The U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) and the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) routinely report common operational failures that such agencies detect in the context of retirement plan audits and investigations. One of the operational failures that is always at or near the top of that list concerns plan sponsors failing to employ the correct definition…

Almost every sponsor of every tax-qualified retirement plan must obtain a fidelity bond in accordance with section 412 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (“ERISA”). Despite the broad application of this requirement, a surprising number of plan sponsors are unaware of this requirement and, in fact, do not have a…

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (“SECURE”) Act became law in December of 2019 and dramatically changed the laws regulating tax-qualified retirement plans. Since then, we have also seen the passage of additional retirement plan legislation in December of 2022 commonly referred to as “SECURE 2.0”. This article is focused on one change…