Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs): Why I’m Not a Fan

For regular blog readers, it’s no secret that there are certain retirement plan provisions which I could live without. While strides have been made over the years, in my opinion, the laws governing retirement plans remain needlessly complicated and have many unnecessary provisions. Required Minimum…

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A Solution to What Shouldn’t be a Problem? IRS Provides Some 403(b) Universal Availability Relief

Over eight years ago, in a PLANSPONSOR Ask the Experts column, I suggested to plan sponsors that all employees be permitted to make elective deferrals to a 403(b) plan (a concept the IRS calls “Universal Availability”), despite the fact that certain employees could be prohibited from making these de…

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The Proposed Hardship Distribution Regulations: Some Misconceptions

The proposed hardship regulations were issued less than a month ago, but there already appears to be a lot of misunderstanding among plan sponsors and those who work with them. Based on the numerous questions we’ve received these past few weeks, it appears that the biggest misconceptions are as fol…

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Why Now Might Be the Time to Eliminate a Hardship Distribution Provision

In my experience, most of the retirement plans that are eligible to maintain a hardship distribution provision (defined benefit and money purchase plans cannot, and 457(b) plans can only permit distributions for unforeseeable emergencies, which are a different animal entirely) do indeed allow funds …

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Some Top of Mind Thoughts on President Trump's Retirement Executive Order

On August 31st, the Friday before Labor Day; President Donald Trump signed an executive order; that if fully carried out, could provide for some significant changes to retirement plans.

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Now that Summer's Over, Something to Worry About for the Fall

I hope all of you who work for or with retirement plan sponsors had a delightful summer! As for the fall, it is about to get interesting for most of you mainly due to the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, more commonly known as the Tax Reform bill.

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The Good News and Bad News Regarding the Recent IRS Ruling on Student Loan Repayment Assistance Programs

Those of you who follow me on Twitter, already know that I am a HUGE fan of student loan repayment assistance programs. Student loan debt is one the main reasons why millennials do not save for retirement at a time when saving for retirement is critical due to the time value of money.

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Health Savings Accounts (HSAs): The Rodney Dangerfield of Retirement Savings Plans

Show of hands out there (yes, I can see you!): How many have heard of Rodney Dangerfield? Hmm….tough crowd! For the uninitiated, he was one of the greatest comedians (at least to me) when I was growing up and his entire live act centered around jokes about the fact that no one respected him. …

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Making Sense of Auto-Enrollment Rules

While the IRS means well, when reviewing some of the regulations, I cannot help but wonder if someone was thinking, “How can I make this as difficult to understand as possible?” Such is the case with automatic enrollment. To start, the IRS doesn’t call it auto-enrollment, they refer to it as an “au…

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Fiduciary Best Practices for Public University Retirement Plans

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a webinar hosted by my colleagues, Joey Payne and Jeff Levy of Cammack Retirement Group, and Eric Paley of Nixon Peabody. The webinar examined best practices for public university retirement plan fiduciaries in the current litigation and regulatory environm…

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