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Each January, the IRS updates several revenue procedures that prescribe the process for requesting determination letters for qualified retirement plans. For the most part, these have changed very little from one year to the next, except for increases in user fees charged. This year, the IRS made significant changes, which purportedly are intended to improve its efficiency. To understand why the new guidance involves both good news and bad news for plan sponsors necessitates a…

Overall U.S. investor optimism has surged back up to the February 2011 level with a significant jump from September, according to a survey from Wells Fargo and Gallup. Seventy-two percent say they are either better off (40%) or no worse off (32%) than they were nearly four years ago, before the last presidential election, while 27% say they are worse off financially.

AMR Corp, the bankrupt parent of American Airlines, on Wednesday proposed a plan to freeze pensions covering many of its workers, retreating from an earlier proposal to terminate them and leave them to government insurers, which could result in lower payouts.

Health-related applications are among the top three apps employees are most interested in using on their smartphones or tablets. Weather-related apps came in at No. 1, cited by 53.6% of respondents, followed by music (52.9%) and health-related (51.2%).

Although the rate of health care cost increases is expected to remain stable in 2012, employers are taking more aggressive steps to manage their rising costs and improve employee health, according to findings from the 2012 Towers Watson/National Business Group on Health Employer Survey on Purchasing Value in Health Care. The survey was completed by 512 employers who work at companies with at least 1,000 employees and collectively employ 9.1 million full-time employees, and represent more than $87 billion in annual health care spending.

Here's a recent roundup of industry accomplishments. Check to see if a colleague is mentioned this week.

Fortune Magazine’s list of the 50 Most Admired Companies only includes one insurer, Berkshire Hathaway, at No. 7. However, the news outlet ranked insurers separately in their own categories: “Property and Casualty,” “Life and Health” and “Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care.”

According to research, HR professionals who rated college students’ employability based only on the students’ Facebook pages were able to draw fairly accurate conclusions about the students' future job performance.

While employers continue to make sizable cash contributions to their pension plans, declining interest rates and, to a lesser extent, weak asset returns, reduced the average funded status of Fortune 1000 pension plans by four percentage points during 2011, according to a new analysis by Towers Watson.

Much has been left up in the air around the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, with several mandates not yet fully realized because of delays in rules and the possibility of the Supreme Court ruling parts of the law as unconstitutional.