It’s 2024, which means a new batch of provisions from SECURE Act 2.0 have gone into effect. One of the more significant ones is an increase in the “cashout” limit that a qualified plan can impose to kick former employees with small balances out of their plans.

The cashout limit allows a qualified plan to

The Internal Revenue Service recently announced its cost-of-living adjustments applicable to dollar limitations on benefits and contributions for retirement plans generally effective for Tax Year 2024 (see IRS Notice 2023-75). Most notably, the limitation on annual salary deferrals into a 401(k) or 403(b) plan will increase to $23,000, and the dollar threshold for highly

The February 24, 2023, issuance by the IRS of proposed regulations on the use of forfeitures in qualified retirement plans provides some welcome clarity, regulatory house cleaning, and relief for plan sponsors.  With a proposed effective date of January 1, 2024, these regulations should prompt plan sponsors to review their plan language and procedures for

Baseball season has just started, and retirement plan auditing season will soon kick into high gear. Many plan sponsors don’t see the value of a good auditor; they just see the audit as a cost of doing business. That’s too bad because these days when a plan sponsor becomes aware of an operational problem in

Additional Tools for Employers to Encourage Retirement Savings

Matching Contributions on Student Debt Payments

One of the most eagerly anticipated provisions of the “SECURE 2.0” legislation is the ability for employers to “match” within a defined contribution savings plan employees’ payments of student debt.   This provision is just one of the many changes in SECURE

The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0) eliminates the requirement for plan sponsors to provide certain notices to eligible but unenrolled employees in defined contribution plans, changes the delivery method plan sponsors must use to furnish benefit statements to participants in retirement plans, and modifies the language required in annual funding notices under defined

The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0) contains several provisions that allow the federal government to have its cake (more tax dollars) and eat it too (more retirement savings, easing Social Security challenges). With SECURE 2.0, we find more Roth, more catch-up, and catch-up as Roth. 

More Roth

Named after the late Delaware Senator

As expected, the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0), an extensive piece of legislation aimed at retirement plan reform, is included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (the Spending Bill).  The 4,000+ page, $1.7 trillion Spending Bill was released early morning on Tuesday, December 20, with a passage deadline of Friday, December 23.  If

We recently summarized the regulatory back and forth of the past few years relating to environmental, social, and corporate governance (“ESG”) factors and their impact on ERISA retirement plans and the fiduciaries that oversee them. 

As expected, the Biden administration released a proposed rule last year that re-opened the door (previously closed by the Trump

For those with an eye on ERISA and its fiduciary rules, the past few years have caused whiplash when it comes to environmental, social, and corporate governance (“ESG”) investments in retirement plans.  With a new rule from the Department of Labor imminent, let’s review where we are, how we got here, and what’s next.

ERISA