The DOL will announce its final fiduciary rule on Tuesday afternoon, according to the American Retirement Association. The ARA confirmed on Monday that acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su will announce the final regulation in a Treaty Room ceremony at 5 p.m. ET.
The average retiree faces numerous unknowns, a slew of psychological obstacles to maneuver, and, on top of all that, math. And, as current savings and spending patterns show, retirees need help making these monumental decisions. BlackRock's Larry Fink is optimistic that the firm's newly launched BlackRock LifePath Paycheck target-date series, which includes an annuity as part of the glide path, can be the solution retirees are looking for. This Morningstar article explores how we got here with a brief, and imperfect, history of retirement-income solutions.
Employers' commitment to their 403b plan participants is evident in a new report just released by the ICI. Analyzing the plan year 2020 data for large 403b plans filing Form 5500 under the ERISA, the report finds that nearly one-third of large ERISA 403b plan participants were in plans that put their employees on the path to retirement saving with automatic enrollment.
The DOL Wage and Hour Division issued final regulations, effective March 11, 2024, which are intended to serve as a practical guide to employers on how the DOL determines whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act [29 CFR part 795]. This new guidance may impact employee classification under ERISA.
On April 16, 2024, the IRS released Notice 2024-35 extending temporary relief for certain required minimum distributions related to the SECURE Act's 10-year distribution rule through 2024. This notice follows similar relief provided by the IRS in Notice 2022-53 and Notice 2023-54 for earlier periods.
In the proposed procedure, the DOL places the burden of data collection and reporting on plan administrators. Administrators would be required to provide necessary data to the DOL via Form 5500s each year, perhaps starting with the 2023 5500s that are due in 2024. Because, for most plans, the collection of 5500 data is almost always outsourced to a third-party administrator or bundled recordkeeper, these will be the entities that would presumably provide required data to the DOL via the 5500s of the individual plan sponsors.
The DOL has proposed amendments to its regulation defining fiduciary advice so that, in most cases, a single recommendation to a retirement investor will be a fiduciary act. In addition, the DOL has proposed amendments to Prohibited Transaction Exemption 2020-02, which provides relief for prohibited conflicts of interest. This article focuses on the proposed amendments that will impact broker-dealers and their registered representatives.
One of the most basic duties of a defined contribution plan sponsor is to ensure that that there is no delay and participants' salary deferral elections are correctly and timely deposited into the retirement plan. Not only is this duty necessary for proper administration of the plan, but it is also part of a plan sponsor's fiduciary duties under ERISA. This is a review of the plan contribution timing requirements and how to correct delays.
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Collected Wisdom™
Our researchers look for what they think are some of the better resources available to assist you in administering your plan or helping your clients. We group these resources in our COLLECTED WISDOM™ topics to make it easy for you to locate the information you need. Each item in a category contains a summary and date of when it was placed in the group.
We also maintain some older material in these collections for perspective and context.
