Are you prepared to handle your 401(k) plan duties? Stay on top of current regulatory, legislative and legal trends.
A full-featured retirement plan is essential to attract and retain loyal, quality employees. Given their highly-regulated environment, however, costs of administering a 401(k) defined contribution plan can be high.
Plan sponsors often pay some or all of these costs from plan assets, which reduces participants' account balances. Over a 35-year career, the resulting erosion of plan assets can cost a retiree several hundred thousand dollars.
To address this problem, federal regulators adopted stringent regulations in 2012 designed to ensure full disclosure of all plan-related fees to both plan sponsors and participants. Implementation of these regulations has been mixed. Service provider and participant disclosures can be opaque. Nonetheless, failure to comply with fee disclosure regulations can result in severe penalties, and compliance responsibility falls squarely on plan sponsors.
This topic will take a look at how fee disclosure has worked so far, arm plan sponsors with the tools they need to understand fees and ask the right questions when disclosures are unclear, and ensure that they know what and how they must communicate with plan participants to meet their fiduciary obligations.
Learning Objectives
- You will be able to identify the range of direct and indirect costs that you pay service providers to help you administer your plan.
- You will be able to explain to your participants plan costs that are paid from plan assets.
- You will be able to recognize whether the costs of the plan are reasonable and what you can do if they are not.
- You will be able to discuss how to fulfill your fiduciary duty as a plan sponsor to identify, understand, and communicate plan fees.
This live webinar covers these hot issues
The Advent of Fee Disclosure - a Refresher
- The Problem - Undisclosed Fees Cause Serious Erosion of Retirement Assets
- The Solution - Plan Sponsor Upstream and Downstream Disclosure
How Has It Worked?
- Early Experience
- Service Provider Obfuscation
- Plan Sponsor Disclosure Challenges
- Fiduciary Liability Exposure
Recent Developments
- The Trump Effect
- Impact of the Fiduciary Duty Rule
- Litigation Update
Key Takeaways
- Identify Service Providers
- Read 408(b)(2) Disclosures and Ask Questions
- Assess Reasonableness
- Make Changes If Warranted
- Get Help on Your 401(a) Disclosures If You Need It
Credit Information (Sponsored by Lorman Education Services)
- CFP
- CLE
- CPE
- SHRM
- NASBA
- HR Certification Institute
For Detailed Credit Information page
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Only registered attendee will receive continuing education credit.
Faculty
Douglas Dormire Powers, Beckman Lawson, LLP
- Partner in the law firm of Beckman Lawson, LLP, in Fort Wayne, Indiana
- More than 25 years of private practice experience following three successive federal judicial clerkships. Since 1995, he has focused his practice on employee benefits compliance and litigation
- Has counseled clients on a variety of benefits compliance issues, including fee-for-service plan design consulting, Affordable Care Act compliance, EPCRS applications, Voluntary Fiduciary Compliance Program applications, HIPAA Privacy Rule compliance, COBRA compliance, and QDRO compliance
- Also litigated a wide range of benefits-related cases in state and federal court, including breach of fiduciary duty claims, claims for benefits, collectively bargained benefits, and reinsurance coverage issues for self-funded health plans
- Immediate past president of the Great Lakes Employee Plans/Exempt Organizations Council, one of five regional councils that regularly consult with the IRS and DOL on regulatory issues and developments
- Frequent speaker and wrote on a wide range of benefits issues