Newsletter Articles

Upcoming Compliance Deadlines for Calendar-Year Plans

May 15thQuarterly Benefit Statement – Deadline for participant-directed plans to supply participants with the quarterly benefit/disclosure statement, including a statement of plan fees and expenses charged to individual plan accounts during the first quarter of...

New Questions on the 2023 Form 5500

The IRS Form 5500 is an annual return that is filed for most qualified retirement plans. Here are a few new items you may notice on the form for plan years that began in 2023. Participant count has been expanded for defined contribution plans. The large plan audit...

A Refresher on RMDs

Although required minimum distributions (RMDs) are now mandatory components of tax-deferred retirement plans, this was not always the case. RMD rules began to apply to qualified plans following the Tax Reform Act of 1986, after policy makers noticed that retirement...

Is Automatic Enrollment Required for Your Plan?

An automatic enrollment provision can be a useful tool to drive employee engagement in plans, particularly for participants who otherwise have not yet considered their retirement situation. These provisions allow an employer to withhold deferrals from the employee’s...

Upcoming Compliance Deadlines for Calendar-Year Plans

February 28thIRS Form 1099-R Copy A – Deadline to submit Form 1099-R Copy A to the IRS for participants and beneficiaries who received a distribution or a deemed distribution during the prior plan year. This deadline applies to scannable paper filings. For...

401(k) deferrals: Don’t exceed the limit!

Excess deferrals occur when a 401(k) participant defers a greater amount than the annual IRS limit permits. The annual deferral limit was $22,500 for 2023 and $23,000 for 2024. For participants 50 years old and older, an additional $7,500 can be deferred. When this...

Does My Plan Need an Audit?

The main determining factor in whether your plan needs an audit performed by an independent qualified public accountant is the participant count. An audit will be required if the beginning of year participant count is more than 100. For the plan year that began in...

Components of Defined Contribution Plan Compliance Testing

Plans must be tested each year to ensure that they are compliant with the laws governing retirement plans. To understand the testing performed for your plan, it may be helpful to review some of the terms that are commonly used. First, let’s examine how your plan’s...

Upcoming Compliance Deadlines for Calendar-Year Plans

December 1stParticipant Notices – Annual notices due for Safe Harbor elections (note that some plans are no longer required to distribute Safe Harbor notices), Qualified Default Investment Arrangement (QDIA), and Automatic Contribution Arrangements (EACA or...