Service Providers
The IRS on March 3 issued an alert concerning a phishing email scheme that requests personal information concerning employees. The alert is especially intended for payroll and human resources professionals, but retirement plan administrators and service providers would do well to heed the alert as...
READ MORE
How do broker-dealers establish and apply their cultural values? And do they guide those firms’ business conduct? The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is conducting an inquiry to find out.FINRA recently announced that it has sent a targeted exam letter to some firms in order to learn...
READ MORE
You have a client who dies, and leaves two sons, ages 18 and 21, as the beneficiaries of her 401(k), pension and IRA. The plan does not offer life expectancy payouts to the sons, but they have the right to roll over the pension funds into the IRA. In Tech Talk, Ellie Lowder tells us what their...
READ MORE
PlanMember Financial Corporation (PFC) on Feb. 18 announced that it has become the new broker/dealer and registered investment advisor for Williams & Company. With the agreement, PFC now serves 32 financial centers.According to a PFC press release, the agreement means that PFC will be providing...
READ MORE
Clients come first. And that means meeting their needs, which can entail scheduling meetings at their convenience. But is that really the best approach? Michael Kitces in “How a More Regular Client Meeting Schedule Enhances Advisor Productivity and Business Growth” posits that it may not be — and...
READ MORE
Increased longevity is good news! But for pension plans it’s another story. For them, it creates more stress — it spells greater drain and heightens the likelihood that plans will pay benefits for a longer period. The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Office of the Chief Actuary late in 2015...
READ MORE
The Obama administration’s final budget wasn’t a complete retread of its prior retirement plan proposals, but there wasn’t much good news for employer-sponsored retirement plans.Small business owners and small business retirement plans were once again targeted by a proposal that would limit the...
READ MORE
The NTSA Communication Committee believes that understanding reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act will be helpful in understanding other reporting obligations. In MarketBeat, Kimberly Flett provides the first discussion of reporting under the ACA.
READ MORE
You have a client who has been taking substantially equal distributions for six years, and will be age 59½ in this year. In Tech Talk, Ellie Lowder tells us what are his options are after he attains age 59½.
READ MORE
Generation X — long overlooked as a generational “middle child” between Boomers and Millennials — is waking up to the realities of retirement savings, according to a new report.With the eldest members of Gen X turning 50, it’s little wonder that retirement finances are grabbing a larger share of...
READ MORE
The NTSA Best Practices Manual has been in use for more than five years to help establish consistency in handling compliance procedures and to help the industry and plan sponsors meet regulatory requirements. In MarketBeat, Ellie Lowder gives us a look at the discussions at the recent NTSA Masters...
READ MORE
The IRS on Jan. 29 issued guidance on mid-year changes to a safe harbor plan under Internal Revenue Code Sections 401(k) and 401(m). It provides that a mid-year change either to a safe harbor plan or to a plan's safe harbor notice does not violate the safe harbor rules just because it is a mid-year...
READ MORE
America’s biggest city is not immune from pension woes. A study conducted in 2015 concludes that the retirement system serving New York City, which had assets of $162.9 billion as of June 30, 2015, needs a variety of additional resources. The New York Times reports that the New York City Office of...
READ MORE
Think it’s impossible to still encounter issues with missing participants in an age in which digital footprints abound? It is. In “I’ll Be Missing You: Tips for Locating Missing Participants,” an article that appeared in the Winter 2016 issue of Plan Consultant magazine, Quarles & Brady LLP...
READ MORE
A new survey finds an impressive retirement preparations gap among those who use the services of a financial advisor.In fact, according to a new survey by John Hancock Retirement Plan Services, those who work with a financial advisor double their retirement preparedness, and were more than twice as...
READ MORE
Location, location, location. It’s something of a truism about the three things that most affect property values. Apparently it also applies to retirement plan access.Using a pooled version of the 2010-14 Minnesota Population Center’s Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) Current...
READ MORE
The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) has issued guidance and a proposal that would be applicable to state and local pension plans. The guidance clarifies how earlier guidance on accounting and financial reporting rules for pensions apply to state and local plans, and the proposal...
READ MORE
Plan sponsors are more likely to work with an advisor who offers a specific value proposition of capabilities and services, something few advisors articulate, according to new research from MassMutual. Research for the firm’s “A Winning Combination” study included presenting plan sponsors with a...
READ MORE
The IRS has made available updated materials relevant to annual filings that 403(b) plans and certain IRA holders must make. Specifically, it has made available for 2015 filings: the instructions for IRS Form 8955-SSA, “Annual Registration Statement Identifying Separated Participants with Deferred...
READ MORE
The IRS has issued an updated version of Publication 575, “Pension and Annuity Income,” for use in preparing 2015 returns. It made changes to the exception to the tax on early distributions from a governmental plan for qualified public safety employees and to the rules regarding rollovers to SIMPLE...
READ MORE
Pages
Most Popular
