Happy Friday, readers! Being a defined contribution retirement plan industry specialist, you’re probably already aware that we just passed the 10-year anniversary of the signing of the Pension Protection Act. Known as the PPA, few pieces of legislation adopted since the initial passage of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act some four decades ago have had as big an impact on our industry and daily work. Collected below is some of our special coverage marking the anniversary of the PPA and exploring the ongoing impacts of the landmark retirement law.
Advisers are working with more plans today than they ever have—completing more services for more diverse types of clients than was the case prior to the full implementation of the Pension Protection Act.
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While industry practitioners often have deeply held convictions about how to improve the U.S. retirement system, there are already many things plan advisers can do under current legislation and regulations to improve retirement security of American workers.
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Alongside the use of automatic enrollment, the biggest development in QDIAs in the past 10 years has been the replacement of stable value or money market funds as the default with TDFs.
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Starting with the Pension Protection Act, the U.S. Congress has tweaked and amended pension funding rules a handful of times in rennet years, but has it work?
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Nearly as soon as cash balance plans were developed, participants began suing them, with the majority of the cases based on age discrimination.
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Despite a market “teeming with better-performing alternatives,” the plaintiffs say, Walgreen selected the Northern Trust Funds, which already had a history of poor performance.
Low and middle-income Americans struggling to save for retirement are depending on the U.S. Senate to pass the SECURE Act, advocates say. At present, one roadblock seems to the law’s treatment of “stretch IRAs.”
Washington insiders say Senator Ted Cruz is probably the biggest roadblock to the SECURE Act being passed in the near-term under unanimous consent; among other issues, he wants the bill to allow people to use tax-advantaged 529 college savings accounts to pay for home school expenses.
A new IRS private letter ruling essentially conforms the tax treatment of properly structured advisory fees from non-qualified annuity contracts to those paid out of qualified accounts, which typically are not treated as taxable distributions.
There is precious little time remaining for the proposal and adoption of any new advisory industry conflict of interest rules that the DOL hopes to make effective during this presidential administration.
