ACG Blog

The IRS, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) and Social Security Administration (SSA) have announced 2019 contribution and benefit limits and other numbers of interest. Many of these can be found here. Most limits and thresholds will see mode...

I took a call recently from an employee participating in a defined benefit pension plan that is being terminated. As part of the plan termination, the employee had been offered a lump sum buyout. He could take either a monthly pension or a single lum...

You might be aware that if the due date for a tax return occurs on a weekend or holiday, that due date is moved to the next business day. This has happened a couple of times in recent years with the dreaded April 15 due date for personal tax returns ...

In qualified retirement plans, vesting refers to what portion of your benefit you get to take with you when you receive a payout from the plan. It’s how much of your account you “own.” If you are 100 percent vested, it means you are entitled to recei...

This is the second in a two-part series about deductible contribution limits to qualified retirement plans. The first part last week covered the limits to defined contribution plans. The tax-deductibility of qualified retirement plan contributions is...

This is the first in a two-part series about deductible contribution limits to qualified retirement plans. The second part next week will cover arrangements that include defined benefit plans. Contributions made by a business to a qualified retiremen...

Most qualified retirement plans need a fidelity bond. This has been the rule for more than 40 years. Even so, it is not the kind of thing the typical plan sponsor spends a lot of time focusing on. A what bond? Fidelity who? We run across a number of ...

The ADP test for 401(k) plans is like a mosquito: it is annoying and has no known benefit to society. The worst outcome of a failed ADP test is you have to refund excess contributions to Highly Compensated Employees. At a minimum, you’ve wasted time ...

When an employee contributes too much to a 401(k) plan, a common fix is for the excess amount to be refunded to the employee. The technical term for this kind of refund is “corrective distribution.” At this time of year, plan sponsors may be scrambli...

True or false: how much a Highly Compensated Employee is allowed to contribute to a 401(k) plan may depend on how much Non-Highly Compensated Employees and other HCEs choose to contribute. At first glance, the answer to that question would seem to be...