Longevity annuities are contracts that provide life annuity payments typically commencing at age 80 or 85; in many (but not all) cases, that is the only benefit the contract provides. As such, these contracts may offer...more
More than four years after Congress enacted the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act of 2010, Pub. L. 111-147, which added the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) provisions to the Internal Revenue Code, FATCA...more
On June 12, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in Clark v. Rameker that an inherited individual retirement account (IRA) does not qualify for the “retirement funds” exemption in the Bankruptcy Code and is not...more
6/17/2014
The practice of offering lump-sum distributions has become increasingly popular among defined benefit plan sponsors looking to decrease volatility or other defined benefit plan risks. In some situations, plan sponsors offer...more
Until now, those who used the Department of Labor’s Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program (DFVCP) to obtain relief from penalties for failing to timely file Form 5500 automatically qualified for relief from the...more
On May 8, the IRS issued Rev. Rul. 2014-15, 2014-22 I.R.B. 1, which provides guidance in the rapidly expanding area of insuring or reinsuring employee benefits with captives. ...more
Pursuant to Notice 2014-33 (the Notice), the IRS announced that it will treat calendar years 2014 and 2015 as a transition period for the administration and enforcement of the due diligence, reporting, and withholding...more
On April 3, 2014, the Internal Revenue Service released Revenue Ruling 2014-9 (the Ruling), which provides guidance helpful to the administration of rollovers by tax-qualified retirement plans by...more
On April 4, 2014, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released Notice 2014-19, which provides a series of Q&As regarding the application of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor and the IRS’s prior...more
On March 12, 2014, the Department of Labor (DOL) published in the Federal Register a proposed amendment to its disclosure requirements for “covered service providers” to retirement plans under ERISA § 408(b)(2) that would...more
On March 4, the Obama Administration released its fiscal year 2015 budget (FY 2015 Budget). In keeping with the Administration’s past budgets, the FY 2015 Budget includes a number of tax proposals that target insurance...more
On February 26, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) released a “Discussion Draft” of the Tax Reform Act of 2014, which sets forth his much-anticipated tax reform proposals. Of note, the Discussion...more
On January 28, 2014, the U.S. Tax Court held in Bobrow v. Commissioner that the rule limiting IRA rollovers to one per 12-month period in Internal Revenue Code Section 408(d)(3)(B) applies across all of a taxpayer’s IRAs,...more
On February 6, 2014, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed new regulations for calculating the unrelated business taxable income (UBTI) of IRC section 501(c)(9) voluntary employees’ beneficiary associations (VEBA) and...more
On February 4, the IRS issued a new revenue ruling – Rev. Rul. 2014-7 – that indicates that the IRS no longer plans to issue formal guidance concerning the treatment of the dividends-received deduction (DRD) with respect to...more
On February 5, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued its opinion in Validus Reinsurance, Ltd. v. United States, which is the first case to involve a challenge to the IRS’s position on the “cascading”...more
On January 14, the United States Tax Court issued a reviewed opinion in Rent-A-Center Inc. v. Commissioner, 142 T.C. 1 (2014), which held that subsidiaries of Rent-A-Center Inc. (RAC) were entitled to claim deductions for...more
1/20/2014
In 2013, the Department of Labor (DOL) maintained a modest program of advance guidance under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA), in response to requests from the regulated community....more
On November 26, 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) updated its Semi-Annual Regulatory Agenda. This publication takes the form of a Federal Register notice to comply with certain administrative requirements. The DOL’s...more
On August 29, the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor, jointly announced the issuance of Revenue Ruling...more
The principal regulators of U.S. employee benefits have recently published updates to their guidance plans for the coming months.
- On July 3, 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) updated its Semi-Annual Regulatory...more
On July 9, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released Notice 2013-45 (the Notice), granting transition relief from the “Employer Shared Responsibility” provisions and certain health plan reporting requirements under the...more
7/12/2013
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Deadlines ,
Delays ,
Employer Mandates ,
Healthcare ,
IRS ,
Pay or Play ,
Penalties ,
Shared Responsibility Rule ,
Transition Relief ,
U.S. Treasury
In Advisory Opinion 2013-03A (July 3, 2013), the Department of Labor opined that revenue sharing and similar amounts carried on the books of a retirement plan service provider as a credit due the plan, if properly structured,...more
On July 2, 2013, the Obama administration announced that it will delay enforcement of the employer shared responsibility penalties under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) until 2015. The one-year...more
On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court decided United States v. Windsor, striking down Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional and holding that same-sex marriages recognized under state law...more