Blogs and Newsletter

“David, it’s Beth. I just brought a few of our consultants on as full-time hires. They’re in their 50s—a bit older than our typical new employees—and since they’ll only have so many years to contribute into our retirement plan, I was wondering if…” “What you’re asking...

Kareem called me from the HR department of a client company. “Hi David. What happens when a new employee doesn’t formally opt in or out of the retirement plan? I’m not sure what to do with them.” “Great question, Kareem, and a timely one. Starting this year, if you...

“David, I read your blog post about state-mandated IRA programs, and how it makes sense to set-up your own retirement plan and not use the government’s.” “Thanks Jeff. I’m always happy to hear from someone who’s doing their homework and trying to stay on top of what’s...

Shannon was referred to me by a client. “I’m starting up a new business venture and Kim told me you could help set up the retirement plan.” “Hi Shannon,” I said. “You’re going to like the good news I have for you. Thanks to a new set of changes in the rules called...

One of the best parts of my job involves knowing the answers to our clients’ questions. We all love to help others and that’s part of what motivates me to stay on top of any changes to the rules that effect retirement planning. Juan called me with an administrative...

More Good News courtesy of SECURE 2.0: There used to be a discrepancy between qualified employer sponsored retirement accounts and IRAs when it came to Required Minimum Distributions (RMD) for Roth accounts. For IRAs, Roth money was not subject to RMDs. However, if...

Check your former employees’ balances. You may find there are people you could not roll out before, but now you can. SECURE 2.0 has raised the mandatory rollover limit from $5K to $7K as of 2024. This means that if an employee has a vested balance of less than $7K you...

Retirement plans are described as “top-heavy” when business owners have more than 60% of the overall balance. And this meant many companies were faced with the following dilemma: Do I set the waiting period for my plan to one-year and make my new employees unhappy, or...

Get this! A rule on the books stated that if a married couple had two completely separate businesses and they had a minor child, those business would be considered linked for retirement plan purposes. If they did not have a minor child, those businesses would not be...

Megan, The HR Director of one of our client companies called to discuss one of their low-income employees. She wanted to see if there was any way to maximize their benefits short of giving them a fat raise. “Savers credit is a little-known and underutilized credit for...

James, an HR director, called me with a serious question. “I have a few employees who I think have fallen on hard times. They haven’t told me what’s going on but they’re asking questions about what the penalties are for withdrawing money from their retirement plans,...

Juan called me the other day with an interesting problem: “We’ve been hiring a lot of young people right out of college,” he explained. “We try to set them up with our company retirement plan but they’re all drowning in debt. They’re declining to participate because...