Category Archives: Employee Benefit Plans

Getting a Health Insurance Rebate? Learn the Tax and Other Consequences

In a time of rapidly rising costs for health insurance, a new provision of the Affordable Care Act (the Act) sets a minimum percentage of premium dollars that insurers must spend on health care, thereby limiting the amount they can retain as profit or spend on administrative costs like salaries and marketing.

According to healthcare.gov, the provision “holds health insurance companies accountable to consumers and ensures that American families are reimbursed if health insurance companies don’t meet a fair standard of value.” (continue reading…)

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Paying Your Employees Sick Leave? Seattle Establishes New Minimum Standards

As many as 200,000 people in Seattle work without paid sick leave. A controversial new ordinance addresses the concern of some that employees without sick leave can’t afford to stay home when they or their family members are ill, and therefore risk prolonging or intensifying their illnesses or spreading infectious diseases to those around them. 

This month,  Seattle joined Washington, D.C., San Francisco and the State of Connecticut in mandating paid sick leave. Similar legislation is proposed in California and Massachusetts, (continue reading…)

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Ready for Newly Mandated 401(k) and 403(b) Fee Disclosures? What Employers Need to Know

Does anyone really believe the old adage that says what you don’t know can’t hurt you? If you do, it’s probably costing you money.

Take your organization’s retirement plan. If you’re an employer with a 401(k), 403(b) or other qualified retirement plan, it’s your fiduciary responsibility to exercise care and due diligence with regard to your plan, and to act solely in the interest of your its participating employees. That includes monitoring fees and other costs to ensure that they’re reasonable (continue reading…)

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Required to File Form 8955-SSA for Your Benefit Plan? IRS Releases New Form and Extends 2009 and 2010 Filing Dates

How easy would it be, after some forty or fifty years in the workforce, to overlook retirement benefits due from a long-past employer?

Very, as it turns out.

To avoid this eventuality, the Social Security Administration is charged with maintaining a database of information on individuals due retirement benefits from former employers. It is also charged with notifying these individuals—as they reach retirement age—about the retirement benefits they may be due.

For plan years beginning in or after 2009, the SSA gathers information (continue reading…)

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File a Form 5500 for 2007?

The preferred retirement plan for the majority of U.S. employers is now the 401(k)― comprising more than 60 percent of all private retirement plans in the country.

Given its dominance, the IRS considers it “important to the future of the private retirement system” that 401(k) plans maintain “the highest level of compliance possible.”

The IRS’ Compliance Initiative
In an effort to enhance compliance, the IRS recently announced a new initiative for 401(k) plans. Selected plan sponsors will receive letters from the IRS asking (continue reading…)

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Know the Important Federal Tax Deadlines for 2010?

Do you know the federal deadline for making your IRA contribution?

When to make estimated tax payments?

Or when your tax return is due if you request an extension?

 

First Quarter 2010

March 1

Businesses: File information returns―Forms 1099 and Form 1096―with the IRS for payments you made during 2009, as required (See also March 31).

March 15

C and S Corporations: (continue reading…)

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Know the Important Federal Tax Deadlines for 2009?

Do you know the federal deadline for making your IRA contribution? When to make estimated tax payments? Or when your tax return is due if you apply for an extension?

Taxes can have a significant impact on your cash flow, so planning for them is crucial. If you miss a tax deadline, you can lose an important tax deduction or become subject to substantial penalties and interest.

2009 Federal Income Tax Calendar
The following quick-reference guide includes many of the most important federal (continue reading…)

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Up on the New Changes for IRAs, 403[b] Plans, and Employer-Sponsored Retirement Plans?

‘Tis the season for giving and if you’re a senior age 70½ or older, a tax exempt organization with a 403(b) retirement plan, or a company with an employer-sponsored pension plan, you just received an unexpected gift.

Congress recently passed the Worker, Retiree, and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 that provides a one-year moratorium on required minimum distributions from IRAs, 401(k)s and other defined contribution plans during 2009. The Act also includes important provisions to ease funding requirements for single-employer and (continue reading…)

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Have Money in a 403(b) Plan?

“Twere well it were done quickly,” Shakespeare once said. In other words, if you’re going to do it, do it now. He could have been describing your 403(b) investments.

If you work for a not-for-profit organization with a 403(b) retirement plan–for example, a public school, a college or university, a church, a charity, or a nonprofit hospital–you’re facing an imminent deadline. Beginning September 24, 2007, new tax rules will limit your investment choices for your 403(b) assets.

These changes are a part (continue reading…)

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Affected by the Federal Tax Regulations on Deferred Compensation?

Discounted stock options and stock appreciation rights. Bonus plans. Severance agreements. Phantom stock. Partnership interests. Certain executive retirement plans… What do they all have in common? 

The answer is that they all involve arrangements by which the compensation of an employee, contractor, or director is (or can be) paid out later than it is actually earned. In other words, they’re potentially forms of nonqualified deferred compensation, subject to newly issued federal tax regulations under §409A of the Internal Revenue Code.

Although the (continue reading…)

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