The SECURE Act: Significant Changes for Retirement Plans and IRAs
Videocast: Asset management regulation in 2020 videocast series – DOL: What’s ahead
A Supreme Court decision in April made it easier for plaintiffs to keep ERISA prohibited transaction claims in play longer, and just days later a rare ERISA trial resulted in a huge win for a class of 401(k) plan...more
A federal court in Wisconsin recently allowed a putative ERISA class action in Lucero v. Credit Union Ret. Plan Ass’n to proceed to discovery on the claim that a 401(k) plan paid excessive recordkeeping fees. This decision...more
On December 29, 2022, President Biden signed into law the long-awaited Secure Act 2.0 of 2022 (Secure Act 2.0 or the Act), adding another round of major retirement plan changes to those made by the first Setting Every...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) announced changes to Form 5500. For Multiple Employer Plans (MEPs), new codes have been added to Line 8a of Part II to identify different types of MEPs, such as pooled employer plans,...more
Presented below is our summary of significant Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidance and relevant tax matters for the week of March 20, 2022 – March 26, 2022... March 21, 2022: The IRS issued Revenue Ruling 2022-07,...more
The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) released their final revisions to the Form 5500 and the Form 5500-SF Short Form Annual Return/Report of Small Employee Benefit Plan for the 2021 plan...more
Whether it’s a single employer plan, a multiple employer plan (MEP), a pooled employer plan (PEP), or a plan provider, they can always be a target for ERISA litigation....more
Multiple employer plans (MEPs) have become larger targets for litigation when they achieve a plan of substantial size....more
I rarely talk about legislation because so many bills over the years get proposed with zero action by Congress. It took more than 4 years for Roth 401(k) plans to be a thing. However, I want to take time to talk about...more
In terms of the 401(k) plan business, I think the hype over pooled employer plans (PEP) will be the most over hype since the release of Crystal Pepsi....more
I'm a big fan of business history when it comes to brilliant business moves, as well as some pretty awful ones. In terms of bad business decisions, I always find it amusing when I can spot one when it's made and I could see...more
If you become big enough, you can get sued. That is the lesson I tell everyone when someone mentions to me when a large plan provider or a large plan gets sued. Jerry Schlicter’s law firms has targeted the Pentegra Defined...more
If you’re a small employer with a 401(k) plan, you might save some money and provide a more professional level of administrative support by joining a Pooled Employer Plan (PEP). Unrelated employers have always been able to...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: A key component of the SECURE Act, passed at the end of 2019, was the expansion of opportunities to combine the 401(k) plan assets of multiple unrelated employers. ...more
The intention of multiple employer plans is that for the small plan market, their fees should be lower than single-employer plans. According to a paper by Natalya Shnitser, assistant professor at Boston College Law School, it...more
When your plan becomes big enough, you become a target. A lawsuit was filed in New Jersey Federal Court by McCaffree Financial Corp., a participating employer of the ADP TotalSource Retirement Savings Plan...more
A plan provider once asked me if I had written a full-blown article on why trustee directed 401(k) plans are better than participant-directed plans. I haven’t even if I believed in it (which I do), but it’s not going to get...more
I am a proponent of multiple employer plans (MEPs) and the new change that will allow pooled employer plans (PEPs) that will be what we called an Open MEP in 2021. As discussed in other posts, the PEP change doesn’t change...more
In the movie Casino, Robert Deniro’s character Lefty Rosenthal warns Joe Pesci’s character Nicky Santoro that his actions will get him into the Gaming Control Board’s “Black Book”, which means he would be banned from all...more
Pepper Hamilton partner Paul L. Porretta and Troutman Sanders partner Mamta K. Shah recently hosted a webinar to discuss the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019, better known as the SECURE Act,...more
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) is a national service organization that represents more than 1,000 rural electric cooperatives around the United States. NRECA sponsors a 401(k) multiple employer plan...more
The SECURE Act: What It Is And What It Is NOT - As part of a large year-end piece of legislation, the provisions known as the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Security Act (the “SECURE Act”) were enacted into...more
The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act was signed into law late last month and makes significant positive changes impacting retirement plans. Many of the provisions are effective today, so...more
There are two parts of the SECURE Act that I believe will have the greatest impact on plan sponsors and service providers. • The first part includes the provisions on retirement income, including the safe harbor for...more
The SECURE Act, included as part of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, was signed into law on December 20, 2019. This new law contains many significant changes that may impact employer-sponsored benefit plans....more