The minute differences between 403(b) plans and 401(k) plans are often inconvenient, at best, and sometimes they produce serious conundrums in plan administration which can be difficult to resolve. Prominent among these is the issue of “small amount” cash-outs from 403(b) plans. The ability to cash out small amounts for terminated participants is especially important for a number of “small plan” filers, who are on the cusp of having to comply with the large plan…

The title I’ve used for this blog is a bit unusual, because the term “plan aggregation” is not yet commonly used within the retirement industry. But this is the underlying common element between Multiple Employer Plans, Pooled Employer Plans, “Groups of Plans” and other industry efforts at providing scale of sorts to the small, plan market. If you think about it, this should also refer to the ever growing Collective Investment Trust (CIT, which, btw…

The federal government’s response to widespread personal tragedy has nearly always involved adjusting the rules to retirement plans. So many of these rule changes come at benefit professionals with great speed and little guidance, yet we need to make them work. This is because the work we do is critically important to people’s lives, though we rarely see it because of the focus on making the damnable rule changes somehow fit into our already overburdened processes and systems.  This impact also shows up when the tragedy…

I like to tell people that there is a backstory to the 2012 Advisory Opinion MEP letter request of ours which was roundly rejected by the DOL, at a time when the whole idea of unrelated employers partaking in a single plan was widely met with skepticism. I guess I need to be careful, though, in its telling, being reminded by the last verse of Robert Frost’s “Road Not Taken” of the embellishment of the…

The DOL’s new ESG rules may have a curious impact on some church related organizations which utilize faith based standards in their retirement plan investments. Their ability to continue do may now turn on the manner in which they handle their status as a “church plan.” It arises because the ESG rules will NOT apply to “non-electing” church plans, as ERISA does not apply to churches unless they affirmatively choose it to do so. First…

We spend a lot of our time focusing on ERISA’s “Prohibited Transaction” rules, which extensively cover the manner in which compensation is paid under retirement plans, and how it is disclosed. Lurking darkly in the background behind all of our  discussions of fee disclosure and how the prohibited transaction rules apply under 408(b)(2), however, is something most of us in the benefits world typically pay little attention to: the U.S. Criminal Code. We all have a…

Gary Lesser, co-editor of the Aspen Publisher’s 457(b) Answer Book, gave us a heads up about the IRS’s new resource page for sponsors (and IRS tips for auditors) on the impact of 457(b) failures, published September 25. Benefitslink  (this links to its excellent news archives) also reported, along with that,  the IRS’s 457(b) guidance on correcting elective deferrals.  The resource guide and correction of excesses  guidance look to be  very useful tools. They not only…