Blog Posts: Benefits Law Update
Visit the Full BlogNamed a Top 10 Blog in Compensation and Benefits, Verrill's attorneys use the Benefits Law Update blog to provide timely updates and commentary on developments in law affecting employee benefit plans and executive compensation arrangements.
Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation 2021 Summer Client Advisory
Click here to view as a PDF. This Client Advisory summarizes developments in the law governing employee benefit plans prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We explain what these developments mean for plan sponsors and highlight the need to adopt plan amendments within limited time periods in order to fully...
Massachusetts Now Requires Paid COVID-19 Leave for all Employees
Massachusetts now requires all employers, regardless of size, with Massachusetts employees to offer employees paid, job-protected leave for certain COVID-19-related reasons, including to get or recover from a COVID-19 vaccine. Massachusetts also has established a fund to reimburse employers for the cost of providing COVID-19 paid leave required by...
Supreme Court will Hear Northwestern University 403(b) Plan Excessive Fee Case
The United States Supreme Court will weigh in on the spate of recent lawsuits filed against colleges and universities related to the schools’ retirement plans. The Court has granted a request for review from participants in two 403(b) retirement plans sponsored by Northwestern University. The participants seek to overturn...
Identifying Plan Assets in ERISA Health & Welfare Plans
Last month, we advised readers of this blog to consider efforts to formalize the fiduciary governance of their health and welfare benefit plans. In that post , we described some of the reasons that employers have historically paid more attention to fiduciary compliance for retirement plans than health and...
Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation 2020 Year-End Client Advisory
Click here to view as a PDF . This Client Advisory highlights important developments in the law governing employee benefit plans over the past year. It offers insight into what these developments mean for employers and plan sponsors and previews developments we expect to see in 2021. The following...
December 31 Sunset of Safe Harbor Correction Method for Certain Elective Deferral Failures
UPDATE (added July 16, 2021): The IRS announced through the July 16 release of Rev. Proc. 2021-30 that the sunset of the safe harbor correction method for employee elective deferral failures in 401(k) and 403(b) plans with automatic contribution features has been extended by three years, to December 31...
IRS announces 2021 plan limits
The IRS has announced adjusted benefit plan limits for 2021. These adjustments reflect inflation, and are important for administrators of employee retirement and health plans. The limit on 401(k) and 403(b) plan elective deferrals remains the same, at $19,500 for 2021, as does the limit on catch-up contributions, at...
IRS Allows Tax-Advantaged Leave Donation to COVID-19 Relief Organizations
UPDATE (added July 22, 2021): The IRS has extended the deadline for employer contributions to charitable organizations for the relief of victims of COVID-19 as part of a leave donation program. In Notice 2021-42 , the IRS announced that employees will receive favorable tax treatment for donated leave if...
With CARES Act, Congress provides retirement plan relief and group health plan changes
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, signed into law on March 27, 2020, includes a number of provisions that affect retirement plan sponsors and participants. These provisions are designed to provide relief to participants and employers facing financial difficulty as a result of the coronavirus pandemic...
Congress Passes Emergency Paid Leave Laws in Response to Coronavirus Pandemic
On March 18, Congress passed and the President signed into law the Families First Coronavirus Response Act , a temporary measure designed to increase the availability of paid leave during a time when many employees are being directed to stay at home. The following is a brief summary of...
Supreme Court: written disclosures not enough to show actual knowledge in ERISA suits
The United States Supreme Court unanimously decided last week that a plan participant who received written disclosures about the plan’s investments, but does not remember reading them, does not necessarily have “actual knowledge” of the content of the disclosures. This is important because ERISA imposes a shorter statute of...
December 2019 Client Advisory
This Client Advisory, originally distributed in December 2019, highlights important developments in the law governing employee benefit plans and executive compensation over the past year. It offers insight into what these developments mean for employers and plan sponsors and previews developments we expect to see in 2020. The following...
DOL Proposes New Electronic Disclosure Rules for Retirement Plans
At long last, the Department of Labor (DOL) has issued an update to its safe harbor rules governing electronic distributions of retirement plan disclosures. When finalized and adopted, the new safe harbor rules will update guidance that has been in place since 2002. The new rules do not apply...
403(b) Plans Must Comply with the “Once In, Always In” Rule This Year
Tax-exempt employers whose 403(b) plans have failed to comply with the "once in, always in" eligibility rule in the past should be well on their way to compliance by now. IRS Notice 2018-95 granted limited relief from this common administrative failure. The grace period for non-compliance has ended for...
UPDATED: Summer Break - Massachusetts Employers Get Extension on Paid Family and Medical Leave Implementation
UPDATE: The Massachusetts Department of Family and Medical Leave announced that along with the start of contributions being delayed from July 1, 2019 to October 1, 2019, the following aspects of the program are also delayed: the deadline for providing notice to employees is delayed from June 30, 2019...
Who is a Highly Compensated Employee?
Identifying an employer's highly compensated employees is crucial to the administration of qualified retirement plans, as well as 403(b) plans that provide employer contributions. This post provides an overview of the rules for determining who is a highly compensated employee. The dollar amount used in this post is the...
Handling Missing Participants under Code Section 409A
Deferred compensation payments are due to one of your former executives, but the former executive is nowhere to be found. You know that the IRS has strict timing rules for payments subject to Code Section 409A (but maybe not as strict as you think ). The end of the...
ERISA Preemption of State Slayer Statutes: Does it Matter?
Over the last decade, courts around the country have been asked to decide whether ERISA preempts state slayer statutes – state laws that prohibit a murderer from collecting benefits as the beneficiary of the victim's estate or as the surviving spouse of the victim under an insurance policy or...
IRS Appears Likely to Expand Determination Letter Program in 2019
All signs point to the IRS expanding access to the determination letter ("DL") program for individually designed plans in 2019. This would be a welcome move for employers and other plan sponsors, who have been unable to obtain determination letters with respect to most ongoing plans since the DL...
Fifth Circuit Vacates DOL Conflict of Interest Fiduciary Rule
The Fifth Circuit vacated the Department of Labor's long-suffering conflict of interest rule (commonly referred to as the "fiduciary rule"), holding that the rule exceeds the scope of DOL's regulatory authority. The decision means that the expanded definition of fiduciary, the elevated standards of conduct for certain investment advisors...
IRS Reduces 2018 HSA Family Contribution Limit
UPDATE: On April 26, 2018, the IRS reversed course and restored the limit on deductible contributions to health savings accounts (HSAs) for individuals with family coverage under a high deductible health plan to $6,900, the original amount announced last fall. According to the IRS , individuals who received an...
Dismissal of Case Against UPenn Good News for 403(b) Plan Sponsors
Colleges and universities have finally received some encouraging news in the recent spate of class action suits against higher education 403(b) plans. Last week a federal judge dismissed all claims against the University of Pennsylvania, marking the first time that one of these recent law suits has been be...
Sound Process and Good Recordkeeping Demonstrate Compliance with COBRA Notice Requirements
Earlier this year the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals provided a reminder of how important it is for an employer to establish and follow proper COBRA notice procedures and preserve some type of evidence that the procedures are followed. Employers who do those things will find that their efforts...
