If this message looks garbled to you or if the headlines in this message don't connect you to Web pages when you click on them, please request the "plain text" version of this newsletter ("Retirement Plans Edition") by emailing your request to publisher Dave Baker
March 16, 2001
Today's sponsor: Employee Benefits Business for Sale (click)
IRS Clarifies 403(b) Required Beginning Date Rule
Excerpt: "An IRS official involved with the drafting of the new proposed required minimum distribution (RMD) regulations has confirmed there is an important typographical error in regulations regarding 403(b) plans. The error substantially changes the meaning of the regulation's 403(b) provisions and would result in an unintended change in the required beginning date (RBD) determination for 403(b) plans." (Corbel)
Senate Panel OKs Raising Pilot Retirement Age
Excerpt: "Airline passengers might see more pilots sporting the "gray hair of experience" if a bill passed Thursday by the Senate Commerce Committee becomes law. One of three bills reported out by the committee in hopes of improving U.S. airline service is a measure that would raise the mandatory retirement age for commercial airline pilots to 63 from 60. The bills now goes to the full Senate for consideration." (CNN.com)
Outboard Marine, in Revised Move to End Pension Plan, Seeks Alternative to PBGC Trusteeship
Excerpt: "Outboard Marine Corp. has decided to explore arrangements with private insurers for ending its underfunded pension plan, the company confirmed with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) by letter today. In such an arrangement, a designated insurance company would pay benefits to plan participants." (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation)
Education IRAs Might Be Expanded
Excerpt: "The Senate Finance Committee on March 13 unanimously approved a package of education-related tax changes that included an expansion of education IRAs and permanent extension of the Section 127 income exclusion for employer-provided educational assistance for both undergraduate and graduate expenses." (Ernst & Young)
What's Uncle Sam Got Up His Sleeve? a Safe Place to Save for Retirement
Excerpt: "Apart from the TSP, though, the government offers an investment vehicle featuring guaranteed returns -- the little-known "voluntary contributions" program. The program is open only to employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System and the CSRS Offset, and it gives those 1.1 million workers a way to supplement their regular pension benefits and their contributions to the TSP." (Washington Post)
IRS Won't Abate Estimated Tax Penalty Resulting from Rollover to Roth IRA
Excerpt: "Roth IRA rollovers have created a number of issues for taxpayers, including whether they should increase their withholding and/or estimated tax payments in the year of the rollover to account for the taxes due on the conversion. In a recent legal memo, Pamela W. Fuller, the Acting Chief of Branch 1 (Administrative Provisions and Judicial Practice) examined this issue, and specifically, whether the IRS can abate the estimated tax penalty (ILM 200105062)." (Practitioners Publishing Company)
ACLI Cites Portman-Cardin Pension Reform Act as Critical
Excerpt: "The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) today praised Reps. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) for reintroducing pension reform and retirement savings legislation and urged its inclusion in any package of individual tax cut legislation that moves through Congress." (PR Newswire)
ASPA Spearheads Development of PassPensionReform.org Web Site
Excerpt: "PassPensionReform.org is preparing a national petition that will be submitted to Congress and the President demonstrating that increasing retirement savings is a critical priority for working Americans. The national petition will say, 'The undersigned urge the Congress and the President to enact legislation to expand retirement savings this year.'" (American Society of Pension Actuaries)
IRS Voluntary Correction Programs Expanded and Updated
Excerpt: "Revenue Procedure 2001-17 ... offers a number of significant improvements that will be especially useful in business transactions such as mergers, and will enable service plan providers to correct their errors more easily." (Deloitte & Touche)
Latest Results of Aon Consulting/Georgia State University Retirement Income Replacement Ratio Study
Excerpt: "Since completing a groundbreaking study in 1988, Aon Consulting and Georgia State University have continued to update their research on benchmarking retirement income needs. This article previews the results of the year 2001 report, which is the fifth iteration of the study. This study helps identify realistic benchmarks for retirement income based on actual savings and expenditure patterns from an extremely large and credible database." (Aon Consulting)
Stock Slide May Sap Company Profits From Pensions
Excerpt: "Investors already reeling from the stream of bad news hitting Corporate America are in for another nasty surprise as plunging stocks erode pension fund gains that have supported earnings at some major companies in recent years. When corporations report earnings, they include any gains in their pension fund plan as net income, a paper return that can offset steep losses." (Reuters via Excite News)
(Following items also appear in Welfare Plans Edition)
Looking to Buy an Employee Benefits Business? Be Notified of New Opportunities by Email, No Charge
Receive an email with the text of each new ad, within minutes after it is posted on our Employee Benefits Businesses For Sale page. Sign up for the 'benefits-businesses' mailing list sponsored by BenefitsLink, at no charge. Your email address will not be disclosed to any persons or used for any other purpose. (BenefitsLink)
Employee Benefits Business For Sale: Find 'em or Sell 'em Using Our New Online Listing
