Resource Tag: Legislation
Disclosure of Fees and Other Information to 401(k) Participants
The 401(k) Fair Disclosure for Retirement Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 1984) would require that those 401(k) plans that give participants control over their investments, provide them with a yearly statement including itemized information about the fees charged to their 401(k) accounts and other information about their investments. The statement would have to include: Total fees assessed to the participant’s account during […]
Sick Leave Counts in FERS Benefit Calculation
This provision would require that Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) include workers’ unused sick leave in the calculation of their monthly benefit payments. Currently only workers covered by the old Civil Service Retirement System may count unused sick leave toward their pensions. The provision phases in the change so that workers retiring within three years of […]
Annual Report to Congress
This provision requires the Thrift Savings Board to submit an annual report to Congress on the operations of the Thrift Savings Plan. The report will be available online and will include the following information: Number of participants in the plan Median account balances Demographic information of the participants Percentage of the allocation of amounts in […]
New Investment Options
This provision gives the Thrift Savings Board the authority to add new investment options to the Thrift Savings Plan. Currently the Board may only offer investment options that are low-cost, diversified, passively managed index funds. The TSP web site has fact sheets on the current investment options. The Board will nowbe able to add other […]
Automatic Enrollment
This provision requires that all new hires, transfers, and reappointments be automatically enrolled in the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). Before this bill, federal agencies allowed employees to choose to participate in TSP. Agencies were already required by law to automatically contribute one percent of a new employee’s pay into an individual TSP account. Employees then had […]
Required Index Fund Investment Option
The Fair Disclosure for Retirement Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 1984) would require that all 401(k) plans offer at least one index fund in the plan’s investment options. An index fund is a passively managed mutual fund designed to match the performance of the entire U.S. equity market, bond market or a combination thereof. Read Section 3 of the […]
Increased 401(k) Oversight
The Fair Disclosure for Retirement Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 1984) would give the U.S. Department of Labor the authority to: Coordinate with other government agencies after identifying service providers that have engaged in a pattern or practice that precludes the plan administrator from complying with the law. Publicly identify and disseminate information to 401(k) plans regarding […]
Disclosure of Fees and Conflicts to 401(k) Plan Administrators
The Fair Disclosure for Retirement Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 1984) would require that firms seeking to provide services to 401(k) plans submit disclosure and conflicts of interest statements to plan administrators before signing contracts with the plans. The required service disclosure statement would identify who would be performing services for the plan under the contract, and […]
Protection for Certain Retirees Against Benefit Cuts
The Restoring Pension Promises to Workers Act of 2007 would protect certain recent retirees of union pension plans from losing a large portion of their early retirement pensions. Current law as amended by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 allows severely underfunded union pension plans to reduce certain benefits in order to improve the pension […]
Spousal Consent for Thrift Savings Plans
The Restoring Pension Promises to Workers Act of 2007 would require that wives and husbands of federal employees agree to the employees’ designation of another beneficiary to receive the money in their Thrift Savings Plan accounts if they die. Under current law a federal employee with a TSP account may designate anyone as the beneficiary of […]
Provides a Special Survivor Annuity to Divorced Spouses
This provision would make a special survivor annuity available to a small group of surviving former spouses of federal employees who were not originally eligible because of the timing of their divorces and the fact that their former husbands had remarried. In 1984 Congress passed the Civil Service Retirement Spouse Equity Act of 1984 (CSRSEA). […]
Commencement of Former Spouse Benefits
The Restoring Pension Promises to Workers Act of 2007 would allow former spouses of federal employees to begin collecting their court awarded share of the pension benefits when the employees become eligible to retire. Under current law both federal pension systems Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) allow for the […]
