Larry Beebe, CPA
Trustees in employee benefit plans face unique challenges. Being a trustee is a second job. An appointment as a trustee comes about because of a person’s position in a union or with a contributing employer; serving as a trustee is what you do in addition to your regular job.
A person who becomes a trustee needs a great deal of knowledge and experience to do a proper job. Experience can only come with time and observing the actions […]
Michael D. Rockefeller, CPA
As a small business owner or senior executive, it is your responsibility to promote integrity and ethical values to your employees and implement the proper controls and procedures to prevent fraud. In this series, we are highlighting ten basic fraud prevention steps you can take to keep your organization safe.
Employee tips are often an important source of information and many times they can help identify smaller cases of fraud before they grow into large losses. Research […]
Fabricia Edwards, CPA
An investment advisor serves a very important function in a retirement plan. In most cases, investment advisors are given the discretion to administer and manage plan assets, which makes them fiduciaries of the plan. As a result, advisors should act in the best interest of plan participants, with the sole purpose of protecting retirement savings. As a plan trustee, the process of selecting an advisor must be carefully conducted and documented. What should you consider when searching […]
Larry Beebe, CPA
Trustees to a multiemployer benefit plan are generally appointed by either a sponsoring labor union or a sponsoring employer or employer association. Once a trustee is appointed, he or she does not act as a representative of the appointing authority in making plan decisions. Instead, the trustee must act solely in the interest of plan participants and their beneficiaries.
Does the trustee face any ethical issues by representing both a bargaining party to the collective bargaining agreement and […]
Sherwin Abellera, CPA
For nonprofit organizations, Form 990 is a key document in disclosing a nonprofit organization’s financial status and internal policies and procedures. In 2008, The Internal Revenue Service made substantial changes to Form 990 for on the heel of the influences and impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The revised Form 990 introduced items such as Part VI, Section B Policies where it requests “…information about policies not required by the Internal Revenue Code” such as:
Whistleblower
Document […]
Scott Price, CPA
The US Department of Labor (DOL) has again extended the applicability date of new service provider fee disclosures under ERISA Section 408(b)(2) to April 1, 2012. The participant-level disclosures are also extended to July 15, 2012 to coincide. What does this mean to employers? To employees? Among other things, it is helpful that the employer be the one to ensure employees understand fees that exist as part of their retirement plans, how they’re being covered, and that […]
Marcella Pascal, CPA
A plan administrator may engage an auditor to perform a full-scope audit of the financial statements of an employee benefit plan in accordance with Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS). Alternatively, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) allows the plan administrator to engage a Certified Public Accountant to perform a limited scope audit.
When an auditor is engaged to perform a full-scope audit, everything in the plan is subject to audit testing. However, when performing […]
David Dorsey, CPA
Employee benefit plans are designed to try to juggle the pressures of day-to-day benefit processing, adjusting for constant changes from federal and state regulators and ensuring that the Plan is fiscally fit. It is therefore easy to understand why so many Plans overlook some of the most obvious risk exposures that could cause a catastrophic problem for the Plan participants and the fiduciaries charged with the responsibility of running the Plan. Disasters come in many different forms […]
David Miller
Form 8955-SSA, which replaces the old Schedule SSA for the Form 5500, has finally been released.
On June 18, 2011, the IRS released the final 2009 version of the Form 8955-SSA. It will be used for retirement plans to report deferred vested participants for plan years starting during 2009. The 2009 Form can also be used to report the same information for 2010 plan years. The information that plans will be reporting is in a very similar format to […]
Jason Edwards, CPA
Hiring an auditor can be an arduous endeavor, especially if you’ve yet to experience the proposal process. If you’re a new trustee going through your first RFP, or even a seasoned trustee looking for a new auditor, what are some of the things you should consider? You might think of an audit as just a commodity – something you need to purchase to satisfy your plan’s regulatory obligations. But shouldn’t you get more for your money than […]
