defined benefit plan

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Deadlines are a large part of employee benefit plan administration.  The past 12 – 18 months have contributed to potential confusion about standard deadlines and added new deadlines plan administrators will not want to overlook.  During this period, the IRS created a one-time window deadline, published extensions for some plans’ deadlines, and other deadlines were…

What could be in the next stimulus bill in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Congress reportedly is working on a bill (dubbed “Stimulus 3.5”) that includes additional funding for the Paycheck Protection Program created by the CARES Act.  Will the new stimulus bill address long-awaited reforms to the multiemployer pension plan system?

The imminent…

As published by Law360 (January 13, 2020, 5:43 PM EST) —

Following oral arguments that were held in February 2018, in a long-anticipated decision in the National Retirement Fund v. Metz Culinary Management Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a multiemployer pension fund’s use of a lower interest rate…

Since its passage late in 1980, the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act (MPPAA) has proven to be a hindrance to the profitable operations of employers that contribute to multiemployer pension funds by imposing a surprise, and often expensive, obligation (the “withdrawal liability”) on employers across many industries. However, the construction industry is one of a…

In a white paper and technical explanations, Republican Senators Charles E. Grassley (Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance) and Lamar Alexander (Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) have proposed reforms to the multiemployer pension plan system.

If implemented, the proposed reforms (not yet introduced as a bill) would…

Section 104(b)(4) of ERISA provides that a plan administrator must respond to a written request for certain documents (including the plan documents and summary plan description) by a participant or beneficiary by providing the requested documents.  Section 502(c)(1) of ERISA and Regulation § 2575.502(c)-1 provide that a plan administrator who fails to do so within…

The Segal Group is the premier actuarial firm in the country providing services for hundreds of multi-employer pension funds.  For almost 40 years it has used its own methodology, known as the “Segal Blend” to calculate employers’ withdrawal liability successfully without an adverse ruling by either a court or an arbitrator in hundreds of cases.…

The Department of Labor recently issued a fact sheet intended to help employers understand their retirement plan obligations under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (“USERRA”).  The law provides that eligible employees that return to employment following qualified military service must be treated as though their military service was not a…

As imagined by plan sponsors of closed defined benefit pension plans, the IRS issued Notice 2019-49, the fifth extension for an additional year of the temporary nondiscrimination relief for “closed” defined benefit pension plans originally announced by the IRS during 2014.  The extended relief applies to plan years beginning before 2021 for those “closed”…