When we talk about new retirement plans, we usually focus on the savings advantages they grant to business owners or the big-picture advantages of helping employees achieve ongoing financial wellness. Tax credits granted to plan sponsors are another important, but sometimes opaque, piece of this puzzle.

 Download The Action Doc COVID-19 is obviously causing financial stress and, when it comes to your clients’ qualified retirement plans, they may be looking for ways to reduce expenses. In this talk, we’ll detail the three options they have to use plan assets to pay some plan expenses as long as they follow Department of Labor and IRS rules.Plan sponsors can generally use plan assets to pay for administrative expenses. “Administrative expenses” include the costs ...

IMPORTANT HIGHLIGHTSThe Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act includes provisions that may apply to your retirement plan. Here are some important highlights to know first.The CARES ACT expands and relaxes rules on withdrawals, participant loans, and defers mandatory distributions for participants of 401(k) and most other defined contribution plans or IRAs.Download The Action DocCORONAVIRUS-RELATED DISTRIBUTIONS (CRD)A plan participant may take a coronavirus-related distr...

Download The Action DocAs you know, the goal of our nation’s retirement system is to create more opportunities for American workers to save and to make it easier for employers to start and maintain benefit plans. With this in mind, Congress just passed, and the President signed, the SECURE Act. SECURE stands for Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement.This is the most comprehensive and far-reaching update to retirement plans in more than a decade and many, but not all, of its...

Download The Action Doc Auto-enrollment and automatic contribution increases have proven to be popular and successful retirement plan design features that get more people to save for retirement. A little less known is “re-enrollment.” It’s another important tool we have to help encourage better participant outcomes. And it has the potential to benefit the participant, the plan sponsor, and you. Just as auto-enrollment sweeps newly eligible employees into the plan unless they opt out, re-enro...

Download The Action DocSome business owners may come to you asking for information on a 401K or a cash balance plan. They may know of these from prior experience, or friendly advice, or they may have done their homework about different retirement plans. As retirement plan experts, we have many plan designs and options to offer depending on what we determine may be a best fit for your clients. The temptation is to quote them what they ask for. We think the better approach is to first invest a lit...

Download The Action DocYou already know that a 401(k) is a very popular retirement plan that allows employees to take advantage of tax deferrals on contributions and earnings while their money accumulates for retirement. To enjoy this special status, the IRS put in place non-discrimination rules to assure that plans benefit rank and file employees and not just a company’s owners and highly compensated employees. We know that the goal of many company owners is to maximize how much they can contr...

When it comes to retirement plans, there are many ways to distribute a company’s profit sharing contribution. It may be as straightforward as a proportional, or “pro rata,” share to each eligible participant or it can be based on a formula that considers age or other factors.

Download The Action DocEvery retirement plan design begins with a study of a company’s payroll. It’s the essential information that drives thinking around how to optimize tax and savings potential for both business owners and their employees.Once a plan is installed, we rely on payroll data to determine eligibility, vesting, and of course, contributions. Accurate and complete data is something we assume of course, but in the real world, information is not always timely or completely ...

As an investment professional, you may already know a great deal about how behavioral bias affects how investors make decisions and how they perceive their account performance. We know, of course, that behavioral finance tells us that many people are influenced by their emotions, their aversion to risk, their own social peer group, and sometimes by a skewed perception of control or investment skill.