Yay, another busy season behind us! Like the calendar pages flapping by in an old movie to show the passage of time, one pension deadline after another marks our lives as pension professionals.
I don’t know about all of you, but I love the period from now until late August, when we will start to get super busy again. Yes, there is still a lot of work to get done in this period, but without the pressure of deadlines and with long spring and summer days I can break up my day with work and play and feel like my life is in balance again.
In a major win for small business retirement plans and the advocacy efforts of ACOPA and ASPPA, the Treasury Department and IRS on April 14 withdrew the “reasonable classification” provision in their proposed regulations relating to the nondiscrimination rules for cross-tested plans. ACOPA Executive Director Judy Miller has an update on the good news here.
A new and regular feature of the e-news is that I will be interviewing well-known pension industry people. My first victim, er… interviewee, is Carol Zimmerman who, as many of you know, is an actuary with the IRS. My interview with Carol is here.
Judy recently did a webcast for ACOPA on the ongoing saga of the 412(d)(2) amendments, so I asked her to modify her webcast into an article for the e-news to update those of you who were not able to view the webcast. Judy’s article is here.
ACOPA President Karen Smith has provided us with an update on the disciplinary process, and her update is here.
Lastly, from the IRS there is this little goodie: https://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Discriminatory-Plan-Designs-Using-Short-Service. The lesson here is always: “Yes, you may pass the test, but if the effect of what you are doing is to discriminate, then we’ve got you!” Remember folks, pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.
Cheers,
Norm
p.s.: You didn’t think I’d let another deadline go by without subjecting you to my usual deadline song, did you?
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