On May 13, 2021, Phoenix executive compensation and employee benefits partner, Greg Gautam, joined Snell & Wilmer’s “CalCurrent” podcast. On his episode, Greg covered five common pitfalls private companies and startup companies should watch out for when structuring their equity compensation and incentive programs. You can listen to Greg’s full CalCurrent episode here if you […]
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This year is off to a fast start and plan sponsors might find their heads spinning as they try to keep track of rapidly developing employee benefits legislation and guidance. We periodically consolidate key newsletters and blog posts to help our readers stay organized and catch up on items they might have missed. Below, please […]
RJ
As we previously reported, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (the “CARES Act”) provided for an employee retention credit (“ERC”) designed to encourage employers to retain workers during the COVID-19 crisis. In general, the ERC permits eligible employers to claim a refundable tax credit of a portion of qualified wages paid to employees […]
MC
The IRS recently published Notice 2020-86 (the “Notice”), which provides clarification with respect to certain changes made by the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (the “SECURE Act”). In particular, the Notice answers several outstanding questions related to the maximum default deferral rate for qualified automatic contribution arrangements. As previously reported […]
MC
Each year, we publish health and welfare, cost-of-living, executive compensation, and qualified retirement plan checklists to help individuals and employers stay apprised of updates to the law of employee benefits. We recently published the last of these annual checklists. In case you missed them, the links are below. Happy holidays! 2020 End of Year Plan […]
RJ
The Department of Labor’s (the “DOL”) attempts to regulate the conduct of fiduciaries under ERISA and the Code has been mired in controversy. In 2010, the Obama administration’s DOL proposed a fiduciary regulation that was met with so much criticism that it was subsequently withdrawn in 2011. In 2015, the DOL re-proposed a fiduciary regulation […]
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Sponsors of safe harbor Section 401(k) plans should consider whether they are required to provide their annual safe harbor notice in 2020 for the upcoming 2021 plan year. The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement (“SECURE”) Act, which was enacted on December 20, 2019, changed the annual notice requirements for some safe harbor Section 401(k) […]
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The DOL recently issued a final rule (“Rule”) providing guidance on the long-standing issue of whether ERISA fiduciaries are permitted to consider non-pecuniary factors while making investments (or selecting investment funds) that promote one or more environmental, social or corporate governance goals (so called “ESG Investments”). The preamble to the Rule acknowledges that ERISA fiduciaries […]
MS
On May 21, 2020, the Department of Labor (the “DOL”) announced a final rule establishing a new electronic disclosure safe harbor. The new safe harbor permits retirement plan administrators to deliver certain plan documents by one of two methods: (1) a “Notice and Access” method; or (2) a direct email method. The new safe harbor […]
RJ
We periodically consolidate our prior blog posts and push them out as a single package to help individuals catch up on what they might have missed with respect to important health and welfare, qualified retirement plan, and executive compensation issues. The posts highlighted here largely focus on the CARES Act and the impact the COVID-19 […]
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