MEPs are very valuable tools for the right circumstances, and there can be some PEOs which do fit within the DOL’s guidelines. Even better, non-MEP aggregation arrangements are a valuable alternative to MEPs. It is risky behavior, however, to attempt to manufacture an employment bond that doesn’t really exist-especially when there are viable alternatives.
Continue Reading MEP and the Common Paymaster: A Siren’s Call
Multiple Employer Plans continue to be an issue for not only PEOs, but for a number of organizations which has successfully used the MEP method in the past to provide “scale” which is otherwise unavailable in the smaller end of the 401(k) marketplace.The DOL Advisory Opinion 2012-04 has caused us to take a closer look at how to otherwise achieve this scale. Scale in investments and services, we find, is still possible without using MEP, and in ways which tend to have a lower risk profile for both the MEP sponsor and participating employers.
Continue Reading Using an Aggregation Program as a Solution to the Multiple Employer Plan Risk
The dust has begun to settle around the DOL’s Advisory Opinion, 2012-4, and a number of different voices have spoken about what the opinion says, and what it doesn’t say. At this point, it may be useful to to put the letter in some context.
The clarity it brings is, in fact, very helpful. What