ACG Blog

As both a career professional in the retirement plan field and a citizen observer reading media coverage about 401(k) plan sponsors having to defend themselves from an onslaught of “excessive fee” litigation in recent years, it seems clearly evident ...

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 ...

Here’s a public service announcement for all plan sponsors of 401(k)s. Remember the quote from "Jerry Maguire," “Help me help you?” It’s been 22 years since that movie, but it still holds true today. Third party administrators (TPAs) are the people w...

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...

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 ...

Cash balance plans have gained in popularity over the last number of years because of the tax savings opportunities available to high-earning business owners and executives. Cash balance plans offer characteristics of both defined contribution plans,...

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...

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...