Quarterly Regulatory Update

The retirement plan industry is experiencing tectonic shifts and new legislative and regulatory initiatives at a pace unprecedented in recent decades. The need to have access to expert interpretations of the real-life implications and applicability that these constantly changing regulations and compliance requirements have upon you and the manner in which you manage your retirement plan(s) - delivered in a common sense, easy to digest manner - has never been greater.

To help plan sponsors and advisors with this, Retirement Alliance is pleased to provide quarterly updates regarding the increasingly complex web of retirement plan laws and regulations that are required to keep plans in compliance. We have partnered with Integrated Retirement Initiatives, LLC (IRI) to provide relevant, timely and helpful information to assist you in understanding and ensuring compliance with the ever-evolving legislation that govern retirement plans.

Current – 1st Quarter 2012: Understanding The Plan Sponsor's Fiduciary Responsibility: With 408(b)(2) due to be introduced less than 3 months from now, it is imperative that Plan Sponsors understand their role as a plan fiduciary and have an approach that mitigates their fiduciary risk exposure. This presentation expounds on the topics of the fiduciary role that a Plan Sponsor plays; and identifies and discusses "best practices" Plan Sponsors may employ to manage the fiduciary risk associated with sponsoring a qualified retirement plan. Please contact your Plan Specialist or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to contact a qualified representative to review your specific situation.

4th Quarter 2011: Do you understand the fees associated with administering a retirement plan?  Now more than ever, it is imperative that Plan Sponsors understand the various types of fees associated with 401(k) plans.  What is a Plan Sponsor expected to do with all of the fee information that will be coming his/her way?  What information must a Plan Sponsor provide to its Participants? This presentation provides an overview of the fiduciary responsibility of the Plan Sponsor related to reviewing plan fees and the impact of 401(k) fees and expenses on retirement plan accumulation; understanding what information is required in the upcoming required participant disclosures; and a brief overview of the DOL’s legislation intended to improve fee transparency.

3rd Quarter 2011: Why does your company have a retirement plan?  Have you reviewed your plan design in the past year to determine if the plan design is still on target to achieve corporate objectives?  This presentation is designed to assist you in identifying and thinking through the most common plan objectives that we have found plan sponsors to have; and we present a variety of potential solutions and approaches that can be implemented to achieve each objective. 

2nd Quarter 2011: The first of our quarterly overview programs covers five pertinent topics: Fee disclosure requirements that will be introduced in 2012 for both, plan sponsors and participants; Newly introduced 5500EZ form for “solo” 401(k) plans; New separate 8955-SSA filing that replaces the old SSA form that was formerly filed with the 5500; Common mistakes made by Sponsors going through the Voluntary Compliance Program (VCP); and The Supreme Court ruling in the Cigna v. Amara case that re-affirms the supremacy of the plan document over the Summary Plan Document (SPD) when a conflict exist.

We are pleased to be able to offer access to this user-friendly on-demand webex to you and believe that you will find the program to be timely, insightful and actionable.

For more information on these or any other retirement plan-related topics, please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Also, please see the following helpful links:

• Department of Labor
• Internal Revenue Service 
• Social Security Administration