The 411 on Employee Benefit Plans

You’ve read all the articles and DOL publications about how to choose a Third Party Administrator (TPA) (see Monitoring your TPA, Selecting a TPA, Duties of Plan Administration, and Fiduciary Responsibilities). You’ve done the research, and you feel like you’ve hired a competent company to administer your plan. And so you just go about your [...]

In order to ensure that employee benefit plans do not violate certain standards that the DOL/IRS believe are important, plans must be subjected to numerous compliance tests annually.  These tests are designed to ensure that the amount that employees are deferring is within certain maximum limits and that plans are not operating is a manner [...]

As noted in April 6, 2010 post, “Do You Still Need a 401K Audit?” there are several factors to consider in determining whether or not your 401K Plan needs an audit.  After the decision has been determined that an audit will be required for your 401K Plan, the next big question for the Plan administrator [...]

It’s 5500 season again and now the big question is upon you: Do you need to have an audit performed and an audit opinion attached to your 5500 before you send it in? Most people know that the general rule is that if you have fewer than 100 participants in the plan, you are considered [...]

Formal Notice of Rejection (NOR) letters were recently sent by the Department of Labor (DOL) to over 300 plan administrators for failing to attach an audit report to their 2008 Form 5500. Currently, these notices were sent to plans deemed to be large based on the size of the plan’s assets. A second round of [...]

Most the answers can be found in archived blogs on this site – “the 411 on Employee Benefit Plans” Don’t have time to read through them? Post a question and we will be happy to help. 
1. What happens to my account when my Employer sponsored 401(k) Plan incurs a partial plan termination?
a) Your employer has terminated [...]

The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) plans to amend the regulatory definition of “fiduciary.” A large number of plan sponsors rely on the services of pension consultants and financial asset appraisers. As such, in June 2010, EBSA will propose to amend the current definition to include these service providers, essentially making them subject to the [...]

Oftentimes during a 401(k) plan audit, the employer will respond to various questions about their plan with the answer “Our TPA handles all of that for us.” Indeed it is very common for plan sponsors to hire third-party administrators (TPAs) to manage some of the plan’s day-to-day operations. While there is much to be gained [...]

401(k) plan fees and expenses affect investment returns and ultimately have an impact on your retirement income. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) requires employers to ensure that fees paid to service providers and other expenses of the plan are reasonable in light of the level of quality of services provided. Since plan fees [...]

The act of hiring a third party administrator (“TPA”) is one of the responsibilities of a Plan Sponsor. One of the first steps in this hiring process is to sit down with your Plan Committee and determine what exactly your needs are in a TPA. Does your Company have specific situations that will need to [...]