Retirement Plans

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Seyfarth Synopsis: The IRS is back to work and just announced the 2026 annual limits that will apply to tax-qualified retirement plans. But wait, there’s more – a surprise increase in the inaugural FICA wage limit for purposes of the mandatory Roth catch-up requirement.  Employers maintaining tax-qualified retirement plans will need to make sure their plans’ administrative procedures are adjusted accordingly.

In Notice 2025-67, the IRS announced the various limits that apply to tax-qualified retirement plans in 2026. The “regular” contribution limit for employees who participate in 401(k), 403(b) and most 457 plans will increase from $23,500 to $24,500 in 2026. The “catch-up” contribution limit for individuals who are or will be age 50 by the end of 2026 is increased from $7,500 to $8,000. 

However, the “super” catch-up contribution limit for individuals aged 60 to 63 on December 31, 2026, remains $11,250. Some were expecting that limit to be indexed to 150% of the regular catch-up limit. However, the Internal Revenue Code provides that the limit is the greater of $10,000 or 150% of the 2024 catch-up limit (i.e., $7,500). As a result, the “super” catch-up contribution limit remains $11,250 for 2026, and the $11,250 limit may be indexed for inflation in future years. Continue Reading Shutdown’s Over—IRS Wastes No Time Reminding You You’re Still Not Saving Enough, Because Priorities

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Wednesday, October 22, 2025
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The Treasury and IRS have released final regulations implementing key SECURE 2.0 provisions, including the Roth catch-up requirement for high earners and…

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Seyfarth Synopsis: Earlier today, Treasury and the IRS issued highly-anticipated final regulations addressing several changes to the catch-up contribution provisions implemented by SECURE 2.0.  Proposed regulations were issued earlier this year (see our Legal Update here), and administrative questions lingered following the issuance of the proposed regulations. The much-welcomed final regulations answer a number of open questions that we had been grappling with following the enactment of SECURE 2.0 and the issuance of the proposed regulations earlier this year. Below is a high-level overview of several pressing issues that have been addressed by the final regulations. We will be issuing a more comprehensive Legal Update on the final rules in the coming days.

1. Designated Roth Contributions Counted for Purposes of Roth Catch-up Requirement

Under the proposed regulations, designated Roth contributions made by a participant at any point within a calendar year must be counted towards satisfying the Roth catch-up requirement (“Roth Catch-Up Requirement”). This provision caused administrative concerns and several commenters asked that the final rules make this permissive so that plans had the choice as to whether to include Roth deferrals made by the participant at any point in the calendar year towards the Roth Catch-Up Requirement. The final regulations provide plan administrators that use the deemed Roth approach with some – but not universal – flexibility. The final regulations do not seem to go so far as making this optional approach available in all situations, which we will cover in the forthcoming Legal Update. Continue Reading Final Catch-Up Rules: What Now? (Spoiler Alert: There is No Extension)

In this episode, Richard is joined by Alan Wilmit, serving as co-host, as they welcome Ada Dolph, a Partner in Seyfarth’s ERISA Litigation group, to unpack the complexities of pension risk transfers (PRTs). Ada explains what PRTs are, how they’re used to manage pension liabilities, and why they’re drawing increased scrutiny. The conversation covers…

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Seyfarth Synopsis: Just before its summer recess, the Supreme Court agreed to review whether multiemployer pension funds can impose withdrawal liability based on actuarial assumptions adopted after the relevant plan year. The expected decision may have significant implications for employers’ ability to assess the impact of a contemplated withdrawal.

At the end of June, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in M & K Employee Solutions, LLC v. Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund, No. 23-1209 (U.S. June 30, 2025 amended July 3, 2025) to consider an important question in calculating how much employers withdrawing from multiemployer pension funds are legally obligated to pay.

Withdrawing employers have to pay a portion of the fund’s unfunded vested benefits (i.e. the amount of vested benefits that a fund is legally obligated to pay but for which the fund does not have sufficient assets to meet). The withdrawal liability calculation is to be determined based on the fund’s financials as of the end of the plan year before the withdrawal. It can take many funds six months if not more after the end of a plan year to finalize their year-end financials and thus be able to issue a withdrawal liability assessment in the following plan year. In that interim, as the financials are being finalized, fund actuaries have on occasion changed actuarial assumptions, such as interest rates or mortality tables, retroactive to the prior plan year.Continue Reading Changing Last Year’s Assumptions This Year: Gotcha or Copacetic?

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Seyfarth Synopsis: Under the current administration, the Department of Labor has once again changed course on its view of permissible investing strategies for retirement plans, warming to crypto and private equity, and confirming their distrust of ESG.

Over the last decade, there has been quite a bit of back and forth surrounding permissible investments…

Overpasses from above
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Two courts. Two opposite rulings. One critical question: Do plaintiffs have standing to challenge pension risk transfers under ERISA?

In the first two decisions to address Article III standing in this rising wave of class actions, federal courts in Maryland and D.C. have landed on opposing sides. One case will head to discovery; the other…

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Seyfarth Synopsis: The DOL updated its voluntary fiduciary correction program (“VFCP”) which was introduced over 20 years ago to allow plan sponsors to corrected enumerated fiduciary breaches. The amended VFCP now allows for self-correction of the failure to timely remit contributions and loan repayments withheld from participants’ salary to the plan.

The prior VFCP required…

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Seyfarth Synopsis:  Over the years, plan sponsors and administrators have wrestled with the question of what to do with the accounts of participants who left employment years earlier and cannot now be located.  Notwithstanding their best efforts, plans continue to maintain accounts of participants who are either missing or unresponsive to plan correspondence (“missing participants”). On January 14, 2025, the DOL issued Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) 2025-01 that allows sponsors and administrators of ongoing defined contribution (DC) plans to transfer unclaimed small accounts to a state unclaimed property fund of the participant’s last known address provided the fund satisfies certain requirements.

The issue of what to do with the accounts of missing participants is an age-old question. In 2014 the DOL issued FAB 2014-01, stating that an IRA was the preferred destination for unclaimed defined contribution (DC) plan accounts. That same FAB also acknowledged that IRAs may not be available for terminating DC plans, and suggested that in certain circumstances, a state unclaimed property fund or an interest-bearing FDIC-insured bank account might also be appropriate. More recently, the DOL became concerned that IRAs may not be the sole (or even most) appropriate destination for unclaimed plan accounts, as IRAs charge fees that often exceed the investment returns of small accounts, resulting in the account being eaten away by fees. In fact, when plan sponsors started looking to IRAs as the destination of its unclaimed account balances, the sponsors found it challenging to find an IRA provider who would accept all accounts, particularly small accounts, and that the limited choices resulted in front end, back end, and/or annual fees that would quickly exhaust the account balance. From the fiduciary perspective, many plan fiduciaries were reluctant to make such transfers. As time passed, however, more IRA providers became available and fees dropped. But not necessarily to zero.Continue Reading Missing Participants – What to do With Abandoned Accounts