Monthly Archives: August 2009

By ANNE TERGESEN

Wall Street Journal

Given the deep recession, many people may need to tap their nest eggs sooner than expected. If your retirement plan contains company stock, some relatively simple steps can significantly reduce the tax bite on those withdrawals.

The strategy, known as net unrealized appreciation, or NUA, is one that any person leaving a job or retiring should consider before moving assets from a company savings plan into an individual retirement account. Too often, though, this tax-code rule gets overlooked.
Continue reading “A Tax Break You May Be Missing” »

By Doug Halonen
July 17, 2009, 12:18 PM ET

Pension & Investments

A new consumer watchdog agency proposed by the Obama administration should not have regulatory authority over mutual funds or retirement plans, because they already are regulated by the federal government, Paul Schott Stevens, president and CEO of the Investment Company Institute, testified today before the House Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Stevens said in prepared remarks before the panel that mutual funds and retirement plans are already regulated by the SEC and the Department of Labor.
Continue reading “ICI chief: Don’t subject funds, plans to conflicting rules” »

By Mark Bruno
July 19, 2009, 6:01 AM EST

New targets have surfaced for lawsuits over 401(k) fees: small retirement plans, their investment advisers and service providers.

A group of fewer than 30 em-ployees at a small company in Kansas has filed a lawsuit against the investment adviser, record keeper and custodian for its $2 million 401(k) plan, alleging that the trio of plan providers caused participants to pay “secret” and “excessive” fees.
Continue reading “Employees Name Investment Adviser In 401(k) Suit” »

By: John Burke
Email: jburke@starboardasset.com

The 401(k) world is full of target and life cycle mutual funds which are loaded with high cost and feel good marketing material . These funds do not work in down markets as witnessed by their poor performance last year. They are just another gimmick from Wall Street and the mutual fund industry. According to a recent article in the Financial Times, target date funds geared toward 401(k) participants due to retire in 2010 lost an average of 24% in 2008.
Continue reading “Small to Medium Corporate 401(k)s are a National Disgrace” »

Fred Schneyer – 07/08/2009
A woman accused of stealing from a co-worker’s 401(k) account has been sentenced to a one-year jail term.

A Justice Department news release said a federal judge also mandated that Dana Wachter serve three years of supervised probation and pay $38,000 in restitution for the total stolen from her co-worker.

Wachter was accused of using the co-worker’s Social Security and other personal ID numbers to authorize an $18,000 payout from the co-worker’s 401(k), and then cashing the resulting check.

Wachter was sentenced in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri. She was indicted in June 2008 on one count each of aggregated identity theft, mail fraud, and theft from an employee benefit covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

June 23, 2009 (PLANSPONSOR.com) – New research by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (CRR) suggests employers have been slow to recognize the personnel management implications of the shift away from traditional pension programs, and their interest in retirement-related initiatives is still driven by their value in attracting and retaining employees.
Continue reading “Study Finds Employers not Addressing Retirement Challenges” »

By Ian Salisbury
Wall Street Journal

If the issue of revenue sharing by mutual funds in 401(k) plans hasn’t gotten your attention, consider this: It may mean you are paying far more to support your retirement plan’s back-office costs than the person sitting next to you.

“Revenue sharing,” a controversial aspect of many companies’ defined-contribution savings plans, involves using money some investors think goes toward managing mutual funds to cover the costs of services like calculating account balances and mailing out statements. Critics have long said these costs should be explicit, making it easier for employers and investors to assess each plans’ true merit.
Continue reading “Not All Pay Share of Revenue Sharing; Retirement-Plan Costs Fall Only on Some” »

Pension & Benefits Daily: All Issues

An Anheuser-Busch Cos. employee filed a proposed class action June 25 alleging the company breached its Employee Retirement Income Security Act fiduciary duties by using a risky qualified default investment alternative (QDIA) (Parsons v. Anheuser-Busch Cos., M.D. Fla., No. 3:09-cv-584-J-25MCR, lawsuit filed 6/25/09).

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida by employee David K. Parsons, alleged that Anheuser-Busch had an obligation to use a less risky QDIA to hold the cash proceeds employees received after it converted the common stock in its pension plan following a stock sale to InBev N.V./S.A. last November.
Continue reading “Anheuser-Busch Employee Files Class Action Alleging Pick of Risky QDIA Was a Breach” »

By Money Management Executive
July 2, 2009

Advisors to 401(k) plans recently have revisited the wisdom of offering annuities, in light of last year’s severe market downturn. But group annuities are being criticized for subjecting investors to lockup periods of five years or longer and a variety of additional fees.
Continue reading “Group Annuities May Be Inappropriate for 401(k)s” »