Retirement Plan Legislative Update: Act 3 – The CARES Act
June 02, 2022
Posted By: Christopher Ciminera, CPA Act 3 – The CARES Act In the last blog, we covered the remainder of the SECURE Act provisions. By itself, it changed the landscape of our play. But an unexpected storm came in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic creating a major cloud of uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic created … Continued
Universal Availability Rules
May 31, 2022
Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA “Retirement readiness is important for everybody” – this is a statement that didn’t make it to the searchable lists of universal truths, but should have. The 403(b) plan regulations realized the benefits of inclusion a long time ago, providing that if any employee can elect to make elective deferrals, then … Continued
Retirement Plan Legislative Update: Act 2 – SECURE Act Scenes 2-4
May 13, 2022
Posted By: Christopher Ciminera, CPA Act 2 – The SECURE Act…Continued In our last two blogs, we discussed the beneficial changes of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 and Title 1 of the SECURE Act. But it doesn’t stop there because there were more changes included in the SECURE Act, which we will now discuss … Continued
Top Five Operational Errors of 403(b) Plans
May 10, 2022
Posted By: Maria Hurd, CPA Top Five Operational Errors of 403(b) Plans Oops! I did it again… No matter how hard we try, there are mistakes we are doomed to make again and again, even when we know the rules all too well. The reasons are valid, and they are countless: mindlessness, being in a … Continued
How Does the 403(b) Special 15-Year Catch-Up Contribution Work?
May 06, 2022
Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA Where have you worked, for how long, and how much have you contributed to the 403(b) plan? These are all the questions that make up the puzzle pieces necessary to compute each participant’s available 403(b) catch-up. Participants in a 403(b) plan can make an additional contribution once they have … Continued
Retirement Plan Legislative Update: Act 2 – Scene 1: The SECURE Act
May 03, 2022
Posted By: Christopher Ciminera, CPA Act 2 – The SECURE Act In Act 1 of our play, Retirement Plan Legislative Update: Act 1 – Bipartisan Budget Act, we covered the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. This was positive legislation, but a major change to legislation was yet to come – the Setting Every Community Up … Continued
Retirement Plan Legislative Update: Act 1 – Bipartisan Budget Act
April 28, 2022
Posted By: Christopher Ciminera, CPA The world has gone through many sudden and unpredictable changes in the last few years. The retirement plan industry has seen many changes, as well, which has had impactful legislation and guidance that changed the retirement landscape in many positive ways. With all these changes, it seems the world and … Continued
401(k), 403(b), 457(b): Why Are the Rules Different?
April 07, 2022
Posted By: Maria Hurd, CPA Why Ask Why? Why should the rules that determine how and how much a person can save for retirement be different depending on whether the person works for a government entity, a nonprofit, or a for-profit employer? People are people, and their retirement needs are not different based on what … Continued
SAS 136 – Forming an Opinion and Reporting on Financial Statements of Employee Benefit Plans Subject to ERISA
March 29, 2022
Posted By: Christopher Ciminera, CPA On July 19, 2019, the AICPA Auditing Standards Board issued SAS 136 – Forming an Opinion and Reporting on Financial Statements of Employee Benefit Plans Subject to ERISA. This standard was a long time coming. The AICPA worked with the DOL and other interested parties to create a new standard … Continued
Correcting Retirement Plan Eligibility Errors: Improper Exclusion Leads to Corrective Contributions
March 25, 2022
Posted By: Maria Hurd, CPA But They Got the Money in their Paycheck, Why Should They Get Even More? When an organization does not give employees the opportunity to make salary deferrals, or ignores their election to make salary deferral contributions, correcting the mistake in accordance with the IRS Correction Program called Employee Plan Compliance … Continued