Executives often participate in various nonqualified deferred compensation plans designed to reward upper management.  These can be simple plan designs such as electively deferring a portion of their salary or bonus until a later year.  Or the plan can be more complicated such as awards of phantom stock or stock appreciation rights that will pay compensation to the Executive at a future date based on the value of the employer where the number of units…

Rank and file employees who may have lost their job or had hours reduced probably don’t care about the effects of the economic downturn resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic (Pandemic) on executives and key management employees.  However, business owners who have provided such employees with employment agreements, deferred and/or incentive compensation, and perhaps equity or phantom equity compensation do have an interest in the effects of the Pandemic on these employees. This article is Part…

The California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Investment Board has filed a Notice of Proposed Emergency Regulation Action with the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) to adopt emergency regulations to amend the current CalSavers regulation to extend the June 30, 2020 registration deadline for Eligible Employers with more than 100 employees to September 30, 2020.  Currently, employers with more than 100 employees that don’t otherwise offer a retirement plan must register with CalSavers, the state’s payroll…

On April 1, 2020, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association filed a Notice Of Appeal with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, indicating that it is appealing the court’s March 10, 2020 dismissal of the Association’s lawsuit alleging that CalSavers, California’s mandated payroll deduction IRA program, was preempted by ERISA.  See CalSavers Not Preempted By ERISA! The appeal is to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The…

On March 27, the House of Representatives passed, and within hours President Trump signed, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, a 2 trillion dollar stimulus and relief statute with several measures to help individuals and businesses cope with the economic issues resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic.  The Senate had passed the bill on March 25.  The Act includes two major changes to the rules surrounding participants accessing funds under certain retirement plans…

If you’ve been wondering why I haven’t posted about the effects of COVID-19 on employee benefits it’s because I’ve been practicing social network distancing.  Just kidding. While we await Congress to pass and the President to sign the 2 trillion dollar stimulus package known as the CARES Act, I thought I would point out how 401(k) or 403(b) plans that permit hardship withdrawals under the federal disaster safe harbor can now permit such withdrawals for…

On March 10, 2020, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California once again dismissed the lawsuit by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA), challenging CalSavers as being preempted by ERISA.  CalSavers is California’s mandated auto-enrollment payroll deduction IRA program that requires employers of a certain size, that don’t provide their employees with a retirement plan, to automatically withhold contributions from such employee’s pay and pay them into IRAs managed by CalSavers. …