The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) is the division of the Department of Labor (DOL) that is responsible for ensuring the integrity of the private, employment-based benefit system. ...
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Plan Compliance
Extra! Extra! Stay up to date on the latest news about the DWC team.
The retirement plan landscape is ever evolving. We distill the details so you don’t have to!
We’ve corralled the best news from inside the beltway – not only regulations, but also new legislation from Congress as well as relevant guidance from the IRS and Department of Labor. In true DWC fashion, we don’t just repackage a recitation of the rules, we provide our thoughts and commentary about what those rules mean to you.
We know cash balance rules can be intimidating! Settle into the Cash Balance Corner and let us break it down for you.
Have 401(k) questions? We have 401(k) answers! We bring you answers to many of the common questions we receive.
A behind-the-scenes look not at how the sausage is made, but why we make it the way we do. (Hint: It’s all about the best interests of the client.)
We’re all about learning from other people’s (alleged) mistakes. We might not be attorneys, but we still follow benefits-related cases and summarize lessons and key take-aways. No hourly fee needed for these insights!
A deeper dive into retirement plan topics doesn’t have to be headache-inducing. Our Pension Primer articles provide depth of information without depth of jargon!
According to the IRS, using incorrect compensation amounts to calculate retirement plan benefits and conduct annual compliance testing is one of the most common errors they see. How can such a ...
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Both the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) consider it a top priority to make sure that contributions employees make to their 401(k) and 403(b) plans are deposited on a ...
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Much of what is written the press about retirement plans focuses on the responsibilities of plan fiduciaries when it comes to fees and investments. Although very important, complying with all the IRS ...
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DWC
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Overtime Is Up and Bonuses Are Down: Will This Year's Irregular Compensation Impact our Retirement Plan?
Facts We sponsor a 401(k) plan for our employees and provide a company matching contribution to those who defer. Our plan specifies that in calculating that match, we only consider employee base pay ...
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Facts All year long we've been leaving little rock 'n' roll Easter eggs in our Cash Balance Corner feed. ICYMI: Each post title incorporates one of our favorite songs. And for our 20th century rock ...
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Facts Like many businesses, we had to furlough some employees earlier this year in response to the coronavirus shutdowns. We’ve been fortunate enough to bring back a few of these employees, but a ...
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Wow! We have covered a lot of ground over the last few entries, learning about how cash balance benefits are earned and funded. So far, our plan sponsor Robert Smith, Inc. has dealt with the ...
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Facts We are reviewing our company expense budget to identify any that we can eliminate or reduce. We’ve read that it is possible to pay expenses related to maintaining company retirement plans out ...
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Facts We’ve had a 401(k) plan for years, but we are now looking at ways to make it a more strategic part of our overall compensation package. In one of your previous Questions of the Week, you ...
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DWC
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Can We Increase Profit Sharing Contributions and Decrease Salaries to Improve Testing and Save Money?
Facts We want to make job offers to some new employees and are looking strategically at our overall compensation package. Some of these candidates are seeking upwards of $130,000 which will make them ...
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DWC
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Do We Have to Consider Pay Before a Participant is Eligible When Calculating Matching Contributions?
Facts Each year, after our last payroll in December, I submit my census information to the TPA for our 401(k) plan. Even though I’ve looked at each participant’s total deferrals for the year to ...
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Facts We are in the process of reviewing all our various business insurance policies to determine which ones we need to keep, update, or eliminate. One the coverages on our review list is the ...
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Facts We’ve sponsored a 401(k) plan since 2002 and the amount of paperwork and related records we’ve accumulated is incredible. Cleaning up these records has always been on my to-do list for a while, ...
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Facts Like many businesses, we’ve been watching our cash flow carefully over the past several weeks. We’re making adjustments where necessary so that we can stay on top of the invoices we receive ...
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Facts My company started a brand new 401(k) plan last year. We didn’t start the plan until July 1, and since we operate on the calendar year, our first “year” of the plan will only be the six-month ...
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Facts I work for a non-profit organization that is thinking of setting up a retirement plan. One of the service providers who we’ve spoken to about this said something about determining whether we ...
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Facts My company sponsors a safe harbor 401(k) plan so that all of the highly compensated employees can maximize their deferrals without worrying about failing the ADP test each year. Although we ...
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Facts We are thinking of adding automatic enrollment to our 401(k) plan. One of our concerns, however, is that we might end up with a bunch of tiny account balances for participants who forget to opt ...
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Facts Our company has about 200 employees, and we launched a new 401(k) plan on October of last year. We were eager for all of our existing employees to get excited about this new benefit, so we ...
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Facts My company used to sponsor a 401(k) plan for my employees. Due to an unforeseen financial hardship, we terminated the plan two years ago. Now that we are back on solid footing, I would like to ...
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Facts We established our company on February 1st of this year, and now we are planning to launch our 401(k) plan. We know there are number of tests and determinations that require us to look at ...
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Facts One of the participants in our 401(k) plan is going through a divorce, and we just received a court order directing us to provide a portion of his account to his ex-spouse. I thought that ...
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Facts As a self-employed individual, I run a successful business and have set up a retirement plan to provide for tax-sheltered savings. When its time to determine the contribution amount each year, ...
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Facts My architectural firm sponsors a 401(k) plan. We have 38 architects and 2 administrative assistants. We currently provide a matching contribution to participants and, some years, a profit ...
