Pension Protection Act Blog

The Dept. of Labor announced that it has settled with Macristy Industries Inc. and its President, Jeffrey Barlow, for shortages in its cash balance plan. Macristy and Barlow paid $2.1 million into the plan as part of the consent judgment it reached with the DOL.
In January of 2007, the DOL had announced that it […]

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An update to the previous post about patenting plan designs - on May 17th, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) introduced H.R. 2365, a bill to limit damages arising from infringing on a patent for tax planning methods. With a couple of tax method patents pending before the U.S. Patent & Trademark office, including at least […]

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Yesterday was a reminder about the 3-year vesting schedule for cash balance plans. Today is a look at the design requirements for cash balance plans contained in Section 701 of the Pension Protection Act.
Identifying the design requirements does not start with Section 701 of PPA, it actually starts with IRS Notice 2007-6, which enumerates […]

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There have been a lot of reminders about the vesting changes for non-elective contributions made by the Pension Protection Act. Today, in reviewing the cash balance design requirements contained in Section 701 of PPA, I was reminded about the change in vesting requirements for cash balance plans.
In Notice 2007-6, the IRS clarified […]

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The ABA Law Journal recently published an article about patenting legal strategies. The article, by Steve Seidenberg, was published in the May edition and it titled Crisis Pending: Can a Patent on Legal Strategy Prevent a Client From Taking Your Advice? The Courts May Soon Decide.
For retirement plans, an idea crops up […]

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Watson Wyatt released its study today of retirement plans in Fortune 100 companies. It found that, since 1985, sponsorship of defined benefit plans has dropped significantly, from 90 out of 100 companies sponsoring defined benefit plans in 1985, to only 58 of 100 companies sponsoring defined benefit plans in 2006.
The number of […]

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One of the important changes made by the Pension Protection Act was the change to whipsaw calculations for cash balance plans. Last Friday, April 20th, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued one of the first opinions to mention this change, devoting two separate sections of the opinion to PPA.
In an opinion […]

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