PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Can Employers Impose a Health Insurance Surcharge on Plan Participants Not Vaccinated for COVID-19?
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 2.0 Act of 2022 added new Section 523 to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), requiring the Department of Labor (the “Department”) to establish an online database called the Retirement...more
Employers who sponsor retirement plans for their employees face annual reporting requirements that may involve significant expenses. One of these is the requirement that a plan be audited annually by an independent qualified...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it has finalized, together with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the third and final round of revisions to the Form 5500 Annual...more
The DOL’s expanded definition of fiduciary advice is described in the preamble to PTE 2020-02. The PTE then provides relief for conflicted non-discretionary recommendations (for example, rollover recommendations), if its...more
After federal officials fired a shot across the bow of the crypto world by strongly criticizing the practice of including cryptocurrency as a 401(k) investment option, a new proposal introduced in the U.S. Senate last week...more
A client recently reviewed a census of participants in its deferred compensation plan and found that the covered group amounted to nearly 15% of its total workforce. Mindful of the need to limit the number of participants in...more
New cybersecurity developments and observations, including those relating to U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) review of cybersecurity issues, warrant prompt consideration by plan sponsors and other fiduciaries of employee...more
We are pleased to present our annual End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” Lists. This year, we present our “To Do” Lists in four separate Employee Benefits Updates. This Part 1 covers year-end health and welfare plan issues....more
Employers that are considering imposing health plan premium surcharges to encourage their employees to get vaccinated have clearer guidance on how to do so without running afoul of the nondiscrimination rules under the Health...more
The DOL’s new fiduciary “rule” became effective on February 16, 2021. The rule is a combination of a new and expansive definition of fiduciary advice (and status) and an exemption from the prohibitions of ERISA and the...more
On January 12, 2021, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued long-awaited guidance for retirement plan fiduciaries that is relevant to any employer who sponsors a retirement plan that is subject to the fiduciary requirements of...more
On January 12, 2021, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued sub-regulatory guidance detailing what steps plan sponsors should take to locate and distribute retirement benefits to missing or nonresponsive participants (missing...more
In EBSA Disaster Relief Notice 2021-01, the Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a critical interpretation of prior guidance that extended certain deadlines for employee benefit plans, participants, and beneficiaries due to...more
As described in our client advisory of May 6, 2020, the Department of Labor (the “DOL”) temporarily suspended the deadlines for employee benefit plan participants to exercise HIPAA special enrollment rights, elect and pay...more
Summary - The United States Department of Labor (DOL) issued guidance to assist plan fiduciaries in fulfilling their ongoing obligation of locating missing or nonresponsive participants and distributing benefits to such...more
On January 12, 2021, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued a 3-part set of missing participant guidance for employer-sponsored retirement plans, addressing a variety of issues...more
The Department of Labor’s Proposed Prohibited Transaction Exemption and Its Impact on Recommendations to Plans, Participants and IRAs (Part 3): Investment Adviser Considerations - On December 18, 2020, the DOL issued its...more
On January 18, we published a blog post regarding new Department of Labor (“DOL”) guidance on missing plan participants. That post is available here, and describes the DOL’s guidance on Missing Participants - Best Practices...more
On January 12, 2021, the Department of Labor (the “DOL”) issued three pieces of guidance detailing the DOL’s view of what steps plan fiduciaries should take to locate and distribute retirement benefits to missing or...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) has issued long-awaited guidance on what it views as appropriate procedures for retirement plans to locate missing or nonresponsive participants. Plan sponsors and fiduciaries of all retirement...more
COBRA: an acronym that strikes fear (and understandable confusion) into the hearts of many employers. If you have 20 or more employees, you are subject to the often equivocal requirements of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget...more
Plan participants and their beneficiaries may now have extra time to exercise some of their rights under the employee benefit plans in which they participate. ...more
On August 14, 2019, the IRS issued Revenue Ruling 2019-19, providing guidance to both tax-qualified plan administrators and participants on the tax treatment of plan distribution checks that are not cashed. ...more
In the past year, the Department of Labor (DOL) has drastically increased audits of retirement plans with participants – or beneficiaries – who cannot be located in conjunction with the distribution of owed benefits. ...more