When the CEO asks “How will the Pension Protection Act of 2006 affect us?”, you need to know the answer. A special November 1 BLR audio conference will help you answer.
Yesterday’s Advisor laid out some of the positive benefits of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA).
We discussed how the law made provisions for automatic enrollment of all new hires in your company’s retirement plan, vastly increasing participation (some tests show enrollments rising from 25 percent to 95 percent!) and helping secure your employees’ future, with no obligation for you to contribute.
“PPA has rewritten the retirement plan playbook,” says one expert. Learn the new rules, in plain English, at BLR’s special Nov. 1 audio conference. Can’t attend that day? Pre-order the CD. Click for details.
At the other end of the retirement spectrum, the plan helps you by letting you pay some benefits to those who could retire but instead keep working, where previously it was all or nothing. This lets you utilize these senior workers’ skills while they get still their hard-earned rewards.
Today, however, let’s delve into what news commentator Paul Harvey calls “the rest of the story.” Any plan involving trillions of dollars in assets is going to be complicated, and this one fully merits that description. The law runs some 900-plus pages, with some of its regulations yet to be fully written, much less implemented.
To aid Daily Advisor readers in dealing with this massive change in retirement plan law, BLR has arranged a special 90-minute audio conference on November 1, titled The Pension Protection Act of 2006: What You Must Do Now to Comply with the Latest Rules and Regulations.
Two expert pension and benefits attorneys will, as the conference description says, “chop through the regulatory jungle,” to (1) explain your new or changed obligations, (2) show you how to make sure you follow them if you administer your own plan, and (3) if you don’t do it yourself, explain how to monitor a third-party administrator, if you use one. That’s because, as some managers have found to their dismay, in the eyes of the law, a third party’s failure to comply is also your own.
Here are some of the key changes the presenters will cover:
–Notice provisions. PPA has gone far to inform employees of what their retirement plan choices are and what the consequences are of each choice. Employers must now issue more detailed information, on more facets of their plans, and do so in a more timely manner.
–Deadlines. These have been adjusted to allow more time for employees to decide on their plans and also changed in how much time employers have to make contributions to the plans. The idea is to fund them faster, allowing more time for interest to build before retirement.
–Vesting provisions. Certain types of contributions, such as profit-sharing, now must be vested on faster moving and more flexible schedules.
Train your entire staff on your obligations under PPA for one low fee, satisfaction assured, at BLR’s special 90-minute November 1 audio conference. Click for info, to register, or to pre-order the CD.
–Employee stock plan changes. As any former Enron employee or ’90s “dot-comer” knows, there are huge risks in concentrating retirement money in your own company’s stock. Under PPA, employers may no longer force workers to do so. Instead, they must offer more choices and give appropriate notice of their availability. “Failure to provide notice can result in stiff penalties of $100 per day, per participant,” notes an article from the employment law firm of Faegre & Benson, LLP.
In fact, one of our conference presenters, Renee W. O’Rourke, chairs that firm’s benefits committee. The other, Jason Roberts, heads the retirement plan group at his firm, Edgerton & Weaver LLP, in Hermosa Beach, California.
In this limited space, we have barely taken the first steps into their “regulatory jungle.” There are still deduction limit changes, new 415 limits, cash balance plan changes, and revisions in the rules controlling distributions and rollovers to cover.
For far more complete coverage, plus answers to your specific e-mailed or phoned-in questions, we strongly recommend attendance at this audio conference. Click the link below for full information or to register, and if you can’t attend, by all means pre-order the conference CD.
Got PPA Questions?
Get answers to your specific e-mailed or phoned-in questions on the new Pension Protection Act in BLR’s special November 1, 90-minute audio conference. Plain English. Affordable. Satisfaction assured. Click for details.