Category Archives: 401k

by BC2

Secure Act of 2019: Its Consequences on Retirement and 401k Compliance

The SECURE Act of 2019 approved by the Senate on Dec 19, 2019 is targeted towards helping every community when it comes to their retirement financial future. It consists of significant provisions aimed towards improving access to tax-advantaged accounts and encourages small businesses to provide retirement plans for their workers. Some of the major elements introduced in the bill included raising the minimum age for required minimum distributions from 70.5 to 72 years of age and giving students the ability to repay their student loans using 529 accounts (up to $10000).

Secure Act of 2019: Its Repercussions on Compliance Benefits

As far as small businesses are concerned, here are a few incentives contained in the retirement SECURE Act that encourage and help employers become plan sponsors.

1) Increasing Business Tax Credit for Plan Startup Costs – The current cap will be raised from $500 up to $5000 depending on special circumstances to make the process of setting up retirement plans more affordable for small businesses.

2) Automatic Enrollment – For plans that add automatic enrollment, small businesses will be provided with an additional $500 tax credit for 3 years.

3) Simplification of Rules – Rules related to qualified non-elective contributions have been simplified.

4) More Time – The time for adopting new plans has been extended beyond the end of the year to the date when companies file their tax return.

5) Reduced Plan Administrator Costs – Certain contribution plans with a common administrator now come with a consolidated Form 5500 to reduce costs. It is also important to note that penalties incurred by failure to file Form 5500 and withholding notices have been increased.

The SECURE Act also allows small employers unrelated to one another to come together and open multiple employer plans or MEPs. This can significantly reduce not only overall costs but administrative duties as well. MEPs are also referred to as PEPs (Pooled Employer Plans) and come with a single plan document, Form 5500 filing and independent plan audit. While MEPs could change the game for small businesses, it is important to note that there will be certain restrictions too such as standardized investment options and requirements that might be too much of a hassle to handle.

Until recently, the U.S retirement system was plagued with numerous problems that required a large portion of workers to supplement their social security with their personal savings. Due to reduced scope and lack of incentives, only 55 percent of the adult workforce was seen to participate in retirement plans, according to a 2018 report. However, a lot of things have been changed with the SECURE Act. Although it isn’t perfect, it certainly is a step in the right direction. It helps workers of all ages and those who come from all communities to be better prepared for their retirement age by allowing them different options for investment. Here are some of the ways in which the retirement Secure Act will bring about more positive changes to workers everywhere in the country.

1) It will now be easier for small businesses to set up 401ks as the cap under which they can auto-enroll employees (safe harbor retirement plans) has been increased from 10 percent to 15 percent.

2) It allows businesses to have part-time employees to participate in retirement plans. However, to be eligible, employees must work either 1000 hours in the designated year or have worked 3 years with 500 hours of service. This increases the scope of retirement plan participants by a significant margin allowing more people to have a choice in their financial future.

3) Permits participants to withdraw $5000 from 401k accounts with zero penalties to cover the cost of adopting or having a child.

4) Encourages employers to have more annuities in their 401k plans. Businesses now don’t have to worry about any legal liability that may arise from the annuity provider’s failure to meet financial obligations and don’t have to choose the lowest cost plan either.

5) Qualified disaster distributions will now have their penalties waived off if they are taken before the age of 59 .

The retirement SECURE Act of 2019 creates significant changes for small business owners and widens the scope for enrollment, allowing more people to sign up for a better financial future. Whether it becomes a game-changer is still unknown but it is indeed a step in the right direction.

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by BC2

Retirement Plan Compliance Guidelines You Must Know

The Employee Benefits Security Administration or EBSA is responsible for assuring that all 401k plans are in compliance with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). In recent years, the number of compliance audits conducted by both the IRS and the DOL has increased exponentially. It is the duty of the plan administrator to maintain, understand and ensure compliance to minimize the risk of their plan being audited. Given below is a retirement plan compliance guide that may help you to prevent any compliance issues from arising.

retirement plan compliance time

1) Reviewing Key Documents

There are three main documents that must be maintained, reviewed and retained every year at all costs. One of them is the most recent plan document that includes updated agreements. The other is the plan amendments document that includes any changes as per ERISA. The third one is the latest service agreements with TPAs. It is important for the administrator to not only review these files but also have signed copies of them.

