In December 2019, The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act (SECURE Act) was enacted and signed into law. The Act was the most significant piece of legislation impacting employee benefit plans since the Pension Protection Act in 2006, and includes a plethora of changes to the laws governing employer-sponsored retirement plans, specifically impacting

Seyfarth Synopsis: The IRS recently sought to reassure employers that they will not jeopardize their retirement plan’s tax qualified status if they permit employees who have a bona fide separation from service to take a distribution from their retirement plan, even if they are rehired shortly thereafter by the same employer. The reassurance comes in
Seyfarth Synopsis: The SECURE Act, passed at the end of 2019, significantly altered the retirement landscape. Now, proposed legislation, “SECURE Act 2.0,” sets out to make even more changes. As before, several of the proposed provisions will require employers to closely consider the new rules. For newly established plans, there will be requirements that did
Seyfarth Synopsis: The IRS issued Notice 2020-86, which provides guidance on the rules that apply to safe harbor plans that were changed by the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (the “SECURE Act”). The guidance covers the increase in automatic contributions permitted under a qualified automatic contribution arrangement (or “QACA”) safe
Seyfarth Synopsis: On the heels of the Department of Labor’s June proposed regulation throwing cold water on plan fiduciaries’ selecting investments in the environment, social and governance (ESG) space, the agency has now offered their viewpoint on a fiduciary’s obligation — nay, ability — to vote proxies for its plan’s holdings. See
Seyfarth Synopsis: On Tuesday, August 18, 2020, the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) released an interim final rule related to a new disclosure that will need to be provided as a part of defined contribution plan benefit statements. The new disclosure will show the participant’s plan benefit as a monthly amount calculated
Seyfarth Synopsis: A key component of the SECURE Act, passed at the end of 2019, was the expansion of opportunities to combine the 401(k) plan assets of multiple unrelated employers. The SECURE Act relaxed the rules on multiple employer plan’s (“MEP”) and created a new vehicle, the pooled employer plan (“PEP”) to allow employers to