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
| Nov 12, 2009 | Deflation and the effect on benefit plan limits Most 2010 IRS benefit plan limits and Social Security benefits and thresholds remained unchanged from 2009 despite a roughly 2% decrease in the CPI. In this article we look at the implications of this unusual occurrence beyond 2010. |
| Nov 12, 2009 | IRS publishes final PPA funding rules The IRS recently released a copy of final defined benefit funding regulations that indicate changes made by PPA. In this article, we review new provisions not previously covered in our articles and summarize the new funding and benefit restriction rules. |
| Nov 12, 2009 | Retirement income – the axiomatic case for annuities In this second article on the topic of retirement income, we lay out the case for annuities being the investment instrument to provide retirement income. |
| Nov 5, 2009 | Pension finance update – November In our monthly pension finance update, we review changes in market-driven assets and liabilities during the month of October. While both asset levels and discount rates generally fell during the month, funded ratios for many plans will be very similar to those that they experienced at December 31, 2008. |
| Nov 4, 2009 | DB funding relief bill introduced Congressmen Pomeroy (D-ND) and Tiberi (R-OH) have introduced the Preserve Benefit and Jobs Act of 2009, a bill implementing many of the defined benefit plan funding relief proposals being advocated by sponsor and participant groups. In this article we review the bill and its implications for plan sponsors. |
| Oct 28, 2009 | New interim final GINA regulations affect wellness programs The IRS, DOL, and DHHS jointly released interim final regulations on the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act recently. In this article we review the provisions of GINA and their impact on employee wellness programs. |
| Oct 14, 2009 | Pension finance update – October Stocks, generally, have advanced steadily every month since the March trough. Concurrently, there's been a steady downward movement in corporate bond yields. In pension finance terms, what stocks have given, interest rate movements have taken away, pushing pension assets and liabilities alike higher without significantly affecting funded ratios. |
| Oct 09, 2009 | IRS guidance The IRS recently published a myriad of guidance concerning new safe harbor rollover notices, additional information on automatic enrollment/increase arrangements and the contribution of unused paid time off to qualified plans. Here we review the rulings and notices. |
| Oct 09, 2009 | Retirement income – Fundamental issues In this first of a series of articles, we review retirement income "basics" in the United States: competing theories of adequacy, key priorities from both the participant's and the sponsor's point of view, and the role of the employer and the government in providing retirement income. |
| Oct 08, 2009 | IRS will permit switchback to smoothed interest rates for 2010 The IRS recently provided guidance allowing pension plan sponsors the freedom to select a different yield curve basis for 2010 valuations from what is used for 2009. Here we explain why this is great news for plan sponsors and which options most sponsors should avail themselves of. |