Retirement benefits

When it comes to retirement savings, no family structure is apparently better prepared than same-sex couples without kids, who reported having $276,200 tucked away – the very model of successful workplace savers.

Funding for Social Security Disability Insurance is set to run out by 2016, and if no further action from Congress is taken, SSDI recipients could see a 20% reduction in benefits.

The DOL’s ERISA Advisory Council plans to identify current industry practices and trends regarding the types of employee benefit plan services being outsourced and the market for delivery of those services as part of its 2014 issue agenda.

Better investment returns have given more support to America's once-faltering DB plans, but benefits executives still stay they need to cut costs to deal with health care expenditures.

More than two-thirds of state and local public employees feel confident that they will have enough money to live comfortably in retirement.

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s single-employer program is improving, but the funding crisis for multiemployer pension plans is not, according to the agency’s fiscal 2013 projection report.

If it “smells like a benefit plan,” you likely have to follow ERISA, said one speaker at the National Association of Health Underwriters annual convention in Scottsdale, Ariz. Here are some general tips benefit advisers need to know about complying with this law, for your clients and their employees alike.

Public HR departments may need to tweak their traditional management and operational techniques to be more in line with the private sector, as tax revenues grow shorter and employees' needs become more complex.

Many employees who change jobs choose to roll their 401(k) accounts into IRAs rather than leaving them in place or rolling them into their new employers 401(k) plan. Rolling a 401(k) account into an IRA is generally a really bad idea, for the following reasons.

Recently, the Internal Revenue Service has focused enforcement activity on examining the implementation of a strong internal control system. The IRS has publicly stated that if a plan is selected for audit the agent will use their evaluation of the plan’s internal controls to determine whether the scope of the examination will be focused or expanded.

In contradictory fashion, paying off debt was cited as the top reason for taking out a loan from retirement plan savings (46%), yet only 26% of respondents said paying off debt was a good reason to take out a loan.

Commentary: Blogger Aaron Friedman reports good news for benefit advisers interested in working with employers on 403(b)s

The United States Supreme Court ruled that funds held in an “inherited IRA” are not retirement funds. As such, these funds are not exempt from the IRA holder’s bankruptcy estate and are subject to the claims of creditors in bankruptcy.

Commentary: With all the controversy around the new fiduciary definition, blogger Jerry Kalish reminds benefit advisers and brokers that there’s on fiduciary protection that is not in question — the support from the retirement plan.

For almost half the country, retirement might not be all golf games and trips to see grandkids, as many will be partially working in or through their golden years.

Will virtual currencies supplant the dollar as the currency of choice for international transactions? Probably not any time soon. Recently the Securities and Exchange Commission, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Internal Revenue Service issued statements designed to strongly discourage the use of virtual currencies.

The IRS has launched a compliance check program to better understand how plan sponsors are complying with Roth deferral provisions in 401(k) plans. If asked to participate, failure to to respond could trigger an audit.

Employee benefit advisers and employers will have to wait longer than anticipated for the DOL’s expanded definition of fiduciary, as the agency has delayed the issuance of its proposal until January 2015.

Commentary: Columnist John Ludwig says employers and their benefit advisers still have a long way to go to help workers be retirement-ready.

Automatic 401(k) features – including auto-enrollment, as well as plans that also automatically increase participant contributions each year – are beginning to have a significant impact on the success of employer-sponsored savings plans, and the balances of participants who’ve stayed in the game.