PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Time to Tidy-Up Plan Documents
It’s that time of year again when calendar year 401(k) plans must send annual retirement plan notices. As you work with your service providers to make sure all notices are sent, now may be a good time to reacquaint yourself...more
Employers that provide 401(k) plans on documents that have been “pre-approved” by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) beware: there is yet another annual notice requirement that may need to be added to your compliance list!...more
The IRS on Aug. 3, 2022, issued Notice 2022-33, which extends the deadlines for qualified retirement plans, 403(b) plans and governmental retirement plans (including 457(b) plans) to adopt amendments reflecting certain...more
It’s been happening a lot lately: a plan sponsor with several participating employers, not realizing that participation agreements for some of these employers weren’t done. This is just a silly mistake to make....more
For most employers, January kicks off a brand new 401(k) plan year! Now that all of the year-end plan amendments, participant notices, and new deferral elections are behind you, this is a great time to take a step back and...more
Employers that use an IRS-approved form 401(k) or profit sharing plan document are required to adopt updated IRS-approved adoption agreements no later than July 31, 2022. Most plan recordkeepers and other plan document...more
Employers using pre-approved plan documents for their defined contribution retirement plans, such as 401(k) plans, should carefully review restated adoption agreements and basic plan documents that may be issued by their...more
Retirement plans with more than 100 participants require a CPA audit for their Form 5500. However, small plans with less than 100 participants may sometimes require an audit. This often happens when more than 5% of the Plan’s...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In two months (on March 31, 2020), the window closes for 403(b) plan sponsors to take advantage of the unique opportunity to retroactively amend their 403(b) retirement plans to correct document errors...more
If you’re a closely held business or not, changes do happen. Whether it’s leadership or who serves as your plan’s trustee, change will likely happen. The problem sometimes is when the plan document has been updated to reflect...more
The Treasury Department and the IRS recently finalized new hardship distribution rules applicable to defined contribution plans. Plan sponsors should prepare for operational changes to comply with the new regulations,...more
Earlier this year, we summarized proposed Treasury regulations and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, which made changes to the rules governing hardship distributions from 401(k) and 403(b) plans....more
On September 23, 2019, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) published final regulations that modify the hardship distribution rules for profit sharing, 401(k), 403(b), and eligible...more
If your company sponsors a 401(k) or 403(b) plan that allows participants to take hardship distributions, you probably had a conversation with your plan recordkeeper last year about changes to the rules on hardship...more
Dorman v. The Charles Schwab Corp. narrows the options of employees asserting breach of fiduciary duty in retirement plans. Breach of fiduciary duty claims that “arise out of” and “relate to” a 401(k) plan—including those...more
In a pair of opinions issued on Aug. 20, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit expressly overruled its 35-year precedent that Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) disputes were not arbitrable. The...more
In 1993, I wanted a Hewlett Packard LaserJet printer. They were all black and white printers in those days and the cheapest you could find at the time was around $900-$100. At the time I was buying a PC Clone 486DX-33 (that...more
On April 19, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) released Revenue Procedure 2019-19 (the “Revenue Procedure”) and a separate IRS Release (the “Release”) updating the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System...more
Contributions to your 401(k) plan are calculated as a percentage of an employee’s compensation. Seems simple, right? Not so fast. The definition of “compensation” can actually be quite tricky to apply and can lead to errors...more
There are so many articles for plan sponsors (I’ve written quite a few) where they go on and on about what plan sponsors need for a successful 401(k) plan. Rather than go into a whole diatribe, here is a Reader’s Digest of...more
This is Spinal Tap has the great line that “there is a fine line between being clever and stupid.” The same can be said with plan provisions that are what I call: “out of the box.” I call it out of the box because it reminds...more
The Eventual Comeback Of MEPs. It's inevitable. Sometimes what is old is new again. Over the years, clothing styles, hairstyles, political styles, movie styles, and television program styles may come back after being...more
Last week, we discussed four of the five most common compliance mistakes made by 401(k) plan administrators and fiduciaries, the potential liability associated with such mistakes, and steps you can take to avoid making them...more
Welcome to the third installment of this series! This week, we are discussing the five most common compliance mistakes made by 401(k) plan administrators and fiduciaries, the potential liability associated with such mistakes,...more
Mistakes are all too easy to make, but fortunately, they are also easy to prevent! This week, we are discussing the five most common compliance mistakes made by 401(k) plan administrators and fiduciaries, the potential...more