Partial Plan Termination Relief
Many employers may be facing what the IRS guidance refers to as a partial plan termination. Generally, this occurs when the number of employees participating in a qualified retirement plan, such as a 401(k) plan, decreases by 20% or more during the Plan Year. This is calculated by dividing all employer
We have been getting questions about the extent to which employers may encourage their employees to obtain COVID-19 vaccines when they become eligible. There are a couple of thorny legal issues that may arise when employers offer incentives in connection with a voluntary employer-sponsored COVID-19 vaccination program. We are aware that several large employers are
Contained within the recent Stimulus Bill is the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020. Section 214 of that Act provides flexibility for Health Flexible Spending Accounts (Health FSA) and Dependent Care Accounts (DCA).
Background
HFSAs and DCAs have certain limitations and restrictions known as the ‘use or lose’ rule, which generally provide
On Sunday night, President Trump signed into law the $2.3 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill, which includes $900 billion in funding for COVID-19 relief. The massive bill encompasses various Acts including (1) the Continued Assistance to Unemployed Workers Act, (2) the Economic Aid to Hard Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits and Venues Act, (3) the Taxpayer Certainty
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced that the amount employees may contribute to their 401(k) and 403(b) plans next year remains at $19,500. The IRS announced this week its inflation adjustments for 2021, including:
On July 8, 2020, the United States Supreme Court (“SCOTUS”) held in a 7-2 decision that employers may exclude birth control from their health care plans if they have moral or religious oppositions to contraception. This decision upheld the Trump Administration’s November 2018 final rules which provide exceptions to the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) mandate
Yesterday, March 18, 2020, Congress passed, and President Trump signed into law, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, that provides many American workers up to 12 weeks of paid FMLA leave and two weeks of paid sick leave for certain reasons related to COVID-19. Employers are required to pay these amounts to eligible employees, and
The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Monday, March 2, that it will again review the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual mandate, and whether, if the mandate is unconstitutional, it can be separated from the rest of the ACA.
In January’s blog, we reported that in Texas v. U.S., the individual
On December 20, 2019, President Trump signed into law, as part of the 2020 Appropriations Bill, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019. This is the first major legislation affecting retirement plans since the Pension Protection Act of 2006.
The Act contains provisions to encourage the growth of 401(k) plans.
On December 18, 2019, a federal appeals court ruled that the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual mandate is unconstitutional, since the mandate tax penalty had been reduced to zero. The individual mandate, the requirement that everyone have health insurance coverage, was previously challenged as unconstitutional. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate