Search Blog
Subscribe Today
About this Blog
Welcome to the Snell & Wilmer Benefits Blog. We will be posting about current employee benefits and executive compensation topics and issues. We invite you to contact the authors with your thoughts or questions.Blog Contributors
Topics
Useful Websites
Salary Deferrals in the Time of COVID-19
As the saying goes, “drastic times call for drastic measures” and, from an economic standpoint, these are drastic times. To fight the battle to stay in business many employers are considering a wide range of alternatives, including employee furloughs, layoffs and terminations. While some employers may also consider sweeping salary reductions, other employers may consider reducing current salaries with the promise to pay those salaries in the future. Employers taking this latter approach must understand that deferring salaries from 2020 to 2021 (or to some other future year) can create compliance issues under Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code (“409A”). Read More ›
Posted in Employee Benefits, Executive Compensation, Qualified Retirement Plans
| Tagged 409A, coronavirus, covid-19, deferred compensation, pandemic, salary deferral
Share this Article:
U.S. Supreme Court to Decide Standing Question on ERISA Pension Lawsuits
The U.S. Supreme Court is mulling over whether retirement plan participants must demonstrate individual or imminent risk of financial loss before seeking a breach of fiduciary duty action under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). On January 13, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the matter of Thole v. U.S. Bank, N.A. (No. 17-1712), and the Court’s coming decision could have wide-reaching implications for participant standing in ERISA causes of action.
The plaintiffs in Thole, who are participants in a U.S. Bank defined benefit pension plan (the “Plan”), allege that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties by mismanaging and failing to diversify the Plan’s assets. Read More ›
Posted in Employee Benefits, Qualified Retirement Plans
| Tagged diversify, fiduciary duty, overfunding, pension plan, standing, Supreme Court, thole, us bank
Share this Article:
Congress Giveth and They Taketh Away — Recent Health Plan Changes
In enacting the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, (the “Act”), Congress, among other changes, enacted the following key changes affecting employer group health plans:
- Repeal of the Cadillac Tax: Most notably, and a huge relief to most employers, Congress repealed the Cadillac tax. The Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) added a requirement requiring employers to pay a 40% excise tax on the value of “rich” health plans (i.e., those that exceed $10,200 for an individual and $27,500 for a family, indexed for inflation). The excise tax was originally scheduled to take effect for taxable years beginning after 2017, but it was delayed two years by subsequent legislation.
Posted in Employee Benefits, Health & Welfare Plans, Health Care Reform, Qualified Retirement Plans
| Tagged ACA, Affordable Care Act, Cadillac tax, Congress, PCORI
Share this Article:
New Year, New Age: the SECURE Act Increases the Required Minimum Distribution Age to 72
On December 20, 2019, President Trump signed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, a spending bill that includes the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (the “SECURE Act”). The SECURE Act initially passed the House in May, as discussed in our S&W Benefits Blog “The SECURE Act – A Primer on the top Six SECURE Act Changes that could be coming to Retirement Plans Next Year”, but fizzled out in the Senate. The SECURE Act was later added to the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, which passed Congress and was sent to the White House on December 19. Read More ›
Posted in Employee Benefits, Qualified Retirement Plans
| Tagged individual retirement accounts, iras, qualified retirement plans, required minimum distributions, rmd, SECURE ACT
Share this Article:
Enjoy the End of the Decade with Some Employee Benefit Plan Checklists
Each year, we publish health and welfare, cost-of-living, qualified retirement plan, and executive compensation plan checklists to help individuals and employers stay apprised of updates to the law of employee benefits. We just published the last of these annual checklists. In case you missed them, the links are below.
Happy Holidays!
2019 End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” List (Part 1) Health & Welfare
2019 End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” List (Part 2) Annual Cost of Living Adjustments
2019 End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” List (Part 3) Qualified Retirement Plans
2019 End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” List (Part 4) Executive Compensation
Posted in Employee Benefits, Executive Compensation, Health & Welfare Plans, Health Care Reform, Qualified Retirement Plans
| Tagged checklists, COLA, cost-of-living, ERISA, Executive Compensation, Internal Revenue Code, qualified retirement plan, to do list
Share this Article:
IRS Publishes 2019 Required Amendments List
In our 2019 End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” List (Part 3) Qualified Plans, we suggested that sponsors of all qualified retirement plans should be on the lookout for the Internal Revenue Service’s (“IRS”) 2019 Required Amendments List (“2019 RA List”). The IRS recently published Notice 2019-64, which contains the 2019 RA List, https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-19-64.pdf.
