Photo of Julie Edmond

Julie Edmond

Julie Edmond is senior counsel in the employee benefits practice. She has extensive experience counseling and litigating in the employee benefits area, including traditional defined benefit, cash balance, 401(k), profit-sharing and ESOPs; executive compensation and § 409A; § 403(b) plans, § 457 plans and other plans for tax-exempt organizations; and medical plans (including health reform), cafeteria plans, VEBAs and other welfare plans.  Her experience includes plan selection, formulation and drafting, regulatory compliance, audits, voluntary compliance, prohibited transactions and fiduciary duty requirements, separate line of business issues, use and handling of employee benefits and benefit plans in corporate transactions, and ERISA litigation.

Contact:Read more about Julie EdmondEmail

Effective for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017, section 4960 of the Internal Revenue Code imposes a tax at the corporate income tax rate (currently 21 percent) on two types of compensation paid by applicable tax-exempt organizations (ATEOs) to their covered employees.  An ATEO’s covered employees generally…
Continue Reading Final Regulations Under § 4960 Provide Helpful Exceptions for Employees of Related Organizations

The IRS recently published new guidance on the tax withholding and reporting consequences associated with qualified retirement plan distributions to state unclaimed property funds.  In Revenue Ruling 2020-24, the IRS clarified that distributions from qualified retirement plans to state unclaimed property funds are subject to both federal income tax withholding and 1099-R reporting requirements.  In a companion revenue procedure, Rev. Proc. 2020-46, the IRS permitted taxpayers to self-certify for a waiver of the 60-day deadline for rolling over funds between qualified plans when the funds had been distributed to a state unclaimed property fund.
Continue Reading IRS Updates Guidance on Qualified Plan Distributions to State Unclaimed Property Funds

As we noted in our prior blog post, the DOL has announced new guidance, in the form of an interim final rule, implementing the lifetime income disclosure requirement for defined contribution plans that was added to ERISA by the 2019 SECURE Act.  This guidance has since been published…
Continue Reading DOL Publishes New SECURE Act Guidance Regarding Lifetime Income Disclosures

The IRS recently released Notice 2020-62, which updates the safe harbor explanations that may be used to satisfy the  notice requirement for eligible rollover distributions, also referred to as the “Safe Harbor Notices.”  These changes to the Safe Harbor Notices take into account recent statutory changes brought about by the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (“SECURE”) Act of 2019 and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act.

What are the § 402(f) Safe Harbor Notices?

Under § 402(f) of the Code, plan administrators of certain retirement plans are required to provide a written explanation to any recipient of an eligible rollover distribution.  This notice must be provided by 401(k) plans and other qualified plans, 403(b) plans and 457(b) governmental plans within a reasonable period of time before the distribution is to made — generally at least 30 days unless otherwise elected by the recipient.  To assist plan administrators in satisfying this notice requirement, the IRS has published and continues to update two versions of its Safe Harbor Notice, one for distributions from a designated Roth account, and one for distributions from non-Roth accounts.

Plan administrators may satisfy the § 402(f) notice requirement by relying on the Safe Harbor Notices, although they are not required to do so.

What Changes Have Been Incorporated Into the New § 402(f) Safe Harbor Notices?

The Safe Harbor Notices have been revised to reflect the following statutory changes adopted by the SECURE Act and by the CARES Act:Continue Reading What You Need to Know About the New SECURE Act and CARES Act Updates to the § 402(f) Safe Harbor Rollover Notice

On August 18, 2020, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced new guidance on lifetime income disclosures that must be included in pension benefit statements furnished to participants in defined contribution plans, such as 401(k) and 403(b) plans.  This guidance, issued in the form of an interim final rule, sets forth the rules that plan administrators must follow in implementing the lifetime income disclosure requirement that was added to ERISA by Section 203 of the 2019 SECURE Act.

  • The disclosures required by the interim final rule must be provided starting one year after publication of the interim final rule in the Federal Register. (As of publication of this post, the rule has yet to be published in the Federal Register.)
  • As used in the interim final rule (and this blog post), the term participant includes an beneficiary with a plan account, such as an alternate payee or the beneficiary of a deceased participant.

Continue Reading New SECURE Act Guidance: Lifetime Income Disclosures for 401(k) and 403(b) Plans

On May 12, 2020, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) published Notices 2020-29 and 2020-33. Notice 2020-29 is the latest installment in COVID-19 relief guidance targeted at health and welfare benefits. The Notice enables employers to provide flexibility to employees to modify their health coverage and flexible spending account (“FSA”) elections and gives employees until the end of 2020 (but not 2021) to use certain FSA amounts that may otherwise be forfeited. Unlike certain COVID-19 relief related to retirement plans, employers may make the relief under Notice 2020-29 available to all participants, regardless of whether they have suffered a COVID-19-related loss.

