension and welfare benefit programs for various reasons. Typically, surplus assets have been generated in these mature programs through some...more
Earlier this month, the IRS announced a new pilot program under which retirement plan sponsors will be given 90-days notice that their plan has been selected for examination which they may be able to largely avoid by taking...more
On March 29, the House overwhelmingly passed H.R. 2954, the Securing a Strong Retirement Act of 2021 (“SSRA”), by a vote of 414-5. This alert contains Groom’s summary of the legislation as passed by the chamber....more
The IRS recently issued an updated Listing of Required Modifications and Information Package (known as the “LRMs”) for 403(b) plans. These LRMs contain quite a few changes, from simple clarifications and explanatory notes,...more
A recent district court decision improperly (in our view) restricts the ability of plan sponsors to modify participant distribution elections after normal retirement age. We describe the decision, and offer some...more
On March 25, the IRS issued a set of proposed regulations under Internal Revenue (“Code”) section 413(c) and 413(e) addressing multiple employer plans, or “MEPs,” and pooled employer plans, or “PEPs.” 87 Fed. Reg. 17225. We...more
At long last, the Internal Revenue Service issued proposed regulations under Code section 401(a)(9) that take into account the major changes made by the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019...more
Background -
Back in 2013, the IRS opened its first 6-year cycle of reviewing and issuing opinion letters on 403(b) pre-approved documents. Most of the approval letters for that first set of plans were issued to the...more
Recent IRS Notice 2022-6 updates longstanding guidance on when a series of payments from an individual account under a tax-favored retirement plan is considered a series of “substantially equal periodic payments”. Under Code...more
The FinCEN arm of the Treasury Department recently proposed regulations to implement the reporting rules in the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”) enacted about a year ago. (Pub. L. 116-283, Jan. 1, 2021; § 6401-03). The...more
If you thought that church plan litigation was effectively over after the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the traditional interpretation of the ERISA church plan definition in its 2017 decision in Advocate Health Care...more
In a recent decision, the U.S. Tax Court reached the not surprising conclusion that an individual who purchased American Eagle gold coins using her IRA received a de facto distribution of those coins when she took physical...more
You may have changed the way hardship withdrawals are made from your 401(k) plan a couple of years ago to comply with changes in the law, but did you amend your plan? And for amendments to required minimum distributions that...more
On November 15, 2021, President Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the “IIJA”) into law. IIJA contains two sections that may affect qualified retirement plans....more
As we approach the end of 2021, it’s again time for sponsors of 401(a) and 403(b) plans to review their plan documents and plan operations to ensure compliance with increasingly complex qualification requirements. While...more
The IRS recently announced (Notice 2021-61, Nov. 4, 2021) that many of the key pension limits will increase next year – some significantly due to higher inflation. The Social Security Administration and PBGC also recently...more
On September 15, the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees advanced components of the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package (“Budget Legislation” or “the Legislation”). The Legislation...more
Background on the 403(b) Pre-Approved Plan Program -
In 2013, the IRS began accepting prototype and volume submitter 403(b) plans (now referred to collectively as “pre-approved” plans) in the first-ever 403(b) remedial...more
On July 16, 2021, IRS issued a new version of the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (“EPCRS”), set forth in Revenue Procedure 2021-30. The new EPCRS provides qualified plan sponsors with the opportunity to correct...more
Groom has prepared a comparison here of the provisions in two key retirement bills being considered by the 117th Congress: the Securing a Strong Retirement Act of 2021 (H.R. 2954, “SECURE 2.0”) and the Retirement Security &...more
The U.S. has issued an announcement with guidance on how the 2009 amendment to the tax treaty between the U.S. and Switzerland applies to pension and retirement arrangements of both countries....more
Securing a Strong Retirement Act of 2021 as marked up by the House Ways and Means Committee on May 5, 2021....more
On April 27, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) issued informal guidance on partial plan terminations as part of the COVID-related tax relief provided under The Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020 (the...more