2) Understanding the Plan Document

Every retirement plan will have a set amount of provisions that define the eligibility of participants and the benefits they can gain from it. The administrator must always go through the plan document to understand every aspect of eligibility from age requirements, service requirements to employee classification to ensure that all eligible employees get included in the plan. The document will also contain key information pertaining to the sources of compensation such as bonuses, severance pay, and taxable benefits, etc.

3) Understanding TPA Duties

Misunderstanding TPA’s duties is another reason why a retirement plan compliance issue may arise. To prevent errors from occurring, it is vital to keep a signed copy of the latest service agreements and read them fully to understand its full scope. Calculations related to employer contributions are mostly done by the TPA but some service agreements might indicate that it is the responsibility of the plan administrator to do so. Therefore, it is important to ensure that there is no confusion regarding the duties or it might lead to negligence and compliance issues in the end.

4) Adherence to Regulations

Retirement plans have a ton of rules and regulations to follow and sometimes a few of them might slip through the crack and never get enforced. For instance, most plans have a provision where employees who leave and then get rehired within a set amount of time can gain eligibility for participating in a 401k plan but it is often overlooked by a lot of companies. When it comes to an audit, even the tiniest detail will be under heavy scrutiny.

5) Ensuring Consistency of Day to Day Operations

It’s not sufficient to just have a plan document that meets all the required compliance needs. Day to day operations of the plan must be consistently upheld to all the rules and regulations as per the law. Sometimes, regulations may change before the sponsor is required to make changes to the plan. In such cases, operations might vary from the written terms of the plan. By maintaining consistency in the day to day operations of the plan, both the administrator and the sponsor can better prepare for any hurdle that may come their way.

By ensuring that there aren’t any issues when it comes to retirement plan compliance, everyone benefits, including the business owner and his/her employees. A happy workforce will always be a productive one too. We provide a number of different services such as Form 5500, ERISA compliance, benefits compliance, 401k and our specialty wrap form planning aimed at helping companies keep all their plans in accordance with the rules and regulations set by the IRS and DOL.

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by BC2

Retirement Wrap Plan Consultants Are Ready For Hire

The Importance of Hiring Retirement Wrap Plan Consultants

A wrap plan is a document that organizations use to ensure that they are compliant with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). It also helps them to reduce costs pertaining to the administration of health and welfare benefit plans provided to their employees. Employee welfare benefits covered by ERISA include a host of programs such as insurance, medical, dental and accidental death coverage. Non-compliance will result in penalties that may amount to $110 per day or more. It would be wise to hire retirement wrap plan consultants to ensure that such a predicament would never happen in the first place.

They can help you do the following:

Regulation Monitoring

Rules may evolve and change over time. Having a consultant would make it easier to ensure that the company is following the latest rules and guidelines properly.

Share Analytics

Retirement wrap plan consultants can monitor the percentage of people who are on track for a successful retirement future and share it with the employer to gauge the level of success of their retirement plans.

Summary Reports

Companies can obtain a summary of their plans along with certain key metrics such as total plan assets, participation rate, contribution types and savings rate. This will help the company find problematic areas if any.

Participant Engagement

This gives the employer a unique insight into the number of employees who are deferring at various rates so that they can review it and see if they are doing enough to maximize employer contributions. This also includes information about how many loans the participants have taken out and if there are any outstanding balances. This way, the company can review the status of each loan and see if the employees are following the required rules and guidelines.

Investment Plans

In a single file, the company will be able to see the summary of the different plans and important data points such as expense ratio, beginning balance, net flow and ending balance.