Notice 2020-33 allows employers to adopt an indexed maximum carryover amount for health FSAs, beginning with amounts that may be carried over from the 2020 plan year to the 2021 plan year.Continue Reading IRS Empowers Employers to Increase Health Coverage, FSA Election Flexibility During Pandemic; Clarifies HDHP COVID-19 Relief

Under Revenue Procedure 2019-20, sponsors of individually designed statutory hybrid plans, including cash balance plans, have a short window of opportunity to file determination letter applications with the IRS by August 31, 2020.  In addition, sponsors of merged plans have an ongoing opportunity to file determination letter applications within certain periods of time after the corporate transaction and plan merger. Plan sponsors should strongly consider taking advantage of these opportunities, since other opportunities for filing determination letter applications are limited.  This post discusses key highlights of the expansion of the determination letter application program under this Revenue Procedure.
Continue Reading Don’t Miss Your Window: Upcoming Deadlines for Determination Letter Applications

We recently wrote about Rev. Proc. 2019-39, which provides for remedial amendment periods for 403(b) plans and establishes deadlines for 403(b) plans to adopt discretionary amendments and amendments that correct form defects.  Rev. Proc. 2019-39 also announced the IRS’s intent to include changes to § 403(b) requirements on its annual Required Amendments List (the “List”).  The List is issued annually and includes statutory and regulatory changes that become effective during the year in which it is published, or which became effective after publication of the previous year’s List.

The Service has kept its promise, issuing IRS Notice 2019-64 on December 4, 2019.  Notice 2019-64 contains the 2019 Required Amendments List, which applies to 403(b) plans as well as qualified plans, and is the first Required Amendments List to include changes to § 403(b) requirements.  Only one change affecting 403(b) plans (as well as qualified defined contribution plans) is included on the 2019 List: sponsors must amend 403(b) plan documents to comply with two of the provisions of the final hardship distribution regulations.  (The List also covers certain amendments to cash balance and other hybrid defined benefit plans.)Continue Reading 2019 Required Amendments List Includes Change Affecting 403(b) Plans

On September 3, 2019, the IRS issued Revenue Ruling 2019-19, which discusses participants’ and beneficiaries’ inclusion of income and qualified retirement plans’ withholding and reporting obligations for uncashed distribution checks.  Although the Revenue Ruling describes only a qualified retirement plan under Code section 401(a), the same reasoning would most likely also apply to a Code section 403(b) plan.  Under the facts of this Revenue Ruling, a qualified retirement plan must make a distribution of $900 to a participant in 2019.  The participant receives the check from the plan but chooses not to cash it in 2019.  The IRS ruled that the participant’s failure to cash the check did not relieve her of the obligation to include the amount of the distribution in her gross income in 2019.  Similarly, the employer, as plan administrator, was obligated to withhold tax on the distribution that was required to be withheld under Code section 3405.  Finally, the employer was required to report the distribution amount on Form 1099‑R, and the participant’s failure to cash the distribution check did not affect this obligation.

These rulings are unsurprising based on existing law, particularly the doctrine of constructive receipt that is codified at Code section 451.  The IRS already ruled on a similar factual situation in Revenue Ruling 68-126, for example.  In that Revenue Ruling, a taxpayer could have received a retirement benefit check in one taxable year by appearing in person and claiming it but instead waited for the check to arrive in the mail in the following taxable year.  The IRS held that “the income is constructively received in the year preceding the year of actual receipt,” and that the retiree therefore had to include the amount of the check in income in the earlier year.  A rule that a participant could choose to delay inclusion in income of a distribution until a later year by simply failing to cash a distribution check in the year the plan issued it would also undermine the requirements to take required minimum distributions under Code section 401(a)(9).Continue Reading IRS Issues Ruling on Uncashed Distribution Checks from Qualified Plans

On September 30, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service issued Revenue Procedure 2019-39, which finalizes important changes to how sponsors and employers can ensure 403(b) plan compliance.  The guidance is a welcome update from the Service, which initiated a regular system of remedial amendment periods for 403(b) plans in 2013, with the first period ending on March 31, 2020.  Most significantly, Revenue Procedure 2019-39:

  • Makes permanent the system of remedial amendment periods, during which an employer may retroactively amend its 403(b) plan or adopt a pre-approved 403(b) plan to correct a “form defect” (e., a defect in the terms of the plan that causes the plan to fail a § 403(b) requirement);
  • Clarifies that a retroactive amendment to correct a form defect is only permitted where the plan has been operated in compliance with the § 403(b) requirement;
  • Establishes deadlines to adopt amendments that correct form defects as well as deadlines to adopt discretionary amendments (e., amendments that do not remedy a form defect);
  • Confirms that the Service will not review individually designed 403(b) plans through a determination letter process;
  • Sets out a cyclical system in which pre-approved 403(b) plan sponsors may seek Service approval of plans; and
  • Announces the Service’s intent to provide additional guidance related to 403(b) plans, including its intent to include changes to the § 403(b) requirements on its annual Required Amendments List and the Operational Compliance List.

The Service intends to issue additional guidance in the next several years to address the procedures announced in Revenue Procedure 2019-39.Continue Reading IRS Announces Remedial Amendment Periods and Deadlines for Correction of 403(b) Plan Form Defects