Pension Protection Act Blog

The Dept. of Labor has issued 3 pieces of guidance on qualified default investment alternatives (QDIAs) - a 2-page correcting amendment for Default Investment Alternatives Under Participant Directed Individual Account Plans, a 2-page Fact Sheet, and Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2008-03, which is 12 pages long.
Section 624(a) of the Pension Protection Act added ERISA section […]

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Paul Secunda has an interesting post today on the Workplace Prof Blog about IBM reclassifying workers from salaried to hourly. The corporate buzzword for this is “reclassification”, and the story, which originated on NPR Marketplace, also mentions FedEx reclassifying drivers as independent contractors, and Allstate reclassifying agents as independent contractors.
For plan documents, the grandfather […]

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Justice Scalia, on 60 Minutes this last Sunday, mentioned that his original plan when he was appointed to the Supreme Court had been to retire from the Court at age 65 because justices can retire from the Court at age 65 at 100% of annual compensation. Instead, he decided to stay on the Court […]

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The IRS issued a correction to the Proposed Regulations on Hybrid Retirement Plans, commonly known as the proposed cash balance plan regulations, which the Service issued on December 27, 2007. Besides correcting a few grammatical errors, the IRS has made a significant change in Proposed Treas. Reg. section 1.411(a)(13)-1. (hat tip to BenefitsLink.com)
The […]

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Today, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Glenn, No. 06-923. MetLife v. Glenn is a case from the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals about conflicts of interest for ERISA administrators. The 6th Circuit reversed the judgment of the district court that MetLife’s decision finding Glenn no […]

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Each year, the IRS issues the Guidance Priority List, containing the list of tax issues that the Service intends to address by issuing regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, notices and other published administrative guidance. In Notice 2008-47, the IRS is inviting the tax community to submit recommendations by May 31, 2008, for guidance to […]

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In the pension geek handbook, Chapter Three is devoted to Urban Plan Legends. You know those stories - someone worked at a firm with an ERISA attorney who went to law school with another ERISA attorney who knows a guy who….. One of my favorite Urban Plan Legends is the one about the […]

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The effective dates for the Code section 430 regulations are an interesting mix.
Congress made new Code section 430 effective to plan years beginning after December 31, 2007. With the Pension Protection Act being enacted into law on August 17, 2006, implementing regulations to encompass the changes made by Code section 430 by December 31, […]

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When Congress created new Code section 430 in Section 112 the Pension Protection Act in 2006, the impact of this new Code section was not immediately clear. The IRS has now provided a clear statement on their belief of the impact of new Code section 430 with the latest installment of proposed regulations for […]

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The new Form 5307 is available at IRS.gov, and it is better. Since the old Form 5307 can be used until September, 2008, and filing season for the EGTRRA defined contribution prototypes and volume submitter plans begins May 1, 2008, we had a competition around the office today to see which Form 5307 is […]

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