PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - New IRS Guidance on SECURE 2.0 Act Student Loan Employer Contributions
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Understanding Lifetime Income Products
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Trends in Recordkeeper Consolidation and Due Diligence
Long-Term Part-Time Employee Eligibility Rules Now in Effect — Troutman Pepper Podcast
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - What the J&J Case Means for Plan Administrators
What Can A Tax Attorney Do For You? A Podcast With Janathan Allen
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Understanding Fees in Retirement Planning
The No Surprises Act: A Cost Saving Opportunity for Employer Plan Sponsors
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - ESG Investing by Retirement Plans
Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation: Getting Ready for 2024 – Top-Hat Plans — Special Edition Podcast
Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation: Getting Ready for 2024 - Health and Welfare Plan Developments — Special Edition Podcast
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Auto-Portability: A New Way to Keep Retirement Savings Growing
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - IRS 2024 Health Plan Affordability Threshold May Put Some at Risk
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - SECURE 2.0 Act Relief for Plan Corrections
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Partial Plan Terminations
Podcast Episode 189: Adding Context to Compliance and Color To Your Legal Practice
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - SECURE 2.0 Act - More Relief for Plan Administrators
The Burr Broadcast April 2023 - The Official End of COVID-19 Emergencies
#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
Baseball season has just started, and retirement plan auditing season will soon kick into high gear. Many plan sponsors don’t see the value of a good auditor; they just see the audit as a cost of doing business. That’s too...more
One question that often comes up is whether an expense related to an ERISA plan can be paid with plan assets. The decision of whether to use ERISA plan assets to pay an expense is an ERISA fiduciary decision. With the recent...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) recently removed one regulatory hurdle for public companies that maintain employee benefit plans subject to the Form 5500 requirement. Specifically, the DOL has relaxed the criteria for who...more
For many retirement plan sponsors, Form 5500 preparation season is underway. Plan sponsors should be aware that things have changed with the Form 5500 audit requirements and procedures. These changes push more...more
Attorneys from our Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation practice provide insights on current issues facing various types of employee benefits programs. Topics include: - Cybersecurity - DOL Audit Initiatives -...more
Attorneys have a bad reputation and a lot of times, it’s warranted. I jokingly said I knew why people hated lawyers just by going to law school....more
In June the Internal Revenue Service released an updated Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Audit Technique Guide. This updated Guide replaces the initial Guide published in 2015. While it is too early to say whether the...more
To increase protections for the estimated $9.3 trillion in American retirement assets, the Department of Labor (DOL) has begun a new cybersecurity audit initiative for retirement plans. After providing its first set of...more
The worst thing you can do is to handle things that you can’t. The one thing that plan sponsors can’t handle and shouldn’t is when they are contacted by the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Labor for an audit of...more
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) issued a new audit standard for employee benefit plans in July 2019. The new standard is commonly referred to as SAS 136, but its official name is “Statement on...more
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Labor (the “DOL”) issued informal guidance outlining “best practices” for managing the cybersecurity risks facing employer-sponsored retirement plans. Although the DOL has...more
On April 14, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released three-part guidance on cybersecurity issues for employee benefit plans, marking its first significant commentary on the issue since its comprehensive but...more
The Employee Benefits Security Administration of the United States Department of Labor (“EBSA”) recently published guidance regarding cybersecurity best practices for recordkeepers and service providers responsible for plan...more
It’s an easy requirement that many plan sponsors think they’ve accomplished, but they haven’t received the right one. We’re talking about an ERISA bond and often plan sponsors on a Department of Labor audit are told by the...more
When you get pulled over by the police while driving, the best way to handle is to be pleasant and not be argumentative. You listen to the officer as to why he pulled over. Being belligerent and non-cooperative will only lead...more
As an ERISA attorney, 3(16) plan administrator, and sponsor of several 401(k) plans that needed an audit completed by October 15th to file the Form 5500 on-time, I will have to say I’ve noticed a discrepancy among audit...more
I hate to do things last minute. I passed three different state bar exams and I never studied the day before. So when it comes to being an ERISA attorney and/or ERISA §3(16) plan administrator for a few handfuls of 401(k)...more
When you’re filing that Form 5500, just notice that certain answers may likely lead you to an Internal Revenue Service or Department of Labor audit....more
An employer is required to file an annual audit report of its retirement plan with the federal government if the plan has over 100 participants. Form 5500 submissions that omit a required audit report in any year invite...more
...This issue of SuperVision is dedicated to questions our friends and clients may have regarding insurance and benefit topics. While not a common part of the Labor & Employment field, Spilman prides itself on having...more
Over the past several years, the IRS has renewed its focus on auditing Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), in part because of allegedly abusive arrangements (for a quick overview, see Courtney’s ESOP post). Unfortunately,...more
Using Your Payroll Provider As Your 401(k) TPA Is A Big Mistake. It's an absolute mistake. Like beating a dead horse, I will again say that it is a bad idea for plan sponsors to hire their payroll provider as their...more
In Depth - Recent reports show that the number of retirement plan audits by government agencies is increasing. A survey released by Willis Towers Watson indicates that one in every three plan sponsors has experienced a...more
The New Fiduciary Rule: What It Means To Plan Sponsors - Bottom line: what does it mean? More than a dozen years ago, there was a medical report that dental plaque could cause heart disease. I thought it was some...more
The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently released “Assessing the Quality of Employee Benefit Plan Audits,” a comprehensive report reviewing the quality of audit work...more