Retirement Plans Archives - Page 2 of 11

Plan Fiduciaries Continue to Defeat BlackRock Target Date Fund Class Actions

A series of cases against fiduciaries of 401(k) plans that offer BlackRock Target Date Funds (TDFs) have been dismissed by district courts in recent months. In three recent cases, the district courts held that plaintiffs failed to allege any facts about the plan fiduciaries’ process for selecting and monitoring the BlackRock TDFs and that plaintiffs’ reliance on the BlackRock TDFs’ alleged underperformance alone was insufficient to state a claim for breach of fiduciary duty.

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Congressional Leaders Address SECURE 2.0 Act Glitches

The SECURE 2.0 Act made sweeping changes to Internal Revenue Code (Code) and ERISA provisions governing employee benefit plans. In a recent letter to the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service, the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee addressed a number of ambiguities and technical errors in the SECURE 2.0 Act and signaled their intent to introduce technical correction legislation. (Exactly which errors will be fixed in such legislation remain to be seen.)

The letter pinpointed the following four provisions of the SECURE 2.0 Act and asked the IRS to implement the legislative provisions in a way that would “ensure that Congressional intent is carried out:”

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IRS Issues Interim Guidance on SECURE 2.0 Self-Correction Expansion

The IRS recently issued Notice 2023-43 (Notice) to provide interim guidance on Section 305 of SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0), which significantly expanded self-correction under the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS). The Treasury Department was directed under SECURE 2.0 Section 305 to issue an updated version of EPCRS (most recently set forth in Rev. Proc. 2021-30) by December 29, 2024. The Notice is intended to provide some answers to plan sponsors in advance of the update to Rev. Proc. 2021-30.

In general, Section 305 of SECURE 2.0 broadened the scope of self-correction by permitting any eligible inadvertent failures (EIFs) to be self-corrected within a reasonable period after the failure is identified. SECURE 2.0 defines the self-correction period as indefinite, with no last day, so long as the IRS does not identify the failure before the plan sponsor takes action demonstrating a specific commitment to implement a self-correction to the failure.

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Use of Forfeitures in Qualified Retirement Plans

On February 27, 2023, the IRS and the Department of Treasury published proposed regulations regarding the use of forfeitures in qualified retirement plans. If finalized, the proposed rule will be effective for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2024. However, plans may rely on the proposed regulations now.

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Final Changes Announced to Forms 5500 and 5500-SF

The Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it has finalized, together with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the third and final round of revisions to the Form 5500 Annual Return/Report of Employee Benefit Plan and the 5500-SF Short Form Annual Return/Report of Small Employee Benefit Plan.

These Phase III revisions implement certain elements of a September 2021 regulatory proposal, which included proposed changes to annual reporting requirements under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Some of the changes relate to the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enforcement Act (SECURE Act), including items affecting multiple-employer plans (MEPs) and defined contribution group reporting arrangements. As such, the changes mostly impact retirement plans. Phase III revisions are effective for plan years beginning January 1, 2023, with filing beginning in July 2024. The previous Phases I and II adopted changes for plan years 2021 and 2022, respectively.

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SECURE 2.0 Includes Several Changes Intended to Encourage the Use of Retirement Annuities

SECURE 2.0, which was included as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, was signed into law in late December 2022. The statute contains 92 substantive sections making reforms to a broad array of retirement-related provisions in ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code (the Code) and certain other laws. Of these 92 sections, four make changes to various aspects of the required minimum distribution (RMD) rules set forth under the Code that apply to annuities in various situations.

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In Case You Missed It – Winter 2023

Written by members of Faegre Drinker’s benefits and executive compensation team, this blog features analysis and information on matters related to retirement plans, health and welfare plans, ESOPs, ERISA litigation, fiduciary governance, and other benefits issues.

This quarterly digest provides links to our most popular posts during the past few months so that you can catch up on what you missed or re-read them.

Secure 2.0 Adds New Distribution Options for Defined Contribution Plans

By Mark Rosenfeld, Erik Vogt, and Mark M. Brown
SECURE 2.0 introduced several new distribution options and tax reporting rules for defined contribution plan sponsors. In this post, we overview the new provisions and their potential implementation dates.

COVID-19 National Emergency Plan Deadline Extensions Set to End This Summer

By Stephanie L. Gutwein and James E. Crossen
On January 30, 2023, President Biden announced the Administration’s plan to extend the current declarations of the COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency (PHE) through May 11, 2023, and end both emergencies on that date. The end of the national emergency, which was originally declared in March 2020, will cause certain employee benefit plan-related deadline extensions to conclude this summer.

Multiemployer Pension Plan Alert: Evergreen Clauses May Trump the Bargaining Parties’ Subsequent Agreement

By Gregory Ossi and Caitlin M. Britos
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently ruled that Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund may continue its lawsuit against Transervice Logistics, Inc. and Zenith Logistics, Inc. seeking allegedly outstanding pension fund contributions. The case examined two consolidated appeals, each involving a nearly identical collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between each employer and a union, and trust agreements between each employer and the plaintiff fund.

Multiemployer Pension Plan Alert: Evergreen Clauses May Trump the Bargaining Parties’ Subsequent Agreement

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently ruled that Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund may continue its lawsuit against Transervice Logistics, Inc. and Zenith Logistics, Inc. seeking allegedly outstanding pension fund contributions. The case examined two consolidated appeals, each involving a nearly identical collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between each employer and a union, and trust agreements between each employer and the plaintiff fund. The court was asked to determine whether the employers were required to maintain contributions to a multiemployer pension plan pursuant to so-called “evergreen clauses” that renewed the CBAs each year unless timely terminated.

Factual Background

The CBAs obligated the employers to make pension fund contributions to plaintiff, making the fund a third-party beneficiary of the agreements. The trust agreements obligated the employers to contribute to the fund for the “entire term of any collective bargaining agreement… (including any extension of a collective bargaining agreement through an evergreen clause…).” The CBAs were set to expire on January 31, 2019 but contained evergreen clauses that renewed the CBAs each year unless terminated with 60 days’ notice.

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SECURE 2.0 Expansion of Self-Correction Program and Plan Loan Error Corrections

The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0), the follow-up legislation to the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (now known as SECURE 1.0) (previously discussed here and here), includes many important legal changes affecting retirement plans. SECURE 2.0 is intended to expand access to retirement plans, encourage additional retirement savings and ease certain administrative burdens on retirement plan sponsors.

In a measure that substantively affects plan sponsors and alters retirement plan correction practices, SECURE 2.0 significantly expands the availability of self-correction by widening the range of operational failures for which self-correction is available, including plan loan errors.

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SECURE 2.0 Adds New Distribution Options for Defined Contribution Plans

SECURE 2.0 introduced several new distribution options and tax reporting rules for defined contribution plan sponsors. Below is an overview of the new provisions and their potential implementation dates. (For an overview of SECURE 2.0 for defined contribution plan sponsors, click here.)

Here is a quick summary of the new distribution changes in SECURE 2.0.

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