BENEFITS DIGEST

Proposed regulations issued in August spell out how employers can make tax-free contributions to employees' Trump Accounts, beginning with a separate written plan document. Warner Norcross walks through the ground rules. Contributions are capped at $2,500 per employee per year no matter how many children an employee has, the cap counts both direct employer dollars and cafeteria-plan elections, and amounts get reported on the W-2. Employers cannot steer workers to a preferred custodian, so contributions may flow to many institutions, and the Labor Department has said these plans generally sit outside ERISA because the benefits belong to the children rather than the employees. A public hearing is set for October 15, and employers may rely on the proposal immediately.

A former Husch Blackwell partner claimed the firm violated ERISA by holding back money from his pay all year for the plan's year-end profit-sharing contribution and depositing it months later, past the deadline that applies to employee deferrals. Last Wednesday the court granted summary judgment for the firm and dismissed the case, with reasoning that matters to any partnership. The holdbacks fund an employer contribution, and employer contributions become plan assets only when they are deposited, so the strict deposit-timing rules for participant contributions never applied. What a pay stub calls the money does not change what the plan documents say it is, and partners drawing firm income are not employees earning wages.

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.

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.

An opinion piece examines how frequent job changes expose participants to what the author calls plan churn, the accumulation of small accounts, cash-outs, and lost momentum that follows each move between employer plans, and argues the problem deserves more attention from plan sponsors and recordkeepers than it gets.

Two sets of proposed regulations address how employer-sponsored Trump Account contribution programs will operate and how account assets may be invested before a beneficiary turns 18. Seyfarth walks through the requirements, including a separate written plan document, a $2,500 per-employee cap on tax-favored Section 128 contributions, cafeteria plan elections for employee pre-tax contributions to dependents' accounts, and nondiscrimination testing that tracks the dependent care FSA rules. Contributions default to an S&P 500 index ETF with ESG index funds off the table, and open questions remain, from tracking eligible dependents to coordinating contributions across a controlled group.

Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-01 made late deposits of employee deferrals and loan repayments a DOL enforcement priority, and the agency is mining Form 5500 filings to find them. Small plans must deposit within seven business days of withholding; larger plans must deposit as soon as amounts can reasonably be segregated, typically two to three business days, with the fifteenth business day an emergency outer limit rather than a deadline. Ferenczy recommends written deposit procedures and prompt engagement with the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program when deposits slip.

Sixty-one percent of participants on Vanguard's recordkeeping platform held a single target-date fund in 2025, up from 46 percent in 2016, and 66 percent held just one fund of any kind. Vanguard credits automatic enrollment, which nearly 80 percent of large plans now use, and target-date defaults for the simplification.

The quarterly survey tracks health plan design challenges after Barbich v. Northwestern, the forfeiture line following the Eighth Circuit's standing dismissal in Matula, actuarial-equivalence rulings in the Sixth and Eleventh Circuits, and the Supreme Court's withdrawal-liability decision in M&K Employee Solutions, with the Fifth Circuit's en banc surcharge case and Anderson v. Intel on the watch list.

The August Monthly Minute reminds plan sponsors of the upcoming SECURE 2.0 plan amendment deadline and highlights a Fourth Circuit decision reflecting the litigation impact of a delayed ERISA appeal determination.

The 2026 regulations standardize claim communications, restructure open negotiation, clarify batching rules, and impose tighter deadlines for determining IDR eligibility. Self-funded plans must register.

The American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries designation is designed for plan administrators, recordkeepers and advisers.

The city reduced the employment tenure requirement under its Paid Parental Leave Ordinance from 180 days to 90 days, meaning eligible employees can start accessing employer-paid supplemental compensation benefits faster.

An Illinois veterinary clinic agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a proposed class action claiming it invested nearly all of its employees' retirement savings in pharmaceutical and biotech stocks. The theory here is concentration, not fees (an unusual entry in a year dominated by recordkeeping-fee and forfeiture claims), and a reminder that a small plan with an idiosyncratic lineup carries a different risk profile than a large plan with an ordinary one.

Boutwell Fay's walkthrough of the August 11 employer-contribution proposed regulations for Trump Accounts, the third set of rules for the new accounts, with the nondiscrimination overlay plan sponsors will actually administer.

