5 Key Takeaways | IRS Final RMD Rules & Proposed Regulations to Address SECURE 2.0 Act Issues
5 Key Takeaways | Establishing Tax Qualified Retirement Plans
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Millennials, Boomers and Retirement Planning
CARES Act – Retirement Plan Distributions and Loans: Troutman Sanders and Pepper Hamilton COVID-19 Issues for Employers Podcast Series
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The SECURE Act: Significant Changes for Retirement Plans and IRAs
The Secure Act | How secure are you in your estate plan?
The SECURE Act: How This Brand New Law Affects Your Retirement Accounts
Asset Protection 101: Are You and Your Family Protected from Litigation, Creditors, and Divorce?
IRA News: Beware, the IRS May be Your New Biggest Beneficiary
Impact of Tax Reform on Charitable Giving
Bill on Bankruptcy: Lawyers Easily Make Simple Words Complicated
Key Takeaways - FINRA’s 2025 Annual Regulatory Oversight Report 2025-annual-regulatory-oversight-report.pdf included a focus on issues related to retirees and senior investors. - The Report provides guidance to...more
On January 14, 2025, the DOL issued Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) 2025-01, providing sponsors and administrators of ongoing defined contribution plans with a new option for missing participant balances of $1,000 or less:...more
Over the years, plan sponsors and administrators have wrestled with the question of what to do with the accounts of participants who left employment years earlier and cannot now be located. ...more
The Secure Act, passed in 2019 and updated in 2022, made significant changes to the required minimum distribution (RMD) rules applicable to qualified retirement plans, IRAs, 403(b) plans, and other eligible deferred...more
The U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) recently issued final, new regulations (the “rules”) regarding who is considered an investment advice fiduciary that are slated to become generally effective on September 23, 2024, as well...more
On April 23, 2024, the Department of Labor published its long-awaited final retirement security rule broadening the definition of who is an “investment advice fiduciary” under section 3(21) of the Employee Retirement Income...more
On March 28, 2024, Washington State’s Governor, Jay Inslee, signed into law a bill that creates a new state-run retirement program called “Washington Saves.” Under the program, “covered employers” must give “covered...more
On November 3, 2023, the Department of Labor proposed yet another fiduciary rule, the latest in more than a decade of DOL efforts to ensure that every financial professional who sells an investment product to a retirement...more
On October 31, the Department of Labor (DOL) released a proposed rule (the Proposed Rule) aiming to redefine and expand who qualifies as an “investment advice fiduciary” under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of...more
Millennium Trust announced that they will add an optional auto-portability function to its automatic rollover IRA solution. They expect this add-on feature to be ready for client testing later this quarter and available in...more
Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) remain the biggest segment of the retirement plan market, hitting almost $14 trillion in assets, thanks to 401(k) rollovers. Over the past 10 years, IRA market share has increased...more
Effective February 1, 2022, the Department of Labor (DOL) began enforcement of portions of the Prohibited Transaction Exemption 2020-02 (PTE 2020-02 or the Exemption). ...more
On December 18, 2020, the United States Department of Labor (the DOL) adopted Prohibited Transaction Exemption 2020-02, Improving Investment Advice for Workers & Retirees (PTE 2020-02 or the Exemption), a new prohibited...more
On June 29, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor (the Department) formally reinstated its “five-part test” for determining what constitutes “investment advice” under ERISA and Section 4975 of the Internal Revenue Code (the...more
On June 5, 2019, the SEC adopted a package of rules and interpretations (the Adopted Rules) to clarify and further articulate the relationship between retail investors and their broker-dealers or investment advisers....more
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ rejection of the DOL’s Fiduciary rule reintroduces the 1975 five-factor fiduciary test and creates uncertainty for plan sponsors, plan fiduciaries and investment advisors. After years of...more
Just as we are tuning in for March Madness, it seems that the Department of Labor (Department) has been dealt the latest upset in the fight to implement its final rule, which regulates certain activities of financial service...more
It was the Ides of March for the Obama Administration’s “fiduciary duty rule” that sought to remake much of nation’s financial markets by back-door regulation of anyone dealing with IRA investors. The US Fifth Circuit...more
As reported in our November 28 client alert, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC) Annuity Suitability Working Group (Suitability WG) circulated the proposed Suitability and Best Interest Standard of...more
For the past several months, we have written about potential litigation issues under the “revised temporary” DOL Rule involving the offer and sale of annuities in the IRA market. This article continues that discussion. ...more
Since its original release as a proposed rule in April 2015 and as a final rule a year later, the Department of Labor’s (DOL's) so-called fiduciary rule — which expands the “investment advice fiduciary” definition under the...more
For the past several months, we have written about potential litigation issues under the “revised temporary” DOL Rule involving the offer and sale of annuities in the IRA market. This article continues that discussion. Recall...more
Previously, I wrote about potential litigation under the Department of Labor’s then proposed fiduciary rule (see Expect Focus, Vol. II, 2015). I predicted the following as to sales of index annuities to IRAs if the rule was...more
Employers and their financial advisors should consider enacting a multi-step plan amid anticipation that the proposed ERISA Fiduciary Rules turn effective. Last month, several business groups filed a complaint in the...more
On April 6, 2016 the Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration ("EBSA") issued its long awaited final rule redefining a fiduciary investment advisor (also known as the "conflict of interest rule"),...more