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    September 26, 2003 - 13,400 subscribers
    Today's sponsor: APSCREEN, Employee Locator

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    (Please visit our sponsors. We try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)
    FASB: Time to Define Cash-Balance Plans
    Excerpt: "The Financial Accounting Standards Board is considering new rules that could wipe out the appeal of cash balance pension plans, according to published reports." (CFO.com)

    Accounting Regulator to Begin Review of Cash Balance Pensions
    Excerpt: "The body that sets the nation's accounting rules will start a review of rules governing the way companies measure benefit obligations in controversial retirement plans known as cash-balance pensions. The Financial Accounting Standards Board Wednesday voted to add the cash-balance project to its formal agenda." (AP via Washington Post)

    The Stretch IRA
    Excerpt: "One of the great loopholes in modern tax law: retirement accounts that go on compounding for decades after the worker's death, for the benefit of heirs. One of the great morasses of tax complexity: retirement accounts. If you inherited an IRA between 1998 and 2001, or if you plan to leave one to a trust when you die, pay attention: You may need to act now. What follows is complicated, but could produce decades of extra tax deferral for you or your heirs." (Forbes.com)

    Government Pension Fund Trustees Push for NYSE Reorganization
    Excerpt: "An influential group of state and local pension fund officials who collectively manage more than $500 billion in investments today demanded broad reforms at the New York Stock Exchange, including a separation of the exchange's regulatory and business operations and a significantly altered board of directors." (Washington Post)

    Overview: Distribution, Reporting Requirements and Other Testing for Excess Annual Additions
    In chart format. Excerpt: "Excess annual additions should be corrected prior to the end of the next limitation year. Regulations permit correction of excess annual additions by: 1. Returning After-Tax Contributions; 2. Returning Elective Deferrals; 3. Holding Employer Contributions and/or Forfeitures; or 4. Reallocating the Excess Annual Addition." (McKay Hochman Co., Inc.)

    Franco Modigliani Dies; Won Nobel in Economics
    Excerpt: "Working off the earlier ideas of John Maynard Keynes and others, Dr. Modigliani's major contribution to the field of savings was the 'life-cycle hypothesis.' His idea, which helped countries formulate pension and retirement systems, held that people at all levels of society generate savings with retirement in mind -- but for their own final years and not for their descendants." (Washington Post)

    Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General

    Accounting Regulators to Start Testing Stock Options Expensing Program
    Excerpt: "Several high-profile public companies Thursday volunteered to join a 'road-testing' program the Financial Accounting Standards Board expects to kick off soon to determine how best to value employee stock options." (AP via SFGate.com)

    NRLN's Position on Issues and Legislation Affecting Retirees
    Excerpt: "The fundamental mission of the NRLN is to promote and support retiree-friendly legislation, vigorously fight retiree-hostile legislation and to create new legislation when a need is identified. We, currently, list the following legislation and issues, along with a brief explanation of that issue or bill and our present position - for or against." (National Retiree Legislative Network)

    Overview: IRS Final Regulations On Split-Dollar Life Insurance Modify Earlier Proposals
    The Internal Revenue Service has issued final regulations relating to the income, employment, and gift taxation of split-dollar life insurance arrangements. The final regulations adopt both 2002 and 2003 proposed regulations, with certain modifications. The final regulations retain the approach of using the two mutually exclusive regimes--the economic benefit regime and the loan regime--for determining the tax treatment of split-dollar life insurance arrangements. (Spencer Benefits Reports)

    Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
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    Financial Transaction Supervisor
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    in NJ

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    for Nationwide Financial
    in CA, FL, KS, MA, NY

    401(k) / DC Plan Administrator
    for National Associates Metro, Inc.
    in NJ

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