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Facts Our company has sponsored a 401(k) plan for a while and although it’s not new to us that certain situations - from beneficiary designations to annual nondiscrimination testing - might require ...
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Facts When we set up our new 401(k) plan last year, we decided not to add a safe harbor provision because we were not in a position to commit to the required contribution. Then we heard our TPA say ...
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Facts When we set up our 401(k) plan, our partnership operated on a fiscal year that ran from July 1st to June 30th. We set the 401(k) plan year to line up with our company’s fiscal year. We recently ...
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Facts As a plan sponsor, I do my best to review the annual compliance reports my TPA sends to me, but to be honest, it might as well be written in a foreign language. For example, several of our ...
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Facts I own a small manufacturing company that specializes in office supplies, and I sponsor a 401(k) plan for my employees. One of my former employees, Tim Halpert, worked full-time with me for the ...
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Facts Our company is thinking of setting up a cash balance plan. In our research about what that entails, we keep running into information about the PBGC and paying premiums.
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Facts Our company has been very fortunate to have low turnover over the years. Those that have left either were not eligible for our 401(k) plan, or they had very small balances and had their ...
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Facts We’ve had our retirement plan for a couple of years now and feel that we are finally getting the hang of the various deadlines for our plan. There is just one deadline that I always have ...
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Facts Our company sponsors a 401(k) plan, and we want to make sure we do everything correctly. We have a great staff and have put processes in place to help ensure we operate the plan in a compliant ...
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All of us here at DWC thrive on the really geeky stuff, and some of the best discussions start with our pontifications about how different topics impact our clients and our industry. We decided to ...
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Facts Our TPA just sent us our annual compliance report, and it says we failed testing! This is the first year we’ve failed anything, and now we’re being told that we need to take money out of the ...
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Facts In last week’s QOTW, you provided some tools we could use to identify which participants were affected by our decision to close one of our locations, and to calculate our actual turnover rate ...
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Facts Last week, we asked whether the turnover we are expecting as a result of closing a facility would have any impact on our 401(k) plan, and you mentioned a partial plan termination. We have some ...
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Facts Our company designs and manufactures boats. Due to some advancements in technology, we will be closing one of our older facilities. While we offered those workers the option to relocate to one ...
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Facts I am fed up with sponsoring my current retirement plan. My wife and I contribute the maximum amount we can in deferrals each year. Due to low participation by our employees, we fail ADP testing ...
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Facts We set up our company 401(k) plan soon after we started our business. At the time, we were a small tech company with only a couple of employees. Over the years the company has grown ...
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Facts Our company sponsors a safe harbor 401(k) plan that provides a matching contribution equal to 100% of the first 4% each participant defers. I had always thought that the deadline for us to ...
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Facts I am the 100% owner of my company, and we have a 401(k) plan that allows all our employees to direct the investment of their own accounts from a menu of mutual fund options via our ...
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Contrary to what some people may think while writing out checks for penalty fees, the IRS doesn't actually want to find compliance issues in retirement plans.
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Facts Our company sponsors a 401(k) plan for our employees. The owners of the company have always been somewhat secretive in terms of sharing detailed information about themselves and their families. ...
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Facts In order to be eligible for our company’s 401(k) plan, employees must have worked for us for at least a year and be a minimum of 21 years old. They can join the plan on the next January 1st or ...
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Facts A participant in our 401(k) plan took out a loan a couple years ago. She could only afford to make the bare minimum payments at the time, but is now in a financial position to pay down the loan ...
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Facts Every couple of years, our 401(k) plan fails the ADP/ACP test by a small margin. Since we don’t always fail the test, gathering our year-end census information to send to our TPA sometimes ...
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Facts Due to a glitch in our payroll system, one of the participants in our 401(k) plan contributed more than the IRS limit last year. It came to light while she was preparing her individual income ...
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Facts When we first established our 401(k) plan, the company didn’t have a lot of discretionary income, so we went with a low-cost provider and set it up so the plan would pay for its own fees. We ...
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DWC partner Jen Gibbs Swets recently spoke with Enterprise Radio host Eric Dye to discuss selling a business and the impact it has on retirement planning. Swets, who has more than 15 years of ...
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Our first piece of advice for audited plan sponsors? Don't panic.
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Service providers are judged by by many factors and one of the most important is managing to zero service issues. And considering how important plan compliance is, issues with plan compliance via a ...
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Facts We have a 401(k) plan that allows for both employee deferrals and a company match. Our annual testing each year is based on the amounts contributed in the previous year. That has allowed us to ...
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Retirement plan compliance is a big deal to the IRS. After all, the tax deductions that both plan sponsors and participants receive each year for contributions to retirement plans surpass deductions ...
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Facts Our company sponsors a safe harbor 401(k) plan that provides for a dollar-for-dollar match up to 4% of pay. At the end of each year, we calculate the total matching contribution, and we usually ...
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What is form 5330? The Form 5330 has one job – to accompany remittances of certain excise taxes that are associated with qualified retirement plans and 403(b) plans.
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When creating the retirement plan system, Congress included significant tax benefits as an incentive for employers to put plans in place and for employees to save for their own retirement. It was ...
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January 31 | Forms 1099-R to the Participants The custodian/directed trustee of the plan generally delivers the 1099-Rs directly to the participants. Note that some custodians deliver the 1099-R ...
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