The Tax Cuts & Jobs Act changed the way that certain IRS limits would be indexed. One of the items that was changed was how the HSA contribution limits would be calculated. The indexing change was effective when the Act was passed in December. However, since the HSA contribution limits were already announced for 2018, most people (including myself ...
According to a recent survey done by the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association, 60% of all defined contribution plans currently have an automatic enrollment feature. Automatic enrollment has a proven track record of improving plan participation and increasing savings rates among participants. But the reality is that ...
No plan administrator wants to find out that the protected health information of their plan participants may have been compromised. HIPAA violations and breaches can cause a lot of headaches for a plan administrator and for health plan participants. And if you are one of the unlucky ones that has had to deal with that issue, your first concern was ...
Movin’ On Up was the theme song for The Jeffersons,* which was a 1970s sitcom that celebrated George and Louise Jefferson’s move to a deluxe apartment in the sky. Movin’ on up just became more expensive in 2018 after the changes included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the “TCJA”). First, the TCJA suspends the individual deduction ...
On January 22nd, Congress passed and President Trump signed a stopgap funding bill to reopen the government. Along with reopening the government, this bill also delayed the ACA’s Cadillac Tax for another 2 years so that it is not set to be effective until 2022. The 40% excise tax on high-value health plans was originally set to take effect in 2018. ...
While accountants and tax advisors are scrambling to figure out what steps, if any, their clients should be taking by year end due to the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, many of us in the benefits world are breathing a sigh of relief that some of the proposals relating to qualified retirement plans didn’t make it into the final Act. In a prior post
The IRS recently announced that it extending the deadline for large employers and self-insured group health plans to distribute their Forms 1095-C to employees and plan participants. The normal deadline to distribute Forms 1095-C is January 31st. This IRS announcement delays the deadline for distributing your 2017 forms until March 2 ...
It always amazes me that there are participants who are owed money by their retirement plans that seem to fall off the radar and go missing. But almost all plans, or at least large plans, have former participants that they are unable to locate that still have balances or are due benefits under their retirement plans. They usually find out a participant ...
Last December, the DOL announced the release of regulations that would operate to modify existing administrative procedures for certain disability claims. These regulations, effective on January 18, 2017, were to be applied to claims for disability benefits filed on or after January 1, 2018. As outlined in our previous blog post, some of the ...
Under the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (Act), the flat-rate and variable rate PBGC premiums increased substantially for 2017. The annual per-participant flat rate premiums increased nearly 8% for 2017, and will experience a similar bump for 2018. Under the Act, the variable-rate rate premiums will increase another $4 from 2017 to $38 per $1,000 ...