David J. Kupstas, FSA, EA, MSEA

David J. Kupstas, FSA, EA, MSEA Chief Actuary

Recent Posts

January 24 2018

Compensation: What's in a Name?

With the new year having just begun, our retirement plan clients are busily working on compiling the information we need to do their year-end calculations. One of the most critical pieces of data we need is compensation paid to each employee for the ...

December 13 2017

The Myth of the Rule of Parity, or, Why Rehires Must Immediately Re-Enter the 401(k) Plan

Suppose someone works at a company, participates in the 401(k) plan, leaves the company for a number of years, and then is rehired. Does the employee re-enter the 401(k) right away, or does he need to wait a period of time like a brand new employee w...

November 22 2017

Charging Fees to Terminated Plan Participants Okay in Some Cases

When an employee leaves a small company, the expectation is that he will withdraw his 401(k) money at the same time. While former employees of larger companies often leave their 401(k) money in the plan until retirement, small companies have less tol...

November 08 2017

Top-Paid Group Election for HCEs May Help Plan Compliance Testing

Not everybody is familiar with precise definitions of pension terms like Highly Compensated Employee, but most of us would agree that someone with an annual salary of $500,000 sounds like an HCE. In most cases, we’d be right. But there is one instanc...

October 27 2017

IRS, PBGC, SSA Release 2018 Cost-of-Living Increases

July 05 2017

Top-Heavy Retirement Plan: A Weighty Subject to Tackle

June 01 2017

Figuring a Sole Proprietor’s Earned Income Will Have You Going in Circles

Recently, we wrote about the challenges of determining retirement plan compensation for owners of S Corporations. Today, we will take a look at how plan compensation for sole proprietors is determined. The task is a bit harder for sole proprietors th...

May 12 2017

Measuring Service in Pensions: Something They Didn’t Teach in Nursery School

Do you remember any songs from nursery school? I remember one that went something like this: "It’s time, time, time. It’s tickety time to tell time. And if you didn’t know what time it was, You’d have the most horrible, simply deplorable Tickety-tock...

April 19 2017

Retirement Plan Compensation in an S Corp: What Counts, What Doesn’t

How much money do you make? How much did you make last year? For most of us, that is a fairly easy question. If you don’t know offhand, you can pull out a pay stub, tax return, or Form W-2 and get the answer.

March 22 2017

Brrrr...Thoughts About Frozen Defined Benefit Plans

Employers who sponsor defined benefit or cash balance plans may decide one day that the contribution requirements are too high or that they would prefer to provide retirement benefits through a 401(k) plan instead. In these cases, the companies might...