PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - New IRS Guidance on SECURE 2.0 Act Student Loan Employer Contributions
What Can A Tax Attorney Do For You? A Podcast With Janathan Allen
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Auto-Portability: A New Way to Keep Retirement Savings Growing
#WorkforceWednesday: SECURE Act 2.0 - What 401(k) Plan Sponsors Need to Know - Employment Law This Week®
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Plan Administrators’ 2022 Year-End Checklist
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Court Decisions Impacting Plan Sponsors and Fiduciaries
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Helping Employers Address the Gender Gap in Retirement Savings
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Millennials, Boomers and Retirement Planning
The Form 5500: What All Employers and Plan Administrators Need to Know and How to Avoid Costly Fines
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Cryptocurrency in 401(k) Plans
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - What Constitutes Plan Assets Under ERISA?
2022 Resolutions: What Healthcare Practices Need To Tackle In the New Year
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Cautionary Tales for Preapproved Plan Documents
DOL Clarifies Timing of Lifetime Income Disclosures in Benefit Statements
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Back to the Future: SECURE Act and SECURE Act 2.0
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Payroll Integration for Plan Sponsors
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Plan Administrators’ 2020 Year-End Checklist
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Cybersecurity Considerations for Retirement Plan Sponsors
Three Timely Benefits Items Everyone Should Know
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - COVID-19 Edition - Employee Benefits Considerations When Conducting Furloughs and Layoffs
In a striking reversal of approach beginning in the summer of 2022, the District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin went from denying, in whole or in part, virtually every motion to dismiss ERISA lawsuits targeting...more
A “managed account” is a discretionary portfolio management service that makes investment decisions for individual participants within the confines of a 401(k) plan and its fund options. This service is fundamentally...more
Nokia of America is one of the latest employers hit with a class-action lawsuit over the fees in its 401(k) plan....more
Any article that states that revenue sharing has been declining in 401(k) plans is stating the obvious. Like with a dying business or organization, you can see it a mile away. Revenue sharing has been dying since the day that...more
The Godfather Rules And Your 401(k) Plan - Two of my favorite movies of all time are The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. I’m even a fan of The Godfather Part III, despite some of the unwarranted criticism. It’s more...more
I always talk about how plan sponsors need to work with experienced financial advisors, third party administration (TPA) firms, and ERISA attorneys on their plan needs. Like with reasonable fees, I believe that the term...more
Finding things wrong with a 401(k) plan is very easy when a settlement in. a lawsuit has been reached. BTG International just settled a lawsuit where they are paying $560,000 in a settlement. The complaint stated that the...more
Fidelity Investments settled a class-action lawsuit regarding its own 401(k) plan for $28.5 million. The class-action case alleged that Fidelity breached its fiduciary responsibility to plan participants by including its...more
When I was 13, I bought my very first computer, an Apple IIe for $2,000, which would be about $4,760 in 2019 money. This year, I bought an Apple MacBook Pro for about $1,800....more
The US District Court for the District of Colorado granted partial summary judgment to 401(k) fiduciaries, holding that ERISA’s six-year statute of repose barred some claims and rejecting challenges to the plan’s fees....more
The landscape for the retirement plan business has radically changed since when I first started in 1998. Normal courses of business such as revenue sharing and non-transparency of fees were the order of the day. No one cared...more
An advisor asked me a very interesting question that had me thinking: since a good chunk of what an advisor does is helping a plan sponsor minimize their fiduciary duty, is it a proper plan expense to use assets to pay for...more
When I think of Gucci, I think of a high-priced brand. Coincidentally or not, they are being accused of running a high-priced 401(k) plan. Selling high-priced leather goods is OK, running an expensive 401(k) plan is not....more
I guess my comments regarding revenue sharing is a bit sarcastic, but I think accurate. While revenue sharing payments from mutual funds to TPA to help defray the costs of administration of a plan sponsor’s plan is legal, it...more
How You Can Stand Out From The Crowd As A Retirement Plan Advisor. It would be a detriment to focus only on this stuff. There are lots of financial advisors who claim they handle retirement plans, but there are...more
Editor’s Overview - In 2016, we saw a considerable uptick in the number and variety of excessive fee lawsuits commenced against plan fiduciaries of defined contribution plans. We begin the year by taking a look at these...more
With an April 2017 deadline fast approaching, the Department of Labor (DOL) issues another frequently asked questions (FAQs) concerning the fiduciary rule which is always nice to get their interpretations of the rules with...more
When I first started in the business in 1998, daily valued, participant 401(k) plans were starting to become a big deal because the technology caught up with the idea of plan participants directed investments and that their...more
Thanks to the new Fiduciary Rule, I believe that you’re going to see more index funds in 401(k) plans. However, that’s no surprise because that‘s the way we’ve been heading now for the past 15+ years....more
When I first started in the 401(k) plan business in 1998, it was a boom time for the stock market and mutual funds. That got plan sponsors wanting daily valued participant directed 401(k) plans and that helped put almost an...more
Retirement plan revenue sharing has a bad reputation. Numerous lawsuits have been filed during the past year against employers that sponsor 401(k) plans alleging breach of fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income...more
Editor's Overview - This month we take a look at the plaintiffs' past successes in fee litigations, and the influx of such lawsuits seeking to impose heightened fiduciary standards for 401(k) plans. Regardless of the...more
When I was a kid in the 1970’s, disco was the biggest thing. By 1980, disco was dead thanks to a backlash. People didn’t know it at the time, but disco died the night of July 12, 1979, thanks to the riot during a White Sox...more
A well-respected registered investment advisor was recently named as a defendant in a class-action lawsuit against a $1 billion 401(k) plan. I’m not going to cite the particulars and I’m not going to opine because a...more