Foley's reminder that years of CARES, SECURE, and SECURE 2.0 operation may not yet be reflected in plan documents: when operations, communications, and the document diverge, the amendment deadline is the cleanup moment. A practical December 31 checklist starter.

Treasury’s latest guidance answered key compliance questions, advisers say, but employers are now figuring out how to administer the new benefit.

Behavioral biases reduce income product usage that otherwise could help participants during the decumulation stage. However, there are steps recordkeepers and sponsors can take to account for those biases, according to a new report.

Hall Benefits Law reads Kelly v. Altria for plan administrators: the Fourth Circuit's holding that a recordkeeping services agreement is a disclosable plan document raises the stakes on participant document requests, and on what your service agreements actually say.

The Northern District of Georgia preliminarily approved a $47.7 million settlement of claims by roughly 189 former NCR executives and their beneficiaries over a top hat plan. Groom's lesson for nonqualified plans: section 409A compliance does not excuse departing from what the plan document promises.

Plan sponsors seeking IRS sign-off on individual plan questions get a simpler road: new Form 15662 standardizes private letter ruling requests, pay.gov filing opens August 26, and paper submissions end September 4. Worth knowing before your next plan design question needs a ruling.

ARA's plain-language walk-through of Kelly v. Altria: a participant who wanted to liquidate his 401(k) to catch a market uptick, sued when the transfers moved too slowly, and mostly lost on appeal. The practical moral for recordkeepers and plan committees.

Kantor & Kantor's litigation desk reads Kelly v. Altria from the participant side: the Fourth Circuit's holding that a recordkeeping services agreement is a plan document expands what administrators must produce on request, and what statutory penalties attach when they don't.

A second read on the SECURE 2.0 section 324 rollover package, with attention to the four sample forms and what recordkeepers will need to change to support direct electronic transfers.

and why plan sponsors should treat cross-selling as a fiduciary-oversight item.

a payroll and policy update for any employer with San Francisco headcount.

Experts from Groom Law Group and CAPTRUST answer a practical question on the timing of 403(b) restatements and SECURE 2.0 amendments.

Roberts Disability walks through both halves of Kelly v. Altria: the participant's benefits and fiduciary claims failed, but the administrative services agreement between a plan and its recordkeeper is a plan document ERISA requires administrators to produce on request.

Treasury and the IRS proposed the framework for employer Trump account contribution programs: a separate written plan, eligibility classes tested under DCAP-style nondiscrimination rules including a 90% sliding-scale safe harbor, written employee notification, and W-2 reporting, with employees able to exclude up to $2,500 per year of employer contributions. The proposal also updates the section 129 DCAP nondiscrimination rules themselves, reflecting the OBBBA's increase of the dependent care exclusion to $7,500. Employers may rely on the proposed rules now; comments are due September 25 and a public hearing is set for October 15.

Treasury and the IRS announce their intent to propose regulations implementing the Saver's Match program under section 6433, the SECURE 2.0 provision paying federal matching contributions of up to $1,000 directly into the retirement accounts of eligible low- and moderate-income savers for tax years beginning after December 31, 2026. The notice requests comments by October 5, 2026 on eligibility, claiming and payment mechanics, financial-institution reporting, and treatment of erroneous payments.

Thompson Hine tracks the spread of the “financial dominance” theory introduced in Barbich v. Northwestern University, in which participants challenge employer health plan design choices under ERISA, and surveys how the claims are expanding in 2026.

Though the plan document appeared to require arbitration in pursuing recovery in a fiduciary breach suit, a federal appellate court has affirmed a district court decision rebuffing that requirement.

In a recent survey, half of plan sponsors said they seek ‘minor’ or ‘moderate’ plan design updates to improve their plan’s impact upon participants.

Experts from Groom Law Group and CAPTRUST answer questions concerning retirement plan administration and regulations.

Ted Benna says the new employer-funded plan is designed to help workers cover short-term financial needs without tapping retirement savings.

CMS reopened the HHS-administered federal external review process effective July 31 after a month of unavailability. Consumers whose deadline to request external review fell between July 1 and August 3 now have until October 2, 2026 to file. Relevant to plans that elected the HHS process (AL, FL, GA, WI, TX and territories) and self-insured non-federal governmental plans with live claim appeals.

