Defined contribution plan

On his first day in office President Biden issued an Executive Order entitled Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis. Included within the Order was what was described as a “non-exclusive” list of federal agency actions that will be reviewed for possible revision or withdrawal. Of particular interest on this list are recent Department of Labor final regulations issued under the title, Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments, which became effective on January 12, 2021.

The SECURE Act makes it easier for employers to adopt ADP/ACP safe harbor plan provisions. These plans, which include both “traditional” safe harbor plans and qualified automatic contribution arrangements (QACAs), have proven popular with many employers. This is because such plans are usually deemed to pass several nondiscrimination tests. IRS Notice 2020-86 provides guidance on some of the details of these SECURE Act provisions, including direction on amendments and notices. But while this notice gives important direction, we await more comprehensive regulatory guidance.

The Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has released a three-part guidance package to assist retirement plan fiduciaries in dealing with issues of missing or unresponsive participants. These issues typically involve terminated participants who have vested benefits remaining in an employer-sponsored plan, or terminating or abandoned plans. An EBSA news release accompanies the guidance package.

The IRS has released a pre-publication version of proposed regulations that would create an automatic 60-day postponement of deadlines for certain time-sensitive, tax-related acts in circumstances of federally-declared disasters.

The Department of Treasury and Small Business Administration have jointly announced the reopening of the Paycheck Protection Program the week of January 11. Community financial institutions will begin offering First Draw PPP Loans Monday, January 11, and Second Draw PPP Loans starting Wednesday, January 13. Loans will be available to all participating lenders soon after.

Final regulations, entitled Independent Contractor Status Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, issued by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, are published in today’s Federal Register. They are described as being intended to clarify distinctions between “employee” and “independent contractor” status. The guidance was issued in proposed form in September 2020. Accompanying the final regulations is an agency news release.

The IRS has issued News Release MS-2021-01, announcing the postponement of certain tax-related deadlines for Mississippi victims of Hurricane Zeta, for hurricane-related events beginning October 28, 2020. In addition to extending certain tax filing and tax payment deadlines, the relief includes completion of many time-sensitive, tax-related acts described in IRS Revenue Procedure 2018-58 and Treasury Regulation 301.7508A-1(c)(1), which include filing Form 5500 for retirement plans, completing rollovers, making retirement plan loan payments, etc.

Published in today’s Federal Register are IRS final regulations that implement a provision of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) that provides an extended period—beyond the normal 60 days—to roll over amounts of certain retirement plan loans that are offset and treated as distributions. These final regulations were released in pre-publication form on December 8, 2020.

The IRS has posted at its website the 2021 tax year version of Form 1099-R, Distributions From Pensions, Annuities, Retirement or Profit-Sharing Plans, IRAs, Insurance Contracts, etc., and Form 5498, IRA Contribution Information. As the title implies, Form 1099-R is filed by financial organizations and service providers to report to account owners and the IRS distributions from tax-qualified retirement savings arrangements. Form 5498 more narrowly reports IRA-related information—including contributions to IRAs, SEP and SIMPLE IRA employer plans, end-of-year fair market values, rollovers, conversions, recharacterizations, etc.

Today is the last day for eligible taxpayers to take IRA and employer-sponsored retirement plan distributions that qualify for special tax benefits under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. This legislation was enacted in March 2020 as a response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. There has been some industry and media confusion over whether more recent pandemic relief legislation has provided an extended opportunity to qualify for such benefits, but it has not.