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November 1, 2018

Don’t Throw the Baby Out With the Bath Water!

In medieval times, people shared scarce and sacred bathwater and after a baby had been bathed, the water was so murky the baby was in danger of being thrown out with the bathwater! A common misconception about 401(k) plans is that companies are stuck with their initial 401K plan as it was originally designed….and that no changes can be made without throwing out the plan and starting over. The parallel in the former analogy should be pretty obvious.

October 1, 2018

Catch-Up Contributions – How Do they Work?

Internal Revenue Code section 414(v) defines eligibility criteria for catch-up contributions.

A catch-up contribution is an elective deferral made by a participant at age 50 or older. It is only available if the participant’s contribution exceeds anyone of three conditions. See Determination of Applicable limit below.

For 2018, the limitation on catch-up contributions is $6000 for 401(k) and 403(b) plans and $3000 for a SIMPLE 401(k) and SIMPLE IRA.

September 24, 2018

Plain Vanilla? How About Vanilla/Chocolate Swirl?

BEI strives to keep our client’s plans “plain vanilla” and we take this approach because when retirement plans become too complex, there are increased government regulations, and thus more oversight. Advanced plan design also drives up the cost of maintenance and this will become a “cost - to - benefit” comparison. However, we are finding adding some chocolate swirl, in certain situations, can be worth the hassle.

August 1, 2018

What is the Government’s Plan of Attack for 2018?

We often get the question…” What does a TPA do”. That can be a involved conversation. The short answer is ….we keep you out of trouble with the government. The following is a laundry list of what the IRS is finding wrong with employer retirement plans. Utilizing BEI as your TPA can avoid these issues.

July 6, 2018

What’s Your Enrollment Method?

Targeting people’s urge to procrastinate is key to boosting savings under automatic enrollment, while addressing financial literacy works best for opt-in plans. This is the conclusion of a February 2018 survey done by the TIAA Institute.

In our last article “Digital Nudging” we talked about engaging employees with emails to prompt enrollment. The TIAA Institute survey below compared automatic enrollment (opt-out) to traditional voluntary sign up (opt-in).