Insight
This site is brought to you by J.P. Morgan to help you stay on top of current happenings in the employee benefits world. Our goal is to provide strategic insights to employers that sponsor retirement, health & wellness, and compensation plans, based on ongoing developments on legislative, regulatory, and litigation fronts.
If these articles are helpful to you, we encourage you to subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter by clicking the "Insight Subscription" link to the left.
| Recent Articles |
|
|
| Feb 4, 2010 | February 2010 pension legislative outlook – Administration and Congressional initiatives President Obama recently announced his five "middle class" initiatives. In this article we review two of them – the automatic workplace IRAs and expanded Saver's Credit proposals. We also provide an update on the other retirement policy issues we've been tracking – DB funding relief, 401(k) fee disclosure and participant investment advice regulations. |
| Jan 29, 2010 | Pension finance update – 2009 summary Rounding out our 2009 pension finance series, in this article we review the month of December and look back on the 2009 year. |
| Jan 29, 2010 | Treasury and IRS publish guidance providing relief for certain plan document failures under Code section 409A Treasury and the IRS recently issued Notice 2010-6, providing relief for certain documentary failures under Code section 409A. Here we review the notice and how employers may use the guidance to their advantage. |
| Jan 29, 2010 | DOL issues Avatar opinion letter The DOL recently issued Advisory Opinion 2009-04A in response to a request from Avatar Associates, LLC. Avatar's request effectively challenged the scope of ERISA's mutual fund exemption. Under the exemption generally, mutual fund shares, such as those in a target date fund, are ERISA plan assets. The assets in which the mutual fund invests in however, are not. Here we review the DOL's response to Avatar. |
| Jan 14, 2010 | Senators introduce bill requiring disclosure of annuity value of account balances A group of Congressmen recently introduced the "Lifetime Income Disclosure Act," S. 2832, which would amend the disclosure provisions of ERISA. The bill would require plan administrators to report a "lifetime income disclosure" on at least an annual basis for all individual plan accounts In this article we examine the concept of a lifetime income disclosure, and what implications, if passed, this bill would present for plan sponsors. |
| Jan 14, 2010 | PBGC proposes revisions to reportable event regulations The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation recently proposed changes to ERISA Title IV reportable event requirements. The changes are broad and some sponsors may find compliance difficult. In this article we review the reportable event rules generally and then provide a detailed review of key elements of the proposed rule. |
| Jan 14, 2010 | COBRA subsidy extension becomes law Congress recently passed H.R. 3326 legislation extending both the timeframe and the duration of the COBRA subsidy created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. President Obama signed it into law late last year. In this article we review the bill. |
| Jan 8, 2010 | Current pension legislative outlook – Reviewing 2009 and looking forward to 2010 As 2009, a transitional year for policymaking, ends and a new year begins, we review the major retirement plan initiatives of the past year and look forward to what we think might be in store in 2010. |
| Jan 8, 2010 | Underfunded pensions and executive compensation The Government Accountability Office released a report detailing the executive compensation practices of 10 firms that also terminated (in connection with bankruptcy) the underfunded pension plans they sponsored. In this article, we review the findings of the report and their potential implications on the link between pension funding and executive compensation. |
| Jan 7, 2010 | Ready! Fire! Aim? 2009 In 2007, J.P. Morgan Asset Management published Ready! Fire! Aim? How some target date fund designs are missing the mark on providing retirement security to those who need it most. With that study, J.P. Morgan addressed the question of whether target date strategies were delivering on their full potential to help 401(k) participants meet their retirement funding needs. That white paper has been updated. |
| Dec 22, 2009 | House Democrats introduce bill amending qualified plan nondiscrimination rules Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) recently introduced H.R. 4126, the "Retirement Fairness Act of 2009," which would significantly strengthen the qualified plan nondiscrimination rules and potentially jeopardize the qualified status of many plans. |