Plan Activity

This gives a glimpse into transactions that occur during reporting periods such as asset flows, disbursement and rollovers. To get more clarity on the matter, the transactions can even be divided into specific types like contribution, distribution and loan payment.

Compliance Summary

The most important aspect of the retirement wrap plan consultant’s job is to provide a summary of important compliance issues and areas where there might be a problem. If any area gets flagged, the company needs to solve it as soon as possible to ensure that they meet all compliance requirements. Some of the known categories include top heavy testing, 401k non-discrimination tests and participant deposit timing. Some even provide short notes for reference so that the employer can move quickly and take action before it’s too late.

Many companies are afraid of raking up penalties for not following the correct guidelines but hiring a retirement wrap plan consultant would help alleviate that fear. There are several retirement wrap plan consultancies out there today. Creating a wrap plan document is no easy feat and requires a lot of attention to detail and compliance. Once it is done, it can vastly simplify the process by having the required information in one place and eliminate the need for multiple Form 5500 submission.

by BC2

Responsibilities and Duties of a 401k Plan Administrator

401k plans are helpful to secure employees’ financial future but they are not without any hassles or red tapes.

Hiring someone for 401k plan administrator duties can save your business money.

There are a ton of regulations put up by the IRS that the plan has to be in compliance with. Not adhering to these regulations can lead to losing a substantial amount of money through penalties. It is the responsibility of the administrators and sponsors to ensure that the plan follows all regulations without any deviation. Some of these duties can be outsourced to a third-party service provider but there are a few that need to be directly overseen by administrators themselves.

Listed below are a few 401k plan administrator responsibilities.

1) Annual Compliance Testing

retiremenet wrap compliance

One of the most vital responsibilities of a 401k plan administrator is the annual compliance testing. According to the requirement of the IRS, every plan has to undergo non-discrimination tests every year to ensure that employees are treated fairly. These tests help to make sure that highly compensated employees don’t benefit more than other employees when it comes to tax deferrals. If the plan fails in any non-discrimination tests, then the administrator has to take steps to rectify it. This may include refunding highly compensated employee’s contributions along with the tax benefits to decrease the average contribution levels or raising the contribution rates of lower-earning employees. It is well within the right of the administrator to choose any of the above or a mixture of the two as per the situation.

2) Overseeing Loans

If a 401k plan permits employees to take out a loan against their plan, then it is the duty of the administrator to ensure that it meets all of the guidelines required by the IRS. These include making sure that the account has sufficient balance to process the loan and that the future payments will be repaid on time. If a loan defaults, then the administrator has to take action to resolve the issue as well. If the withdrawal qualifies as a hardship, then he/she must prepare and retain the necessary documents for verification purposes.

3) Communication

It’s not necessary for all employees to understand how the 401k plan works and the various regulations it must follow. If an employee has any doubts about the matter, then the administrator has to educate him/her regarding the various aspects of the plan. An administrator can also help the employees understand how future changes could affect the 401k plan so that they can prepare for any consequences that may follow. It is also the responsibility of the administrator to provide an all-inclusive summary report on the plan as well as an annual benefit statement to all the participants.

There are many other fiduciary responsibilities that come with the administrator’s post such as ensuring that all contributions are deposited and recorded, keeping all plan reports up to date, maintaining the plan investment certificates, etc. While it’s always better for a business to handle these tasks internally, some companies hire third-party firms to handle the administrative tasks of a 401k plan. With today’s technological advancements, getting assistance off-site isn’t as risky as it was in the past. Choosing the right firm that has a proven track record of successfully managing 401k plans can provide a lot of benefits to companies when it comes to time and effort saved.

We help companies with retirement wrap plan documents that combine all group insurance policies and contracts that provide welfare benefits into a single plan. These plans help in not only ensuring legal compliance but also provide more clarity to everyone concerned.

