Showing entries with the topic “Legislative/Regulatory”.
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Nov 2020The Final ESG Rule: What Happened?
A funny thing happened on October 30th when the Department of Labor issued what was to be its final ESG Rule, after the proposed rule was issued on June 23rd. The final rule, which was only eight pages long (after 140 pages of responses to comments from the public), contained no mentions of the term…
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Nov 2020SECURE Act: The Sequel
While I typically don’t write about proposed retirement plan legislation, since bills can take a long time to become law and provisions can change dramatically, I am making an exception for the latest piece of retirement plan legislation, which was introduced on October 27, 2020 by the chair of the …
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Jul 2020The DOL’s Proposed Fiduciary Rule: Some “Top of Mind” Thoughts
As the 123-page Department of Labor (DOL) Fiduciary Rule arrived on my computer on the evening of June 29, I did not have high expectations. After all, the DOL has been at this for a decade, with no success. And the prior Fiduciary Rule - which I liked - did not survive a court challenge from the ve…
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Jul 2020The CARES Act “Run on the Bank” That Wasn’t
Remember back in March when retirement plan recordkeepers were panicking about the COVID-19 pandemic and the related stock market plunge, allegedly fielding record volumes of calls from frantic participants who not only wanted to flee equity investments, but also wanted to take out their money entir…
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Jun 2020It’s Time for the IRS to Eliminate the Retirement Plan Spousal Consent Requirement
The recent COVID-19 pandemic exposed a weakness in the retirement plan infrastructure when thousands of married retirement plan participants attempted to take loans and distributions from their plans and found out that, in order to do so, they had to have the written consent of their spouse and that…
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Jun 2020Forget About the CARES Act and SECURE Act: This New Regulatory Guidance Will Be the Real Game Changer!
While the CARES Act and SECURE Act have provided some meaningful changes to retirement plan law - most notably, relief from Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) and provisions allowing for COVID-19 withdrawals and loans - there is nothing in either piece of legislation that is truly groundbreaking.…
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Apr 2020CARES Act Myths
More than one month has passed since the enactment of the CARES Act, yet there are still many widely held misconceptions about the retirement plan-related provisions. In this week’s Top of Mind, we attempt to dispel some of those myths. Myth # 1: Anyone can take advantage of the new CARES Act loan …
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Apr 2020CARES Act Loan Provision: The "Fly in the Ointment"
In a recent Top of Mind post, we discussed why plan sponsors should be wary of blindly adopting all of the CARES Act loan and distributions provisions. Well, it turns out that there is quirk in the CARES Act provisions regarding COVID-19 loans that is giving plan sponsors a reason to pause. This is…
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Apr 2020CARES Act Q&A
Having just finished reading an epic piece (30 pages!) from S. Derrin Watson on the CARES Act retirement plan and related provisions, I thought a CARES Act Q&A on the top the five questions that appear to be tripping people up the most might be in order. The answers are based on the collective wisdo…
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Apr 2020Before You Adopt Those COVID-19 Loan and Distribution Provisions…
The new CARES Act retirement plan distribution and loan provisions for participants affected by the COVID-19 pandemic are apparently quite popular with retirement plan recordkeepers, so much so that at least one large recordkeeper told their plan sponsors that they had just five days to opt out, or …
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