Experts say participants, recordkeepers and plan sponsors share responsibilities in making participants whole after experiencing a loss.

Changes in plan design, coupled with regulatory improvements and market evolution, mean concerns about collective investment trusts should no longer keep them from 403(b) plans.

The DOL recently issued proposed regulations under ERISA that create additional safe harbors for distributing group health plan documents electronically.

Employers would have a clearer path to delivering summary plan descriptions (SPDs) and other required health plan documents electronically to participants who have provided—or been assigned—an electronic address under a proposed “notice and access” regulation from the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employee Benefits

Although the dispute unfolded against the backdrop of Code Section 409A’s plan termination rules, the bottom line for plan sponsors is this: top hat plans are unilateral contracts that employees accept through performance, and once accepted, the express terms of the plan document govern.

A closer read of the Bessemer FCU filing against TruStage shows the complaint specifically alleges some credit unions temporarily lost employee access to 401(k) and other retirement accounts when TruStage shut its network down after the July 15 breach. A concrete look at how a recordkeeping vendor's outage becomes a retirement-plan access problem for plan sponsors.

As the SECURE 2.0 Act deadline for mandatory catch-up contributions for some plan participants looms, many retirement plan sponsors are beginning to amend their plan documents to meet its requirements.

VAPPs can help funded pension plans balance risk, support retirement income and create a more sustainable path forward.

In Raya v. Barka, No. 25-2394, __ F.4th __, 2026 WL 2168772 (9th Cir. July 28, 2026), Plaintiff sued his former employer, Calbiotech, Inc., several individual defendants, and Calbiotech’s 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan and Pension Plan, asserting ERISA claims for denial of benefits, breach of fiduciary duty.

a change DOL estimates could lift e-delivery rates from about 68% to 90% and save $402 million a year.

The deadline to adopt a restated pre-approved 403(b) plan is rapidly approaching. Here's what employers need to know.

F.4th —-, 2026 WL 2084784 (7th Cir. July 20, 2026), a suit for ERISA benefits, the Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the University of Chicago, its two Section 403(b) retirement plans, and TIAA, the plans’ recordkeeper, holding that a power of attorney lacking express authority to waive spousal annuity rights could not effect the change.

Why force someone hired on Tuesday to sit around until the first of the next month or next quarter before they can defer into the 401(k) plan? Immediate access feels employee-friendly, modern, and flexible.

Plan sponsors often approach vendor searches with the best intentions and the wrong priorities. The most common mistake is treating the process like a shopping exercise instead of a fiduciary decision.

Trump Accounts launched on July 4, 2026. These special individual retirement accounts (IRAs) can help children under 18 build savings.

If your organization sponsors a pre-approved 403(b) plan, an important compliance deadline looms on the horizon.

The court denied Defendant Metropolitan Life Insurance Company’s motion.

A Cerulli report found that 71% of recordkeepers call the pooled employer plans a major or moderate business priority.

Once upon a time, 401(k) eligibility was easy. Age 21. One year of service. Quarterly entry dates. Everyone understood the assignment

“Plan document providers have a little over a year to get their pre-approved defined benefit plans updated for these changes and submitted to the IRS. Stay tuned for ‘LRM’ sample language to help

As hardships arise, employers rethink whether retirement plans should focus solely on preserving nest eggs—or also help workers weather today’s storm.

More recordkeepers are seeing pooled employer plans as a tool for future business growth

Many retirement plans must be amended by December 31, 2026 to bring the plan document into compliance with a number of legislative changes. To ensure your plan document accurately reflects your

I’ve always liked immediate eligibility for deferrals. Clean, simple, easy to explain. Let people in the door and let them start saving. Where things go sideways is when a provider layers on a safe

The countdown clock is running. The stadium lights are on, and the clock is ticking toward extra time. Plan sponsors must amend many qualified retirement plans by December 31, 2026. Just like in a

Everyone in the retirement plan business loves talking about technology. Recordkeepers spend millions promoting participant websites, mobile apps, artificial intelligence tools, and payroll

Salek-Raham said, “I think after these cases came out, a lot of employers took a good look at their forfeiture language and their plan documents,” noting that courts are increasingly focused on plan