 

by BC2

401k Benefits For Employees

401k Benefits For Employees – Building a Secure and Safe Financial Future

Saving money for future is one of the most vital things to do when you are employed. It’s not a simple task but it is a necessary one that will bear fruits when you reach your retirement age. A 401k plan is a tax qualified contribution based pension account into which a certain amount of money is put in from the employee and the employer. This amount will not be taxable as long as you don’t withdraw it prematurely. It is meant to be a retirement savings plan and therefore should not be touched ideally until you reach your retirement age.

What are some of the 401k Benefits for Employees?

1) Automatic Savings

In a 401k plan, the money will be deducted from your salary pre-tax and transferred into the 401k account every month. The most difficult part of saving money is in actually resisting the urge to spend all your money and this solves that problem very efficiently.

2) Tax Savings

Your contribution is taken before tax is levied and so your taxable income will be significantly less than what you would have to pay if you don’t have a 401k plan.

3) Better and Faster Savings

As your contributions grow without incurring any taxes, your savings can actually grow faster than a traditional investment plan in a brokerage firm or a bank.

4) Supplementing Social Security

Deciding when to draw social security is a difficult task in itself. When it is taken, you will often find that it falls quite short of the income you are used to when employed. A 401k plan can help you fill the gap better by giving you a good amount of money when you reach your retirement age.

5) Potential Loans

One of the most useful 401k benefits for employees is the ability to take loans based on special conditions for various reasons ranging from buying a house, medical expenses, education and so on. The amount of interest levied on these loans is usually lesser than traditional loans offered by banks.

Pre Mature Withdrawal of your 401k Savings

You can choose to withdraw your savings prematurely as a last resort if needed but you will have to incur penalties for doing so. If you are under the age of 59 , you might incur a 10 percent penalty along with paying taxes on the amount withdrawn which may end up being a substantial amount. The procedure for withdrawing the amount will depend on the employer as well as the type of withdrawal you go for. It is important to note that not all employers allow you to withdraw in advance. You will have to check with the H.R. department first to find out if such an option is available. A better way would be to take a loan out instead against your 401k savings as you will be able to get the amount you seek and pay it back at the same time.

If you have a 401k complaint or question, you can always contact the department of labor and file a claim on the EBSA website. Everything you need to know about the various procedures for doing so can be found there. Another place where you can find a lot of information pertaining to your retirement income is to learn more about the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

by BC2

An Essential Guide to Understanding ERISA Wrap Documents

Essential Guide to Understanding ERISA Wrap Documents

Many employers understand the significance of complying with ERISA (Employee Retirement Security Act) plan documents. These documents hold disclosure requirements for various retirement plans, including 401(k). But it’s startling to see some employer’s poor attention towards health and welfare benefit plans in their companies.

erisa wrap document servicesUsually, employers mostly running smaller organizations assume that benefit summaries offered by some insurance providers meet all ERISA regulations. However, the truth is that all employers in the U.S are obligated under ERISA laws to fashion employees with all the information missing in insurer’s booklets.

What are ERISA Wrap Documents?

As an employer, you might be wondering what an ERISA Wrap document is. Well, regardless of the size of your company, ERISA laws require all employees to provide Wrap or SPDs (Summary Plan descriptions) to employees participating in their plans. These documents contain all plan descriptions as well as employee benefits. For instance, they include Tax IDs, Address and the names of the beneficiaries, etc. They are the simplest way of employers to comply with ERISA regulations.

Wrap documents “wraps” around insurance policies or cover with the plan benefits regulated by the insurance company. Additionally, wrap documents are designed to supplement relevant information for ERISA compliance. Furthermore, employers may use Wrap documents to merge employee’s welfare plans into one mega-wrap plan. This way, extra costs are minimized during the filing of annual reports.

Why are Wrap Documents Important?