View our online listing of Employee Benefits Businesses For Sale! No charge to access any of the information. For just $200, you can list your business and all the particulars, using our page to reach prospective buyers for your business nationwide. (Over 7,000 people use this site per day; over 71,000 different people per month!) And you know why they're here: for employee benefits compliance information and tools. There's no better place to advertise your Employee Benefits Business For Sale. (BenefitsLink)
Human Resources' Top Five Benefit Priorities
Excerpt: "For the second straight year, nearly three-quarters of human resources professionals rank controlling health care costs as their number one professional priority. These concerns were ranked in the Top 5 Benefit Priorities for 2001 survey (the sixth annual) jointly conducted by the International Society of Certified Employee Benefits Specialists and Deloitte & Touche's Human Capital Advisory Services." (Deloitte & Touche)
Regulatory Blitz and New Administration's Review
Excerpt: "Human Capital I.Q. offers the following chart to summarize some of the most important regulatory guidance, rather than including a complete analysis of each new guidance." (Deloitte & Touche)
Graef Crystal: GE CEO Welch's Pay Shows Capitalism's Ugly Side
Excerpt: "News that General Electric Co.'s Jack Welch made $136 million in 2000 -- an 80 percent increase over 1999 even as total shareholder return fell 6 percent -- convinces me the inmates now run the executive-pay asylum. Luckily, Welch is finally packing it in at yearend: a few more sessions with his compensation committee and Welch might have seen his pay exceed the U.S. gross national product." (Graef Crystal, on Bloomberg.com)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings ( Post Yours! )
Newly Posted Conferences ( Post Yours! )
Subscribe to the Welfare Plans Edition, too (click)
Copyright 2001 BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
You may freely distribute this email newsletter in whole.
Click here to learn how your company can sponsor a future issue!
BenefitsLink is a trademark of BenefitsLink.com, Inc., published by Dave Baker with much help from Mary Hall and lots of friends.
To subscribe (free): visit https://benefitslink.com/newsletter - or the person desiring to subscribe can send an email to BLretirement@add.mb00.net
To unsubscribe: visit https://benefitslink.com/newsletter - or you can send an email to BLretirement@remove.mb00.net
We have an online archive of prior issues at
https://benefitslink.com/newsletters/
The BenefitsLink Newsletter -
Retirement Plans Edition
Retirement Plans Edition
March 16, 2001
Today's sponsor: Employee Benefits Business for Sale (click)
View our online listing of Employee Benefits Businesses For Sale! No charge to access any of the information. For just $200, you can list your business and all the particulars, using our page to reach prospective buyers for your business nationwide. (Over 7,000 people use this site per day; over 71,000 different people per month!) And you know why they're here: for employee benefits compliance information and tools. There's no better place to advertise your Employee Benefits Business For Sale.
IRS Clarifies 403(b) Required Beginning Date Rule
Excerpt: "An IRS official involved with the drafting of the new proposed required minimum distribution (RMD) regulations has confirmed there is an important typographical error in regulations regarding 403(b) plans. The error substantially changes the meaning of the regulation's 403(b) provisions and would result in an unintended change in the required beginning date (RBD) determination for 403(b) plans." (Corbel)
Senate Panel OKs Raising Pilot Retirement Age
Excerpt: "Airline passengers might see more pilots sporting the "gray hair of experience" if a bill passed Thursday by the Senate Commerce Committee becomes law. One of three bills reported out by the committee in hopes of improving U.S. airline service is a measure that would raise the mandatory retirement age for commercial airline pilots to 63 from 60. The bills now goes to the full Senate for consideration." (CNN.com)
Outboard Marine, in Revised Move to End Pension Plan, Seeks Alternative to PBGC Trusteeship
Excerpt: "Outboard Marine Corp. has decided to explore arrangements with private insurers for ending its underfunded pension plan, the company confirmed with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) by letter today. In such an arrangement, a designated insurance company would pay benefits to plan participants." (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation)
Education IRAs Might Be Expanded
Excerpt: "The Senate Finance Committee on March 13 unanimously approved a package of education-related tax changes that included an expansion of education IRAs and permanent extension of the Section 127 income exclusion for employer-provided educational assistance for both undergraduate and graduate expenses." (Ernst & Young)
What's Uncle Sam Got Up His Sleeve? a Safe Place to Save for Retirement
Excerpt: "Apart from the TSP, though, the government offers an investment vehicle featuring guaranteed returns -- the little-known "voluntary contributions" program. The program is open only to employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System and the CSRS Offset, and it gives those 1.1 million workers a way to supplement their regular pension benefits and their contributions to the TSP." (Washington Post)
IRS Won't Abate Estimated Tax Penalty Resulting from Rollover to Roth IRA
Excerpt: "Roth IRA rollovers have created a number of issues for taxpayers, including whether they should increase their withholding and/or estimated tax payments in the year of the rollover to account for the taxes due on the conversion. In a recent legal memo, Pamela W. Fuller, the Acting Chief of Branch 1 (Administrative Provisions and Judicial Practice) examined this issue, and specifically, whether the IRS can abate the estimated tax penalty (ILM 200105062)." (Practitioners Publishing Company)
