Last month, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released long-awaited guidance on matching contributions for qualified student loan payments under § 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code and other similar retirement plans. This guidance aims to help plan sponsors with setting up these programs for plan years beginning after December 31, 2024, until proposed regulations are issued.
Learn more and see other updates in this Weekly IRS Roundup.
Recent lawsuits filed against the group health plans of two large US employers underscore the importance of implementing formal welfare benefit plan governance structures that include fiduciary committees comparable to the governance structures employer sponsors of retirement plans routinely adopt. Establishing such committees can help employers reduce litigation risk and ensure compliance with Employee Retirement Income Security Act fiduciary standards.
If you employ part-time workers and/or engage independent contractors, sit up and take note: 2024 brings significant changes to how you must manage your workforce. The US Department of Labor’s (DOL) revised Independent Contractor Rule introduces additional uncertainty as to how the agency and perhaps courts will decide independent contractor misclassification disputes. Provisions of the SECURE 2.0 Act, meanwhile, will simultaneously impose a new mandate for employers to provide part-time workers with expanded access to retirement benefits.
In this webinar, McDermott Partners Brian J. Tiemann and Joseph K. Mulherin, along with Tom Robertson of Graystone Consulting, discussed the steps employers must take to ensure compliance with these new regulations taking effect in 2024.
Topics included:
In late December 2023, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued Notice 2024-2 (the Notice), providing guidance on key provisions of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0). SECURE 2.0, which was passed in December 2022, includes more than 90 provisions affecting US retirement plans, many of which are specifically aimed at enhancing savings opportunities for workers. The Notice provides guidance on many of the provisions of SECURE 2.0 in the form of questions and answers. This article covers the most significant provisions affecting 401(k) and 403(b) qualified retirement plans.
Beginning in 2024, employers and plan sponsors will need to implement new minimum eligibility rules, enacted by the SECURE and SECURE 2.0 Acts, that significantly expand eligibility for long-term, part-time employees to participate in employer-sponsored retirement plans.
The new rules require that employers who maintain such plans provide employees who work at least 500 hours for three consecutive years (reduced to two in 2025), and are at least age 21, the opportunity to make elective deferrals under their 401(k) plans beginning in 2024 and their 403(b) plans beginning in 2025. This change has generated numerous questions about what employers need to do to comply.
On November 9, 2023, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced cost-of-living adjustments to the applicable dollar limits for certain health and welfare plan benefits, including those for health flexible spending arrangements and commuter benefit plans, among other important updates. Employers, many of whom are in the midst of or have already completed open enrollment for 2024, will need to review these limits as soon as possible. Employer action may include, for example, determining whether enrollment portal updates and communications to participants are necessary. For employees who have already made 2024 elections without the benefit of the new dollar limits, employers may need to reach out to these employees to inform them of the new amounts and consider implementing a new election window.
The Internal Revenue Service recently announced the cost-of-living adjustments to the applicable dollar limits for various employer-sponsored retirement and welfare plans for 2024. Certain health and welfare plan limits have not yet been released.
Most of the dollar limits that are subject to adjustment for cost-of-living increases will increase for 2024. The Social Security Administration released separate adjustment amounts.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently opened a new determination letter approval program for 403(b) retirement plans—commonly used by nonprofit organizations—which allows sponsors of certain individually designed plans to apply for a favorable determination letter. Long available to 401(k) retirement plan sponsors, determination letters can provide sponsors with advance assurance from the IRS that plans are compliant with the Internal Revenue Code. Plan sponsors of eligible 403(b) programs should take advantage of this new opportunity to submit a determination letter application to the IRS.
Nearly all employers offer eligible participants the opportunity to make additional catch-up contributions to their retirement plans. However, beginning in 2025, the SECURE 2.0 Act makes so-called “super-catch-up contributions” available to certain employees. Adding this new feature will require employers and their service providers to develop new processes to monitor various ages and limits and to audit that information to ensure it is properly applied.
In an open letter to Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, congressional leaders identified several technical errors in the SECURE 2.0 Act that they intend to correct. Although the letter indicates that Congress intends to correct these technical errors and ambiguities in the legislation, it does not address the timetable for doing so.
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