  1. Plan Consolidation – As earlier mentioned, wrap documents helps in merging employee’s health and welfare benefits into one “umbrella” plan. They consolidate all plan benefits and provides an overarching summary of admins, plan type, benefits, and fiduciaries, among other vital details in an easy to understand manner.
  2. Simpler ERISA Compliance – They reduce the employer’s workload and allows for easier compliance with ERISA, IRS, and DOL regulations. In case you have been submitting Form 5500 per each benefit plan annually, then a Wrap document can remove the repetition processes.
  3. Compliance with Federal Laws – As an employer, you have the sole responsibility to provide clear information on procedures, employee benefits, and plan details. Additionally, you’ll be forced to protect employee’s plan assets no matter who provides your benefits to comply with federal regulations.

How to Adopt a Wrap Plan

When planning to adopt a Wrap plan, the process is quite simple. First, you need to determine which benefit plans your organization sponsors that are subject to ERISA. You can as well identify affiliate employer plans that require filling the annual Form 5500.

Then, you’ll need to analyze insurance arrangements, coverage terms, and plan’s administration processes. In this step, consider things such as eligibility, plan year, commencement date, and claim procedures.

The next step is to prepare the Summary Plan Descriptions and the plan document. Finally, you can adopt a Wrap plan after all the documents in the step above have been reviewed thoroughly. Do not forget to distribute the SPDs to all eligible employees.

Use this comprehensive guide to understand more information on ERISA compliance and Wrap documents. Are you still stuck on adopting an effective Wrap Plan?

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by BC2

Technology Compliance Benefits Businesses

Compliance benefits businesses in many ways.

It is obvious we live in a world where technology has now become part of our daily lives. Technology has come to change so many things that were hard to accomplish to be easy tasks completed in a matter of minutes.

Technology has made life quite easy in all aspects not just in the business world. Communication has been enhanced greatly between people who are miles away but they can now see each other as they converse. Information from the head company will reach its branches in a short span of time thanks to technology.

However, there is no good thing that does not have its share of downfalls. Technology too has its limitations. Sometimes it may not be in compliance with the set ethics and standards. It has drastic setbacks in as much as it has made work much easier. In this article, you are going to learn about the benefits of technology in the compliance industry and also the disadvantages of technology as far as compliance is concerned.

Merits of Compliance Technology

It is through technology that compliance programs are able to reduce risk, enhance flexibility, increase efficiency and improve on their performance.

1. Reduce Risk

Your business requires you to roll out a risk-based compliance structure. Technology is known to manage risks more effectively. If you have sufficient knowledge on your compliance program as a complete loop then you have better chances of knowing how to handle when risks occur before they become catastrophic problems.

This will lead to an effective program and thus reduces instances of potential lawsuits. It ensures you reduce your expenses on insurance premiums. Risky activities will now have less impact on the organization’s core business.

Accessing real-time data enables you to find weaknesses and upcoming issues in your program. You will therefore be able to deal with that problem before it grows to a major disaster and hence continuance improvement of your program.

2. Enhance Flexibility

This is another benefits compliance of technology. Have a look back at the time when there were no electrical gadgets like phones and computers. Everything was just very slow and even misquoted. Information did not reach people at the right time.

But look at the world we live in today. Everything is so swift and accurate just like what is needed for the compliance programs. They are constantly changing and therefore people need to adopt real quick. The program ought to be scalable, changeable and flexible to help your employees get updated on any issues and also give them a chance to show their reaction.
As companies grow and open up new branches in other areas, they also need to extend their compliance programs to these new entities to ensure benefits compliance is achieved as you run the program. This pushes the companies to move the compliance technology from desktop and static storage to cloud-based interfaces that are also mobile-friendly.

3. Increase Efficiency

An efficient compliance program needs to have a backbone. These are the driving factors of the same. They are normally the controls, procedures, and policies. The ancient types of programs did not make things run efficiently but technology has really eased the compliance programs and made it an easy task for people.
It becomes easier to develop and upgrade that program, to refresh, review and even update it.

