Congratulations to Morgan Lewis partner Handy Hevener, who has been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the New York Law Journal as part of its 2020 New York Legal Awards.
ML BeneBits
EXAMINING A RANGE OF EMPLOYEE BENEFITS
AND EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION ISSUES
AND EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION ISSUES
IRS Notice 2020-51, released last week, provides additional guidance on the waiver in 2020 of required minimum distributions (RMDs) from defined contribution retirement plans and IRAs, and the interaction of this waiver with Section 114 of the SECURE Act. The SECURE Act changed the required beginning date for an employee or IRA owner to begin taking required minimum distributions to April 1 of the calendar year following the calendar year in which the individual attains age 72 (rather than April 1 of the calendar year following the calendar year in which the individual attains age 70½), for individuals who attain age 70½ after December 31, 2019.
IRS Notice 2020-52 provides welcome relief to plan sponsors considering suspending safe harbor matching contributions or safe harbor nonelective contributions (or who already suspended safe harbor contributions during 2020) in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
IRS Guidance Permits Certain Individuals Affected by COVID-19 to Cancel NQDC Plan Deferral Elections
Under IRS Notice 2020-50, employers sponsoring nonqualified deferred compensation plans (NQCD plans) may now allow employees to suspend their deferral elections without having to determine whether the employee has had an unforeseeable emergency for purposes of Section 409A or otherwise qualifies for a hardship under Section 401(k) if the employee received a coronavirus-related distribution from an eligible retirement plan.
The US Department of Labor (DOL) published a request for information (RFI) on June 18 in the Federal Register on the subject of pooled employer plans (PEPs).
US President Donald Trump signed the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020 (the Act) on June 5, modifying certain provisions related to the forgiveness of loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). We recently published a LawFlash discussing these modifications.
The IRS has again extended the due dates for certain returns and payments because of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
In a 5-4 decision in Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A., the US Supreme Court has ruled that defined benefit plan participants lack Article III standing to sue for fiduciary breaches that do not harm the individual participants. As the Court noted, “[u]nder ordinary Article III standing analysis, the plaintiffs lack Article III standing for a simple, common-sense reason: They have received all of their vested pension benefits so far, and they are legally entitled to receive the same monthly payments for the rest of their lives.
In response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued new formal guidance that extends the deadline for providers of individual retirement accounts and individual retirement annuities (IRAs) to file Form 5498.
Join Morgan Lewis in the coming weeks for these programs on employee benefits and executive compensation