Description: This article summarizes 2005 cost-of-living adjustments related to employee benefit plans, including: 1. IRS limits applicable to retirement plans, transportation fringe benefits, adoption assistance programs, medical savings accounts, health savings accounts, high-deductible health plans and long-term care plans, 2. PBGC guaranteed benefits, 3. federal income tax factors, 4. Social Security and Supplemental Security Income, 5. Medicare, and 6. covered compensation. From Pension Section News, January 2005, Issue No. 57.

Description: This article summarizes 2004 cost-of-living adjustments related to employee benefit plans, including: 1. IRS limits applicable to qualified retirement plans, transportation fringe benefits, adoption assistance programs, medical savings accounts and long-term care plans, 2. PBGC guaranteed benefits, 3. Federal income tax factors, 4. Social Security and Supplemental Security Income, 5. Medicare, and 6. Covered Compensation. From Pension Section News, March 2004, Issue No. 54.

Description: Defined benefit plans have been disappearing from the private sector retirement program landscape. 401k Plans that have taken their place are not designed to provide retiree lifetime income. Individuals seldom work for a single employer and thus have many retirement accounts spread about. This commentary discusses an alternative approach to providing retirement income a voluntary basis in a vehicle that is decoupled from employers.

Description: Interview with Blaine Aiken to learn about recent developments in fiduciary responsibility and financial and retirement advice. New developments will extend the fiduciary requirements financial advisors are subject to. These developments are linked to changes in the code of ethics that apply to CFPs.

Description: Describes changes to the detailed funding rules for defined benefit pension plans found in the regulations of the various federal and provincial acts in Canada.

Description: This author looks at the post ERISA landscape and concludes that work levels for pension actuaries will not return to pre ERISA levels for some time. Some of the topics discussed include the 1977 Social Security amendments, cleaning up initial ERISA compliance work that was done in haste, increased regulation, litigation, and future legislation.

Description: Will the Enrolled Actuary replace the FSA? Maybe was the answer to that question, which posed the topic for discussion at a recent New York Actuaries Club meeting. This 1976 article is a recap of that recent meeting, discussing the implications for the SOA and Academy of the new federal designation of Enrolled Actuary for pension actuaries, and how that would play out with respect to the SOA’s professional designations and the role of the Academy.

Description: This brief article notes that Mr. Donald S. Grubbs, Jr., who was intimately involved in the discussions that took place both before and after the enactment of ERISA, gave a talk entitled Three Years of ERISA: A Critical Appraisal to the Pension Research Council last May.

Description: This about the issues facing actuaries in retirement systems as well as the support available to them. Some of the more significant issues are: Declining numbers of defined benefit plans, plan underfunding and the PBGC, increased regulatory complexity and compliance, and increased competition and employment opportunities.

Description: This article on pensions and tax expenditures discusses the problems in the development of the numbers provided by the Office of Management and Budget. Tax reform proposals that quantify increases in tax revenue that would result from elimination of tax advantages of qualified pension plans are flawed in the author's opinion.