The Shore Tompkins Blog
401(k) Plans
How Do Cash Balance Plans Work?
Cash Balance plans have become very popular with business owners looking to save on taxes and accumulate more long-term wealth. But how do they work? A Cash Balance pension is a qualified retirement plan under IRS guidelines known as a hybrid defined benefit plan...
Why Have Cash Balance Plans Become Such Popular Retirement Solutions?
Have you heard of Cash Balance retirement plans? You should! Cash Balance plans have become one of the fastest growing retirement plan design options in the last few years and one that investment advisors should add to their portfolio of retirement products. Why are...
3 Types of Automatic Enrollment in Plans
Employers and lawmakers have long grappled with how to increase employee participation in company-sponsored retirement plans. While participation has risen in recent years, especially at larger companies that have implemented automatic enrollment, the Department of...
Fiduciary Tips for Defined Benefit Plans – Part 2 – Selecting an Annuity Provider
As an executive with oversight responsibilities for a frozen pension plan you begin to see the light at the end of a long journey – plan termination is near or winding up. You climbed that mountain of pension liability, now fully funded through cash contributions,...
Fiduciary Tips for Defined Benefit Plans: Trust Eligible Expenses
Much has been written in recent years about fee transparency within retirement plans, with the overwhelming majority of the focus centered on defined contribution plans. This is a result of law changes aimed at getting record keepers and investment advisors to more...
Dynamic Asset Allocation for Pension Plans – The Best of Both Worlds
Today, there are two worlds of pension finance, the world of underfunded plans requiring careful cash planning and characterized by higher risk taking leading to more volatile financial statements, and the world of well-funded plans where even modest investment...
Funding Strategies to Facilitate a Pension Termination
As Congress continues to struggle with setting annual federal budgets, pension plans are increasingly looked at as an alternative source of government revenue. While the Pension Protection Act of 2006 was once considered the definitive law to secure the private...
3 Things Every Finance and HR Executive Should Know About Pension Plan Terminations
Considering terminating your company’s pension plan? While it might be the right decision after a merger, a plant shutdown, or merely as a way to reduce the company’s long-term liabilities, it’s not a strategic decision to be taken lightly. But when you make that...
5 Ideas to De-Risk your Pension Plan
Increasing benefits costs, market volatility, and ever changing compliance regulations all add risk to managing your company’s pension plan. You don’t want to be caught underfunded, non-compliant, or paying too much for administrative fees. In a survey late last year...
5 Ways to Reduce the Costs of Administering your Pension Plan
Subtracting the cost of administering your company’s pension plan from your retirement assets can be a hard pill to swallow. From actuarial fees to legal fees to government mandated pension insurance premium increases, the costs can add up to subtract 3 - 5% of your...
Cash Balance Plans
Benefits of Selling Cash Balance Plans (#4 of 4)
As explained in our previous post (#3 in this series), cash balance plans are often easier for business owners (your clients) to understand and offer more flexibility than many other types of retirement plans. And in our second post we clarified how cash balance plans...
Cash Balance Plans: More Understandable, Flexible than Traditional DB Plans (#3 of 4)
Updated 1/1/2019: In our previous post (#2 in this series) we looked at the wealth-accumulation advantages of cash balance plans. Discussing these advantages with business owners (your clients) is essential to selling a cash balance plan. But because clients “live...
Cash Balance Plans Offer Key Advantages (#2 of 4)
Updated 1/1/2019: Our previous post defined cash balance plans and explained their structure and how they work. Now let's focus on the key advantages of using a cash balance plan, and who are its primary candidates. As a financial advisor you’ll want to understand...
Cash Balance Plan Essentials (#1 of 4)
As a financial advisor to owners of independent companies, you’ve heard about cash balance plans. Although the number of these plans has increased sharply in recent years, many business owners and their advisors know relatively little about them. So let’s review the...
Other Retirement Plans
Cash Balance Plans Offer Key Advantages (#2 of 4)
Updated 1/1/2019: Our previous post defined cash balance plans and explained their structure and how they work. Now let's focus on the key advantages of using a cash balance plan, and who are its primary candidates. As a financial advisor you’ll want to understand...
Cash Balance Plan Essentials (#1 of 4)
As a financial advisor to owners of independent companies, you’ve heard about cash balance plans. Although the number of these plans has increased sharply in recent years, many business owners and their advisors know relatively little about them. So let’s review the...
QDIA: Protection for Plan Sponsors
Automatic enrollment (AE) in company retirement plans can help workers increase their retirement savings, but it presents a challenge: How should the employer invest the dollars of employees who do not affirmatively choose an investment vehicle for their contributions...
Converting Pre-Tax Contributions to After-Tax Roth
As part of the American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA) signed by President Obama in early January, all 401k, 403b, and 457b retirement savings plans now have the option to allow participants to convert some or all of their pre-tax contributions (namely, pre-tax 401k...