Employers are responsible for timely transmitting deferrals and loan repayments to the plan trust for 401(k) plans. So, what is considered timely? Under DOL regulations, employee deferrals and loan repayments become plan assets (and therefore must be deposited in the plan trust to avoid a prohibited transaction) on the earliest date that you ...
Form 5500 filing season is upon us. Each July, we receive calls from clients on items that their plan auditors or Form 5500 preparers have detected. One common question that we receive is “What document is our ‘wrap’ document?” This question is one that never used to be asked by the preparers, but now seems to have made it on most of their ...
After nearly a decade of retirement plan fee litigation involving 401(k) plans, plaintiff firms are focusing on a new class of potential defendants. Recently, 403(b) plans sponsored by universities have become the targets in the ongoing barrage of retirement plan fee litigation. The first wave of coordinated class action lawsuits were filed ...
Some notice requirements are simply just one more administrative burden for the sponsor of a qualified retirement plan. For section 403(b) plans, ensuring that your employees have an effective opportunity to make elective deferrals is imperative. One benefit a 403(b) plan has over a 401(k) plan is that it does not have to comply with certain ...
A broken promise is a terrible thing. Historically, defined benefit pension benefits were the holy grail of promises in the retirement plan world. But, things have changed, especially for multiemployer pension plans after the passing of the Kline-Miller Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (“MPRA”). MPRA does not offer these plans a ...
While Congress continues to battle over how to reform health care reform, employers must continue to comply with the Affordable Care Act, including the employer shared responsibility or pay or play provisions. In order to avoid penalties, large employers must provide “affordable” minimum value coverage to all full-time employees. Prior ...
Generally, a plan administrator’s decision to deny a claim for benefits is subject to the de novo standard of review with no deference given to the plan administrator by the courts. However, after the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Firestone, such determinations are reviewed under the highly deferential standard of abuse of ...
As it does this time each year, the IRS announced the inflation adjusted amounts for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). For calendar year 2018, an individual with self-only high-deductible health plan coverage will be able to contribution $3,450 to an HSA (up from $3,400 in 2017). An individual with family high-deductible health plan coverage will ...
Those of us who follow HIPAA enforcement actions have become accustomed to seeing multi-million dollar settlements with HHS resulting from HIPAA privacy and security violations. Without fail, those large settlements have involved the disclosure of hundreds, or even thousands, of patient records (or in the case of health plans, participant ...
Today the House passed a bill that overhauls many provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The text of the American Health Care Act was first released in early March. The Act repeals most of the Affordable Care Act taxes. There has been much debate over it during the past several months. While some thought the bill may be dead, an amendment to the bill ...