Evan and I spoke at the ALI-ABA’s Advance Law of Pensions this past week in San Francisco, probably the leading seminar for experienced employee benefit lawyers in the country. Our topic was "Getting Over The Hump," a 403(b) guide for the non-403(b) practitioner. We’re checking with ALI-ABA for permission to publish our paper and PowerPoint
March 2009
In Defense of Our Colleagues
By Robert Toth on
Posted in General Comment
In our anger at AIG, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and the other holding companies which have sorely abused the public and marketplace trust, we need to recognize the many good men and women in those organizations who will and do put their shoulders to the wheel without demanding ransom; those who believe in their organizations…
The 403(b) Regs Unintended Consequence: The Freezing of Loans and Hardships in a Time of Crisis
By Robert Toth on
Posted in 403(b)
One of the most unfortunate and unintended consequences of the new 403(b) regulations is the freezing of hardship distributions and loans from contracts of "deselected" vendors, at a time when these funds are needed the most.
What at first seemed like an almost esoteric, academic discussion of what to do with contracts which were issued…
ERISA Challenges for Non-ERISA 403(b) Plans
By Robert Toth on
Posted in 403(b), Automatic Workplace Pension
We recently blogged on the similarities between the Automatic Workplace Pension being proposed in President Obama’s budget proposal and the original concept of the retirement programs under IRC section 403(b). We noted that while 403(b) programs were initially set up as individual pension plans, it has been the policy of the IRS for over…
The 403(b) Regs Experience Exposes “401(x)” Weakness
By Robert Toth on
Posted in 403(b), Automatic Workplace Pension
There has been a discussion circulating around Washington for a number of years about the value of establishing a simplified Defined Contribution retirement system commonly referred to as "401(x)". This program would create a single defined contribution program with a single set of rules to replace the "alphabet soup" of DC plans currently in existence.…
Marketplace Lessons for Workplace Pensions
By Robert Toth on
Posted in 403(b), Automatic Workplace Pension
I was intending to leave this issue alone for a few weeks, and wait until the Workplace Pension proposal (upon which we blogged a few days ago) had a chance to percolate within the retirement industry. But I had the chance to spend a few minutes with David John (David is a senior scholar at…
Obama’s Automatic Workplace Pensions: 403(b) Redux?
By Robert Toth on
Posted in 403(b), Automatic Workplace Pension
President Obama’s new budget proposes the establishment of a new "Automatic Workplace Pension" (see pages 84 and 85 of the OMB’s budget description and David John’s description at the Heritage Foundation’s site). It is based upon proposals from the Retirement Security Project run by Mark Iwry, David John and William Gale.
There is little doubt…