By: Lyndsey Barnett and Michaela Taylor*
On June 21, 2022, the Sixth Circuit in Smith v. CommonSpirit Health provided updated guidance for plan sponsors in excessive 401(k) fee complaint cases. In their opinion, which affirmed a September 2021 decision from the Eastern District of Kentucky, the court held that whether an ERISA excessive fee claim ...
By: Kristine Maher & Michaela Taylor
In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Marietta Memorial Hospital Employee Health Benefit Plan v. DaVita, Inc. (No. 20-1641), holding that the health plan's reimbursement rates for outpatient dialysis do not violate the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (MSPA). Graydon analyzed the ...
If you sponsor a self-insured group health plan (or an HRA), make sure you set a calendar alert for July 31 to pay the annual PCORI fee (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute fee) for the 2021 plan year. The PCORI fee and the related IRS Form 720 are due no later than July 31st. The updated form can be found here, and the PCORI fee is reported on Part ...
The IRS launched a new pilot program this month that will greatly benefit employee benefit plan sponsors if they act quickly. The new 90-day Pre-Examination Compliance Pilot Program not only gives plan sponsors an opportunity to correct plan errors prior to an IRS examination, but may reduce sanctions levied by the IRS or reduce the scope of an ...
Maintaining a retirement plan requires knowledge of the law and diligence in application by plan administrators, but even the most prudent administrator can make a mistake. Plan sponsors can often correct mistakes made by following the guidelines in Revenue Procedure 2021-30, otherwise known as the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution ...
As discussed in our prior blog post, the DOL has recently been more receptive to permitting retirement plan fiduciaries to consider Environmental, Social, and Governance issues (“ESG”) when considering investment funds. The DOL’s tentative acceptance of ESG factors in the last few years mirrors an increased participant demand for ...
As a reminder, all defined contribution plans that are on a pre-approved document, including 401(k) and profit sharing plans, must be restated every 6 years. This restatement is necessary even if you have made no design changes to your plan. The current restatement cycle for defined contribution plans opened on August 1, 2020 and ends on July 31 ...
Recently, the U.S. Labor Department issued new guidance regarding the holding or investing in cryptocurrency by 401(k) retirement plans. This new guidance specifically impacts retirement plans that permit participants to use self-directed brokerage accounts to trade individual stocks on their own.
Under the new guidance ...
We frequently receive questions from clients about what to do when an employee misses the window to enroll their new spouse or child. Often the employee has a compelling reason and the employer wants to help, because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be calling me, they would just deny the enrollment as late. In the past few months, I have received a few ...
The SECURE Act, which was passed in late 2019, provided several mandatory changes affecting defined contribution plans. While plans do not have to adopt their SECURE Act amendments until December 31, 2022, plans have already been administering many of the provisions. And while many plans have already been amended and have applied its ...