DATAIR Employee Benefit Systems, Inc.

Account Manager
United Retirement Plan Consultants
in CA, MD, NJ, PA, RI

Customer Service Manager
Primark Benefits
in CA

401(k) Pension Administrator
Nicholas Pension Consultants
in CA

Account Manager - Group Business
MassMutual Financial Group
in MA

ERISA / Employee Benefits Paralegal
Sherman & Howard L.L.C.
in CO

Senior Compliance Testing Specialist
Kravitz, Inc.
in CA

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Affordable Care Act End-to-End Compliance
January 22, 2015 WEBCAST
(Benefitfocus)

Tracking, Reporting and Auditing Under the ACA...What You Don?t Know Can Hurt You
January 27, 2015 WEBCAST
(Benefitfocus)

SHOP Marketplace Series
February 3, 2015 WEBCAST
(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS])

SHOP Marketplace Series
February 10, 2015 WEBCAST
(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS])

401(k) Plans: Beyond the Basics - Dallas
February 17, 2015 in TX
(SunGard Relius)

401(k) Plans: Beyond the Basics - Chicago
February 24, 2015 in IL
(SunGard Relius)

Private Exchange Forum
March 31, 2015 in TX
(Institute for HealthCare Consumerism)

View All Webcasts and Conferences

Text of Instructions for 2014 IRS Form 5500-EZ: Annual Return of One-Participant (Owners and Their Spouses) Retirement Plan (PDF)
"What's New[:] ... [1] A Form 5500-SF, Short Form Annual Return/Report of Small Employee Benefit Plan, may be filed electronically for one-participant plans and certain foreign plans instead of Form 5500-EZ regardless of whether or not the plan covered more than 100 participants at the beginning of the plan year. [2] A new check box has been added to Form 5500-SF, Part I, A, for certain foreign plans that are submitting Form 5500-SF in place of Form 5500-EZ (on paper) to satisfy the annual return/report filing obligations under the Code." [Also online: 2014 Form 5500-EZ ] (Internal Revenue Service [IRS])

[Advert.]

Will the Department of Labor Expand Fiduciary Status?

Download this special report to understand the impacts of the DOL Amicus Brief Program, whether it will expand the definition of fiduciary and the implications to providers.

Text of Instructions for 2014 IRS Form 5329: Additional Taxes on Qualified Plans (Including IRAs) and Other Tax-Favored Accounts (PDF)
"Use Form 5329 to report additional taxes on: IRAs, Other qualified retirement plans, Modified endowment contracts, Coverdell ESAs, QTPs, Archer MSAs, or HSAs.... File Form 5329 with your 2014 Form 1040 or Form 1040NR by the due date, including extensions, of your Form 1040 or Form 1040NR." (Internal Revenue Service [IRS])

Congress Revises PBGC's Controversial Substantial Cessation Liability Rule (PDF)
5 pages. "The new section 4062(e) applies to cessations of operations on or after the date of enactment, December 18, 2014. Employers that previously had substantial cessations under the old law, but have not yet arranged with the PBGC to satisfy their 4062(e) liability, are allowed to elect the new additional contribution option. The due date for the election is 30 days after the PBGC issues a final post-enactment administrative determination that a substantial cessation has occurred. Apparently, employers need do nothing until the PBGC takes action, even if the existence of a substantial cessation has previously been acknowledged. Cautious plan sponsors may, however, wish to take the initiative and submit election notifications by January 17, 2015, the 30th day after enactment." (Steptoe & Johnson LLP)

IRS Releases 2015 Forms 1099-R, 5498, and Instructions
"One notable change for 2015 is that reporting of certain hard-to-value assets on Forms 5498 and 1099-R is no longer optional. Identifying and reporting the fair market values of IRA assets that are non-publicly-traded stock, debt obligations, real estate, securities options, partnership interests, etc., was described in the 2014 instructions as being optional for 2014. Such optional language is no longer present in the final 2015 detailed instructions." (Ascensus)

Helping Participants Manage 'Longevity Risk' in DC Plans: New QLAC Rules Provide a Small First Step (PDF)
"Although group rates are usually lower than individual rates, individual purchase rates for men may be lower than the unisex group purchase rates. These pricing differences mean that group purchasing power ... which is one of the key advantages of retirement plans, is reduced -- or perhaps lost entirely. As a result, women generally would benefit from purchasing QLACs within the plan and men might benefit from purchasing them within IRAs.... Plan sponsors should consider any plan change or enhancement, in the context of ... [1] The benefit provided, [2] Costs, [3] Operational and fiduciary concerns, [4] The increasing need for appropriate drawdown processes, and [5] The role the plan will play in meeting participants' retirement-income needs." (Segal Consulting)