ACLI Cites Portman-Cardin Pension Reform Act as Critical
Excerpt: "The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) today praised Reps. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) for reintroducing pension reform and retirement savings legislation and urged its inclusion in any package of individual tax cut legislation that moves through Congress." (PR Newswire)
ASPA Spearheads Development of PassPensionReform.org Web Site
Excerpt: "PassPensionReform.org is preparing a national petition that will be submitted to Congress and the President demonstrating that increasing retirement savings is a critical priority for working Americans. The national petition will say, 'The undersigned urge the Congress and the President to enact legislation to expand retirement savings this year.'" (American Society of Pension Actuaries)
IRS Voluntary Correction Programs Expanded and Updated
Excerpt: "Revenue Procedure 2001-17 ... offers a number of significant improvements that will be especially useful in business transactions such as mergers, and will enable service plan providers to correct their errors more easily." (Deloitte & Touche)
Latest Results of Aon Consulting/Georgia State University Retirement Income Replacement Ratio Study
Excerpt: "Since completing a groundbreaking study in 1988, Aon Consulting and Georgia State University have continued to update their research on benchmarking retirement income needs. This article previews the results of the year 2001 report, which is the fifth iteration of the study. This study helps identify realistic benchmarks for retirement income based on actual savings and expenditure patterns from an extremely large and credible database." (Aon Consulting)
Stock Slide May Sap Company Profits From Pensions
Excerpt: "Investors already reeling from the stream of bad news hitting Corporate America are in for another nasty surprise as plunging stocks erode pension fund gains that have supported earnings at some major companies in recent years. When corporations report earnings, they include any gains in their pension fund plan as net income, a paper return that can offset steep losses." (Reuters via Excite News)
Looking to Buy an Employee Benefits Business? Be Notified of New Opportunities by Email, No Charge
Receive an email with the text of each new ad, within minutes after it is posted on our Employee Benefits Businesses For Sale page. Sign up for the 'benefits-businesses' mailing list sponsored by BenefitsLink, at no charge. Your email address will not be disclosed to any persons or used for any other purpose. (BenefitsLink)
Employee Benefits Business For Sale: Find 'em or Sell 'em Using Our New Online Listing
View our online listing of Employee Benefits Businesses For Sale! No charge to access any of the information. For just $200, you can list your business and all the particulars, using our page to reach prospective buyers for your business nationwide. (Over 7,000 people use this site per day; over 71,000 different people per month!) And you know why they're here: for employee benefits compliance information and tools. There's no better place to advertise your Employee Benefits Business For Sale. (BenefitsLink)
Human Resources' Top Five Benefit Priorities
Excerpt: "For the second straight year, nearly three-quarters of human resources professionals rank controlling health care costs as their number one professional priority. These concerns were ranked in the Top 5 Benefit Priorities for 2001 survey (the sixth annual) jointly conducted by the International Society of Certified Employee Benefits Specialists and Deloitte & Touche's Human Capital Advisory Services." (Deloitte & Touche)
Regulatory Blitz and New Administration's Review
Excerpt: "Human Capital I.Q. offers the following chart to summarize some of the most important regulatory guidance, rather than including a complete analysis of each new guidance." (Deloitte & Touche)
Graef Crystal: GE CEO Welch's Pay Shows Capitalism's Ugly Side
Excerpt: "News that General Electric Co.'s Jack Welch made $136 million in 2000 -- an 80 percent increase over 1999 even as total shareholder return fell 6 percent -- convinces me the inmates now run the executive-pay asylum. Luckily, Welch is finally packing it in at yearend: a few more sessions with his compensation committee and Welch might have seen his pay exceed the U.S. gross national product." (Graef Crystal, on Bloomberg.com)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings ( Post Yours! )
for Pension Investors Corporation
in FL
in FL
for The Stratevest Group
in NY
in NY
for The Pension Planning Group, Ltd.
in NY
in NY
for New York City Law Firm
in NY
in NY
for Fidelity Investments
in MA
in MA
for Philips PACE - A Division of Philips Electronics North America
in FL
in FL
for Clark Bardes Consulting/Compensation Resource Group
in IL
in IL
for Clark Bardes Consulting/Compensation Resource Group
in IL
in IL
Newly Posted Conferences ( Post Yours! )
in GA
on May 21, 2001
presented by IQPC
presented by IQPC
Subscribe to the Welfare Plans Edition, too (click)
Copyright 2001 BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
You may freely distribute this email newsletter in whole.
Click here to learn how your company can sponsor a future issue!
BenefitsLink is a trademark of BenefitsLink.com, Inc., published by Dave Baker with much help from Mary Hall and lots of friends.
To subscribe (free): visit https://benefitslink.com/newsletter - or the person desiring to subscribe can send an email to BLretirement@add.mb00.net
To unsubscribe: visit https://benefitslink.com/newsletter - or you can send an email to BLretirement@remove.mb00.net
We have an online archive of prior issues at
https://benefitslink.com/newsletters/