Part A of the 2019 RA List addresses changes in qualification requirements that require amendments to most plans (or to the types impacted by the change). The 2019 RA List contains two changes in Part A: those required by final regulations regarding hardship distributions and those required by final regulations regarding collectively bargained cash balance/hybrid defined benefit plans. Read More ›
Posted in Employee Benefits, Qualified Retirement Plans
| Tagged 2019, cash balance, hardship, hybrid defined benefit, Part A, Part B, RAL List, Required Amendments 2019, Required Amendments List
Share this Article:
IRS Issues Final Regulations for Hardship Distributions
We previously reported on the Bipartisan Budget Act (the “Budget Act”) hardship distribution rule changes for qualified retirement plans. On September 23, 2019, the IRS issued final regulations implementing certain statutory changes to the hardship distributions rules, including those required by the Budget Act. The final regulations closely track the proposed regulations issued in November 2018. The following are some of the more significant changes implemented by the final regulations:
- Employers must remove the six-month suspension of a participant’s plan contributions following a hardship distribution occurring on or after January 1, 2020.
- Participants may receive a hardship distribution without first requesting a loan from the plan.
Posted in Employee Benefits, Qualified Retirement Plans
| Tagged amendment, bba, Bipartisan Budget Act, distributions, hardship, natural disasters, qualified plan, withdrawals
Share this Article:
ISS Expands List of Egregious Equity Plan Factors
As reported in prior blogs, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (“ISS”), a leading proxy advisory firm, uses a proprietary “Equity Plan Scorecard” approach to evaluate public company equity compensation plans and will recommend a “for” or “against” vote depending on a combination of plan features, plan cost, company grant practices, etc. Last week ISS issued its Proxy Voting Guideline Updates for 2020, which are generally effective for meetings on or after February 1, 2020 (“2020 Update”). The 2020 Update, among other things, makes changes to the current Equity Plan Scorecard.
Regardless of how a plan scores under the current Equity Plan Scorecard, ISS will generally recommend a vote against a plan proposal if any of the following egregious factors apply: (i) accelerated vesting pursuant to a liberal change in control definition; (ii) provisions that permit the repricing and/or cash out of underwater options or stock appreciation rights without shareholder approval, (iii) provisions that make a plan a vehicle for problematic pay practices or create a pay for performance disconnect, (iv) the plan is excessively dilutive to shareholder holdings, or (v) the plan contains other features that have a significant negative impact on shareholder interests. Read More ›
Posted in Employee Benefits, Qualified Retirement Plans
| Tagged 2020, Glass Lewis, guideline update, ISS, problematic pay practices, Proxy voting
Share this Article:
Retirement Plan Dreams May Go Up in Smoke for Marijuana Companies
Companies in the medical and recreational marijuana industry continue to face an uphill battle for access to financial services. Although a number of states have legalized the medicinal and/or recreational use of marijuana, marijuana remains classified as a Schedule I drug subject to the federal Controlled Substances Act. As such, financial services companies that wish to serve the marijuana industry could find themselves subject to the Bank Secrecy Act and the criminal money laundering provisions. Those challenges are well documented. However, do the same types of challenges exist if a marijuana company wants to sponsor a qualified retirement plan for its employees? Read More ›
Posted in Employee Benefits, Qualified Retirement Plans
| Tagged 401(k), controlled substances act, financial services, IRS, marijuana, money laundering, qualified plan, regulation, weed
Share this Article:
Potential $2.4 Billion and Countless Trees Saved – Department of Labor’s Proposed Rule on Electronic Disclosure for Retirement Plans
The Department of Labor recently issued a proposed rule that allows certain retirement plan disclosures to be posted online, rather than requiring such disclosures to be printed and mailed. The Department of Labor anticipates this rule, if finalized, would save plan sponsors $2.4 billion over the next ten years. The rule is currently in proposed form and will not become effective until 60 days after the final rule is published. As such, plan sponsors may not rely on this proposed rule now.
Current Electronic Disclosure Requirements
In 2002, the Department of Labor issued a safe harbor for the use of electronic media. Read More ›
Share this Article: