Code Section 402(g)(7) seems to have a gift for certain 403(b) plan sponsors (that is, for “qualified organizations, being educational organizations, hospitals, home health service agencies, health and welfare service agencies, churches, or convention or association of churches): the annual elective deferral limit for participants in these plans with “15 years of service” with the qualified organization can be as much as $3,000 greater than the existing limit for everyone else, up to a lifetime…

Minutiae. Thats what I try to explain those who continue to claim that 403(b) plans are “just another form of 401(k) plan;”  and is just what the drafters of the 2007 403(b) regulations did not wholly grasp when they tried to fundamentally reshape 403(b) plans to try to make them “just like” 401(k) plans. Its the small rule differences which make 403(b) plans so difficult to understand and handle on systems which are geared to…

Chris Carosa, Chief Contributing Editor of the Fiduciary News, consistently publishes valuable information related to implementation of the fiduciary’s obligations. Chris’s articles are insightful,  bringing a fresh angle to the often intractable fiduciary issues we or our clients daily face. However, I found that his August 27 article entitled “Did Business Roundtable Just Break a Fiduciary Oath?” deserves a response-especially since I was already in the midst of writing a blog on the…

It has now been a dozen years since the IRS issued Revenue Procedure 2007-71, which was written in response to the logistical difficulties which arose from the mammoth changes imposed by the 2007 changes to the 403(b) regulation. That regulation imposed substantially new responsibilities on 403(b) plan sponsors, including the employer’s need to track and be held accountable for all 403(b) contracts which had ever been issued under that 403(b) plan. Considering that some…

If you talk to anyone who is working on pension legislation, they all will tell you that the provisions of RESA and the SECURE Act are as sure a thing as there is in DC; that their passage is not a matter of “if” but it’s just a matter of “when.” MEPs and “Group” arrangements (which permits unrelated employers on the same platform to file a consolidated 5500)  are critical pieces of that…

The regulatory scheme governing the registration and sales of securities and the regulatory scheme governing retirement plan investments have historically developed separately from each other. The SEC and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (the “EBSA”) had worked independently of each other for decades, with their regulatory paths only occasionally crossing. Indeed, not only had there been little coordination between the SEC and EBSA, there had always been a bit of regulatory animosity…

The Department of Treasury has fulfilled its portion of the directive under Executive Order (the “EO”)13847 by issuing its proposed regulation giving relief to under the “one bad apple” rule. That EO had two MEP directives: the DOL was directed to propose regs which we permit unrelated employers to adopt MEPs (which it has done); and the Treasury was directed to issue rules which would prevent the disqualification of a Multiple Employer Plan under Code…