4. Improve Performance

A centralized type of compliance program is more efficient. In the old days, technology was not used as of now where business is keeping the program centralized and control from only one point. This definitely increases your team performance and the program as a whole.
Integrated platforms allow the teams in the organization to link their data together and get to know how a part of your program affects the other.

compliance benefits

Technology Setbacks

The major downfall of technology is they are prone to attack. This is especially if we are talking about electronic gadgets such as computers. They can be attacked by harmful programs that will erase all that is stored on the computer.

These digital tools also use electricity for them to function. In case you do not have back-up generators to use when electricity is lost then the technology is useless at that instance.
Some believe technology have made humans become lazy. Since most of these tasks are being done by machines you find that if the technology fails to work then probably no work that day. Whereas it could just be a simple task but humans are now used to the machine so they feel they cannot do it. Others might believe that the machines do more work in one day than humans do in a month and does a better job. Either way, technology compliance benefits businesses.

We make the process simple. We are ERISA compliance specialists.

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by BC2

Retirement In Your 60’s: How Much Should You Have In Your 401k Plan?

Retirement age might seem far away from you for now, but it doesn’t mean that it’ll never come. Preparing for your future is never too early or too late. Everything that you’ll be saving up from your salary right now will pay off in the future. But it can be very difficult to save up most of the time especially if you’re in your 20’s and you’re still enjoying your life. There are still things that you want to buy and places that you want to go to. All of these things might make you lose focus and end up with no savings at all.

So what should you do to have enough savings in the future? 401(k) plans are now being offered by employers to their employees. You might have heard about them before in your office but had no idea what it is. You may already have one. This article will help you understand how it can help you with your lifetime savings.

The 401(k) Plan

The 401(k) is basically a retirement plan that is sponsored by an employer. It helps employees manage their savings better and their future finances by taking a part of their salary and investing it in their savings. It is just like pension funds but more flexible. This is because you can control the money that you want to invest. There are plans that you can invest in bonds, stocks, and money market investments.

How Much Will You Receive For Retirement?

It’s easy to say how you’ll be saving up for your future and how you plan to become a millionaire by the age of 50. But it is not easy to do it. And one of the reasons why is because you are not sure of how much you should be saving up. Lack of proper planning for your retirement and for your personal finances make you unfocused on your goals.

If you don’t have a clear plan, you won’t reach your target savings. And this is how a 401(k) plan becomes very useful for you. The amount that you want to save is automatically removed from your salary, therefore preventing you from spending it on things that you don’t need like that shoes that you saw in the mall last week or that bag that you have been eyeing for months now.

Let’s go back to the question. How much are you going to receive for your retirement if you invest in a 401(k) plan? While it is impossible to say a specific amount because the economy is always changing, experts were still able to estimate how much money you are likely to have in your plan once you retire in your 60’s.

According to them, assuming that you have a $1,000 balance in your plan and start your career at the age of 22, with a salary of $40,00 an annual increase of 3%, a contribution rate of 10%, and returns of 8% annually, your balance can amount to $3.1 by the age of 66. This money is already more than enough for you and your family when you retire.

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What Are The Benefits Of This Retirement Plan?

It is very motivating to know the potential amount of money that you can get through a 401(k) plan. And to make you even more motivated to save up, here are some benefits that come with this retirement plan.

• The amount of money that you contribute to your 401(k) is exempted from tax. This means that your taxable income is lowered. In addition to this, the dividend, as well as your capital gains that are earned through your 401(k), are also not subject to taxes until you withdraw it from your retirement plan.

• Some retirement accounts like the IRAs limit people from contributing once they turn 70 ½ which is unlike 401(k) plans that will allow you to contribute as long as you want while you are still working.

The 401(k) plan is undoubtedly a good way of making your savings earned. The amount of money that you can save up using this plan is also really good. However, the bottom line for every savings plan is that you are always in control of your money. You can either save a lot or end up having none at all. If you are not mindful of your expenses, you won’t succeed even if you have a 401(k) plan.

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