Independent Actuaries Blog Author: Steve Diess
Tax Reform and Retirement Plans
We’re getting a lot of questions these days about how the proposed tax reform bills might impact retirement plans. For reference, this Forbes article provides a good summary and comparison of current law versus the House and Senate bills. Here … Continue reading
What Can You and Jeb Bush Have in Common?
A CPA acquaintance of mine recently forwarded this article to me (I had missed it when it was first published). The article reports that GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush contributed an average of $350,000 per year into a defined benefit pension plan, … Continue reading
Big Changes Ahead for Governmental Employers
Earlier this summer the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) announced their approval of three new statements pertaining to the accounting for retirement benefits: Statements 73, 74 and 75. Statement 73 pertains to pension benefits, and is basically an enhancement of … Continue reading
Good News for Oregon Taxpayers from PERS
At its July 30th meeting, the Oregon PERS Board voted to lower the rate of return assumed to be earned on its investments in future years from 7.75% to 7.50%. Not long ago the assumed rate was 8.0%. Except for … Continue reading
Expanding Possibilities for Cash Balance Plans
On September 19th the IRS issued both new proposed regulations and final regulations that update regulations originally issued in proposed form in 2010 covering Cash Balance and other hybrid pension plans. While the IRS did not address all questions left … Continue reading
Building Highways through Pension Funding Relief
As of today, it looks like the much debated H.R. 5021 – Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014 is finally on the brink of becoming law. What does this have to do with retirement plans? The expenditures in the … Continue reading
Nondiscrimination Relief – A Step in the Right Direction
The IRS recently released Notice 2014-5, Temporary Nondiscrimination Relief for Closed Defined Benefit Plans and Request for Comments. The temporary relief provided in the Notice is nice, but not applicable for most of our small or mid-sized business owner clients. … Continue reading
Good News for Small Employer Pension Plans?
Too often, pension plan legislation seems to be written with the large (several thousand participant) plan sponsor in mind, while paying little regard to the thousands of small plan sponsors. This can result in ridiculous administrative burdens placed on small … Continue reading
Proposed Defined Benefit Plan Relief: Simple, Logical, Necessary
Steering the financial end of a business, whether it be a sole proprietorship, a small company, or a big corporation, can be challenging under the best of circumstances. Throw a defined benefit pension plan (DB plan) into the mix, and … Continue reading
A (Long) Fade into the Sunset
In our profession, we often talk about the ideal of “phased retirement”. From a lifestyle standpoint, it can be a challenge to work full time up to a certain age, abruptly retire, work zero time thereafter, and be happy and … Continue reading
