On October 15, 2009, the Internal Revenue Service published final regulations construing the new funding and benefit restriction requirements applicable to single employer defined benefit plans for plan years beginning after December 31, 2009, under Internal Revenue Code (“Code”) sections 430 and 436. Code sections 430 and 436 were added by the Pension Protection Act […]
Author: Trucker Huss
During his weekly address over this past Labor Day weekend, President Obama announced several new initiatives with the goal of providing American workers additional avenues to save for retirement. The details of those initiatives were subsequently published in several Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) rulings and notices, which are summarized below. Contribution of Unused Paid Time […]
On August 24, 2009, the Department of Heath and Human Services (“HHS”) published its highly anticipated guidance on the requirement to provide notification of breaches of unsecured protected health information, which was enacted under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (“HITECH”) Act part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 […]
Introduction Many companies have implemented severance plans due to the current economic situation. While companies typically consider the employment law implications of severance plans (such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act), many have not considered how these plans are governed by the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”) and the Employee […]
E-mail and internal or external web sites are the communication tools of choice for many (if not most) Plan Sponsors and Plan Administrators. When electronically delivering documents or when setting up a web site, it’s easy to overlook the following: Disclaimers When a third party sets up a web site for plan participants, the web […]
Can an employer validly require an employee to sign an agreement waiving his or her right to sue the employer under federal employment discrimination laws in exchange for severance benefits? Technical guidance issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) on July 15, 2009 timely answers this question — with a qualified “yes” — and […]
Recent comments by representatives of the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) indicate that benefit plans and their fiduciaries may now be required to report to the IRS what has become a staple of many plans’ investment portfolios: the offshore investment fund. Investments which include foreign bank or securities accounts must be reported to the IRS on […]
Over thirty years ago, Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (“PDA”), providing that differential treatment of pregnancy leave constitutes sex-based discrimination. It would be illegal now under the PDA to deny service credits for pension plan purposes for pregnancy leave, while granting such credits for other types of medical leave. The Supreme Court recently held, […]
The presence or absence of discretionary clauses in employee benefit plans has been the key factor in determining the applicable standard of review in ERISA benefit claims litigation since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1989 decision in Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. v. Bruch. Since February 2004, the California Department of Insurance (“DOI”) has prohibited insurance […]
On May 18, 2009, the Internal Revenue Service issued proposed Treasury regulations that permit employers who sponsor a safe harbor 401(k) or 403(b) plan to reduce or suspend nonelective contributions in the event that the employer incurs a “substantial business hardship.” The proposed regulations are generally consistent with final regulations that permit an employer to […]
Issuing a much anticipated opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a 401(k) plan sponsor, a mutual fund investment advisor and an affiliated trustee were not subject to suit for providing investment options with allegedly excessive and unreasonable fees and failing to disclose revenue-sharing arrangements between the mutual fund investment […]
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“ARRA”), signed into law by President Obama on February 17, 2009, significantly expands the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) Privacy and Security requirements. The new requirements will generally be effective on February 17, 2010; however the increased penalty provisions are effective now. The […]
The April 18, 2009 deadline for distributing the notice describing the new COBRA premium reduction and COBRA extended election period available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“ARRA”) has passed, and many employers and plans will begin receiving and administering requests for the premium reduction over the next few weeks. Both the […]
Introduction The Pension Protection Act of 2006 (the “PPA”) added automatic contribution arrangements to the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”) for use in Code section 401(k), 457(b) and 403(b) plans. On November 8, 2007, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) issued proposed regulations relating to the automatic contribution arrangement provisions of the PPA (see our December […]
On March 9, 2009, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (the “Court”) denied a petition for rehearing en banc of the September 30, 2008 ruling by a three-judge panel of the Court in Golden Gate Restaurant Association v. City and County of San Francisco that the San Francisco Health Care Security Ordinance […]
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