ACG Blog

When an employee in a qualified retirement plan dies, the employee’s account balance has to be distributed to the beneficiary at a certain rate over a certain timeframe. The money cannot stay in the plan forever. What is that timeframe? When do distr...

Back in 2001, a law called the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA) was passed. Some referred to it as the Bush Tax Cuts, Round One. The law had a number of provisions related to qualified retirement plans. Among these, in a sec...

Lately, several people have asked me about a “mega backdoor Roth IRA.” I didn’t really know what this was, but anything with “backdoor” in the name is something I want to explore. It sounds a little devious. Maybe I could finally be a bad boy – more ...

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”  So goes the internet meme based on Inigo Montoya’s complaint to Vizzini about his use of the word "inconceivable" in The Princess Bride movie. In the pension business, ther...

As we head toward the close of this turbulent year, we have learned that most IRS limits related to qualified retirement plans will hold steady in 2021. Retirees receiving Social Security benefits will receive another modest increase, while PBGC prem...

You may recall that the CARES Act says required minimum distributions (RMDs) don’t have to be taken in 2020 from IRAs and many employer retirement plans. This seems like a pretty simple concept, but it’s not. There were a number of unanswered questio...

The CARES Act, signed into law on March 27, 2020, allows employees affected by COVID-19 greater access to money set aside for them in employer retirement plans.  As often happens, many details of this new law were not immediately clear.  We found our...

The last person to be receiving a Civil War-era pension has died. Irene Triplett, of Wilkesboro, NC, died on May 31 at the age of 90 due to complications from having fallen a few days earlier, according to the Washington Post and other news outlets. ...

This article is part of our continuing series on the coronavirus and its effects on qualified retirement plans.  Recently, we wrote about ways employees affected by the coronavirus could access money from their retirement plans.  Today, we are discus...

Amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) scare, we are getting reports that our clients are imposing layoffs, furloughs, and temporary shutdowns.  It makes sense; if people aren’t coming to your business, there’s no work for the employees to do and no money t...