October 11 2016

Is Your Business Following These 401(k) Best Practices in Plan Design?

Making the decision to sponsor a 401(k) plan is an important step in helping you and your employees save money for retirement on a tax favored basis. But it’s just the first step. Once you’ve decided to offer a plan, the next step is to focus on how ...

October 05 2016

401(k) Fiduciary Responsibility: What You Need to Know

As the sponsor of an employee retirement plan, it’s critical that you understand the concept of fiduciary duty. Fiduciary is a fancy word that conveys a simple concept: You are legally required as a fiduciary to put the interests of plan participants...

September 29 2016

Could Your Company Benefit From a Cross-Tested Retirement Plan?

It’s not uncommon for business owners to want to contribute more money to their own retirement accounts and those of selected employees than they do to the rest of their employees. Similarly, companies sometimes want to contribute more to older emplo...

September 22 2016

Decisions, Decisions ... A Comparison of Small Business Retirement Plans

Offering a retirement plan to your employees is one of the best decisions your company can make. Qualified retirement plans like 401(k) plans offer tax benefits to your employees and your business while also serving as a powerful employee recruiting ...

September 07 2016

Can You Be Past Age 70½ and Not Take 401(k) Distributions?

An apparently erroneous response in a recent financial advice column has inspired us to share some basic rules about Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from qualified retirement plans. RMDs are sometimes called “70½ distributions” because that is ...

August 31 2016

10 Tips for Plan Sponsors to get 401(k) Plan Ready for Year-End

Is it my imagination or do we get busier as the fall months come and go at an accelerated pace? Oftentimes, our hectic schedules result in a “priorities first” business model and our 401(k) plan gets put on the back burner. Here are 10 tips for plan ...

August 17 2016

The Nonresident Aliens Have Landed

How to treat nonresident aliens for qualified retirement plan purposes is often misunderstood. Are nonresident aliens allowed to participate in U.S. plans? Do you have to cover them? And what is a nonresident alien anyway?

August 05 2016

Complete Form 8955-SSA Correctly So Future Generations Won’t Hate You

If you were to receive a notice from the Social Security Administration saying you might be owed some money from a long-ago former employer’s retirement plan, you would probably think, “Cool. I’m owed some money from a long-ago former employer’s reti...

July 08 2016

Talk to Your Doctor…Er…TPA Firm about Cross-Testing

You can’t have the TV on very long before one of those ads for the latest prescription drug comes on. “Ask your doctor whether Incredipill is right for you.” Why would a commercial tell me to ask my doctor about a drug? If the medicine is right for m...

June 20 2016

Ten Guidelines for 401(k) Loans

If your 401(k) plan allows participant loans, here are 10 rules that will keep you out of trouble and in good graces with the IRS and Department of Labor: