PBGC

The Internal Revenue Service may be having a bad week, but Mary Rich isn't complaining about the taxman. The former nurse and hospital executive recently won a 10-year battle to get the IRS to reverse a ruling that would have cost her and her husband, Riz Corpuz, $2,500 a month in pension benefits from their former employer, the now-defunct Hospital Center at Orange (HCO) in New Jersey.

Christmas will come early to 800 hospital workers whose pensions were at risk of being lost by December, thanks to a federal safety net program.

WASHINGTON — The Pension Rights Center applauds today’s decision by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) to take over pension payments to more than 800 former employees of the now-defunct Hospital Center at Orange (HCO).

The Internal Revenue Service has taken an unusual step to rescue the pensions of more than 700 people whose fund was about to run out of money, but it said that their circumstances were unique and that it was not setting a precedent.