Proposed regulations in this morning's Federal Register would write into the regulations what Revenue Ruling 71-447 and the case law behind it established decades ago, that a racially discriminatory private school is not tax exempt. Two things are new. The rule reaches every private school from kindergarten through universities and trade schools, and it treats race-based criteria as discrimination for any purpose, sweeping in diversity-motivated scholarships, donor-restricted funds, and other school-supported programs. Religious admissions criteria survive if they are genuinely religious rather than proxies for ancestry or ethnicity. If finalized, the rule applies to taxable years beginning after May 31, 2027, and comments are due 60 days after publication.

Conference speakers argue employers can use Trump Accounts to help workers overcome hesitation about investing, positioning the accounts as an on-ramp for employees who have never participated in a workplace plan.

A PGIM manager makes the industry case that private credit's long-term structure aligns with retirement investors' horizons, the latest in the push to move private assets into defined contribution menus.

401(k) Specialist digs into Fidelity's second-quarter numbers and finds strong gains for women and Millennial savers, along with growing interest in small business retirement plans.

IFEBP walks through contribution program design under the proposed regulations, covering payroll deductions, the written plan requirement, employer contribution limits, and implementation considerations for sponsors weighing a program.

A layoff can quietly trigger a 401(k) problem. If employer-initiated turnover hits 20% in a plan year, the IRS presumes a partial plan termination, and everyone affected becomes fully vested in employer contributions no matter what the vesting schedule says. Troutman warns that a multi-year phased RIF can stretch the measurement period, that some voluntary quits connected to the RIF count too, and that missing one of these invites participant lawsuits and IRS or DOL audits. Worth reading before the workforce decision is final, not after.

The Retirement Learning Center addresses what happens to outstanding 401(k) loan balances when employees arrive through a merger or acquisition, a recurring administration question in deal integration.

Bradley walks employers through the proposed Section 128 regulations with a decision focus, whether to sponsor a contribution program at all. One point worth the click, employers generally may rely on the proposed rules now, for plan years beginning before final regulations are issued, so drafting the written plan document can start today.

New Vanguard research finds 80% of participants under 35 hold only a target-date or balanced fund, versus 43% of those 55 and older, and the share of all participants using a single fund jumped from 46% in 2016 to 66% in 2025. Menus keep shrinking in response, though Vanguard cautions that participants nearing retirement may still benefit from a broader lineup.

The proposal landed on August 20, and this new write-up explains why sponsors should welcome it. The current anti-abuse rule for mid-year amendments is so broad it can catch ordinary benefit improvements; the proposal narrows it to amendments that front-load costs out of proportion to the benefit. The package also lets sponsors adopt retroactive benefit increases up to the tax filing deadline, and plans may rely on the proposed rules immediately, so the planning opportunities start now.

Mayer Brown reads the August 26 FAQs as a reversal of the Labor Department's own prior litigation positions on retroactive wellness rewards, with plans now required only to provide the reward for the period after a reasonable alternative standard is satisfied. The firm also explains the disclosure rules in plain terms. If plan materials only mention that a wellness program exists, nothing more is required, but once materials describe how the program works they must also explain the alternative standard and the option to follow a doctor's recommendations. Mayer Brown recommends auditing participant-facing materials against the new standard.

With employer health costs expected to jump 11.1% in 2027 by WTW's count, finance chiefs are moving into territory HR used to own. WTW's Tim Stawicki says employers are mostly avoiding drastic benefit cuts and instead scrutinizing vendors, hunting fraud and waste, steering employees to lower-cost providers, and looking at spousal surcharges and waiting periods. Big employers have largely locked their 2027 strategies; midmarket companies are deciding now.

Seyfarth focuses on where the alternative-standard notice has to appear. Any plan material that describes how a wellness program works must include it, and for outcome-based programs it must also show up in the message telling an employee they failed the initial test, with contact information for requesting the alternative. The enforcement relief changes none of these design requirements.

Bradley's version adds a concrete example on the notice question. If your summary of benefits and coverage says cost sharing may vary based on a wellness program but does not describe how the program works, that alone does not trigger the obligation to disclose the reasonable alternative standard. A useful line to hand whoever drafts your enrollment materials.

Squire Patton Boggs adds two practical details to the FAQs Part 74 coverage. The enforcement relief means an employee who completes tobacco cessation counseling in June need not be refunded surcharges for January through May, and plan materials that merely mention a wellness program's existence, without describing its terms, do not trigger the obligation to disclose reasonable alternative standards.

Bricker tells the story of how we got here. A stray phrase in the 2013 regulations' preamble suggested employees who quit smoking mid-year had to get their surcharges refunded back to January, a reading plaintiffs' lawyers ran with. The new FAQs say prospective relief is enough, no refunds required. But the program still has to be reasonably designed with a properly disclosed alternative standard, so this is relief from one theory, not from the lawsuits.

HaloMD claims the No Surprises Act has cut out-of-network emergency spending by 13% to 52%, saving $1 billion to $4 billion a year. Independent researchers are skeptical. The study leans on assumptions rather than actual payment data, ignores the cost of running the arbitration system, and comes from a company that files about a quarter of all arbitration claims itself. Worth knowing before this number shows up in a policy fight.

Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight filed suit in the Eastern District of Virginia claiming CGI Technologies plan fiduciaries kept the Columbia Trust Focused Large Cap Growth Fund despite trailing the Russell 1000 Growth by more than 61 percentage points from September 2020 through February 2026, with alleged losses of $168 million in a plan of more than 17,000 participants. The complaint points to over $350 million in net outflows from 2021 to 2024, and the filing joins this year's underperformance wave alongside suits against Parsons and American Express.

In Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Williams, a General Motors life insurance participant tried to name a new beneficiary in a 2020 phone call to MetLife, and the court held the attempt failed because the plan required a signed written designation, with phone elections covering enrollment only. The court declined to apply substantial compliance, and under the plan's fallback provision the claimant could take only as a surviving spouse, a status the court rejected because her marriage to the participant was void under Georgia law while her prior marriage remained undissolved. The participant's daughters prevail, and the contrast with last week's Liu v. Kaiser is instructive. A requirement written into the plan gets enforced; a procedure that lives only in administrative practice does not.

The 401(k) Specialist write-up adds the retention timeline, alleging the fund stayed on the menu for nearly 12 years despite persistent underperformance and significant asset outflows, and situates the filing in Sanford Heisler's run of ERISA class actions following its UnitedHealth and General Electric settlements.

Two district courts issued ERISA venue rulings within a day of each other, and both moved the case out of the plaintiff's chosen forum. In one, a 401(k) fiduciary-breach class action filed in the Southern District of California was transferred to Nebraska under section 1404(a), where the plan is administered and its fiduciaries sit. Useful reading for anyone choosing where to file an ERISA case, or trying to move one.

Three SEC rulemakings went to the White House for review in the last week of August, and all three target October release. One would reform executive compensation disclosure, following Chairman Atkins' push to simplify the regime. Another carries a title worth reading twice, rescission of Rule 14a-8's federal regulation of shareholder proposals, which suggests a rethink of the shareholder proposal system rather than a tune-up. Public companies should expect a different-looking proxy season.

An opinion piece argues AI's best use in open enrollment is taking over the repetitive administrative work so benefits teams can spend their time actually helping people, citing research that only 69% of employees feel they understand their medical benefits. The pitch is efficiency in service of the human conversation, not a replacement for it.

With most states yet to enact AI-specific employment laws, the contract is the control. A checklist of provisions for employers deploying AI tools through HR vendors.