Benefit Responsiveness in a DC Plan: Fair Market Value Versus Contract Value
"Benefit responsiveness provides preservation of principal and a stable crediting rate by amortizing gains and losses over the duration of the portfolio, smoothing market volatility. This smoothing is triggered through the rate reset mechanism and insulates a portfolio against day-to-day volatility ... It's the plan sponsor's responsibility to determine whether the fair market valuation is appropriate, and in many situations this can be a challenging process." (Moss Adams LLP)

Four Ways to Design 401(k) Plans That Connect with Your Employees
"[1] Embrace baby steps. Any undertaking outside of what's familiar can be daunting.... [2] Where possible, look for ways to simplify the process and keep it simple, which will go a long way toward increasing the number of those saving in, and benefiting from, these plans.... [3] Make saving and asset allocation automatic.... [4] Give participants someone to talk to." (The Wells Fargo Blog)

Avon Products Faces Participant Stock Drop Lawsuit
"The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York claims that when Avon became aware that its foreign subsidiaries had engaged in violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), it engaged in a cover up rather than make the investing public and participants in its retirement plan aware of the misconduct. The suit says the misinformation kept Avon's stock trading at artificially high prices for years." (PLANSPONSOR)

Privatizing Railroad Retirement (PDF)
126 pages. "Railroad Retirement covers workers who are primarily employed by large rail corporations and represented by strong rail labor unions. In the late 1990s, these employers and unions developed a plan to privatize the investment of Railroad Retirement assets. These assets, until then, had only been invested in government bonds.... Congress enacted the industry plan in 2001 with one major change: it allowed the investment of Railroad Retirement assets in equities, but it removed, as best it could, government involvement in the investment process.... [This] book analyzes this reform and its implications going forward ... [and] discusses implications for Social Security." (Upjohn Institute)

Investment Company Institute Comment Letter to OMB on DOL Proposed Focus Groups to Evaluate 408(b)(2) Disclosure Guide (PDF)
18 pages. "Using results from six focus groups consisting of small pension plan fiduciaries, one focus group consisting of fiduciaries to plans with 100 to 999 participants, and one focus group consisting of fiduciaries to plans with 1000 or more participants as the sole basis for making observations about the preferences off over 43,000 small and large [DB] plans and more than 630,000 small and large [DC] plans with over 90 million active participants combined would strain statistical credibility. It is misleading to analyze a focus group as representative of a population." (Investment Company Institute [ICI])

Revisiting K-12 School District 403(b) Agreements
"Once an individual retail investor signs an account application agreement with a provider of investment products and services such as a stock brokerage firm, that person enters into a world in which the deck is largely stacked against him.... [W]hen decision-makers -- gate-keepers -- for a retirement plan are woefully ignorant (or are lazy or just don't care) about the possible deleterious consequences that may impact hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of participants in retirement plans over which such decision-makers hold sway, that, as they say, is a whole different kettle of fish." (Morningstar Advisor)

2014 in Review: ERISA Individual Prohibited Transaction Exemptions and Advisory Opinions (PDF)
"For the first time since the enactment of ERISA in 1974, DOL issued no ERISA advisory opinions in 2014. It made use of other forms of advance guidance -- information letters, technical releases and field assistance bulletins -- at about the same rate as recent years. Continuing a pattern, DOL issued eleven individual exemptions from the ERISA prohibited transaction rules and six EXPRO exemptions. The number of individual and EXPRO exemptions issued in recent years continues to trend downward, from a combined peak of 51 in 2009 to only 17 in 2014." (Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP)

ERISA Settlements Top $1 Billion in 2014
"The settlement figures for the biggest ERISA cases were higher in 2014 than at any other time in recent history. In 2011, sponsors settled nearly $900 million in the largest cases, the only time since 2009 when the figures were remotely close to last year's record numbers. Settlement figures for other areas of labor law paled in comparison: $215 million was settled in wage and hour class-actions, and about $228 million in employee discrimination cases." (BenefitsPro)

Financial Wellness: The Next Frontier In Wellness Programs (PDF)
16 pages. "Much attention has been given to the financial risk of outliving one's assets in retirement, but many employees underestimate three more immediate risks -- premature death, illness or injury, and out-of-pocket expenses -- which could cripple their financial well-being tomorrow, next week, or next month. Employees that are not adequately protected against these risks may need to start paying their day-to-day expenses by incurring credit card debt, using lines of credit, or taking loans from their 401(k) plans. Accordingly, this paper focuses on the first three, more immediate threats listed above that may occur during employees' working years." (Prudential)

Segal Consulting Expands Administration & Technology Consulting Practice Segal Consulting

National Public Pension Coalition Announces New Executive Director Bailey Childers National Public Pension Coalition [NPPC]

ConnectYourCare Names Julie Linn Chief Compliance Officer ConnectYourCare

ESOP Economics' Tina DiCroce Promoted to Director; Witold Telezynski Promoted to Senior Analyst ESOP Economics

TRA Offers Solo(k) Retirement Plan as Great Tool for Self-Employed The Retirement Advantage [TRA]

Major Retirement Systems and Public Policy Proposals Graded by Actuaries American Academy of Actuaries

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