ERISA really did create some fundamental changes that has broad personal affect. This reposting of a blog I wrote last year provides a good Mother’s Day reminder of the importance of the work we do:
ERISA wonks such as ourselves tend to get lost in the press of details which seem to flow non-stop
Mark Iwry, one of the principals of of the Retirement Security Project, has been appointed as Senior Advisor to Treasury Secretary Geithner and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Retirement and Health Policy.
First and foremost, our heartfelt congratulations to Mark. This is a post well suited to him, and an appointment which will serve the nation’s
The mantra of Congress, investment advisors and the DOL over the past decade has been consistent: retirement plan assets must be invested in such a way to provide American workers with sufficient assets upon which to actually retire comfortably. This is as basic as apple pie, and a concept with which one can hardly disagree.
Just when I thought I was going to get a chance to talk a bit about annuities again, the IRS drops a bomb: it has proposed the design of its long awaited 403(b) prototype program and List of Required Modifications. Announcement 2009-34 is the description of the prototype program; and the LRMs can be
It has been a couple of weeks since we’ve last posted a blog, and with good reason. Between Evan, Monica and I, this two month span has us doing some 15 presentations and articles, whie keeping up with clients (and a couple of us squeezing in some overdue vacation time!). Monica is speaking this week
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
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
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
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
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.