Many Atlanta businesses offer retirement plans as a benefit to employees to encourage savings and as a vehicle for the tax-free investment of contributions. These plans are one of the most effective means of encouraging participation and helping employees build a solid financial foundation for retirement. In fact, they are so effective that the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement (SECURE) Act implemented several changes to incentivize businesses to offer retirement plans. While offering a plan is essential to saving, plan sponsors should also maintain communications with participants to meet compliance requirements and to disburse important information on benefits. This allows the plan sponsor to provide needed information and updates when important changes are made. However, missing participants create a challenge to the process. The good news is the Department of Labor recently issued, Missing Participants Best Practices, to help guide plan sponsors. To help clients, prospects, and others, Wilson Lewis has provided a summary of the key information below.
In many cases, plan sponsors are unaware that participants are missing until a triggering event occurs which brings it into focus. For this reason, it is important to regularly review plan operations to check for red flags that a broader problem exists. This may include the following situations:
Perhaps the best way to deal with missing participants is to ensure a robust and effective communication strategy. This not only means staying in contact with existing plan participants but ensuring information on separated or retired employees is kept accurate and up to date. Communication best practices may include:
The DOL has provided a series of best practices to consider when searching for missing participants, including:
Contact Us
Finding missing participants can be a time consuming and challenging task. That is why it is important to implement an effective communications program to reduce the possibility of lost contacts. If you have questions about the information outlined above or need assistance with a benefit plan audit or another issue, Wilson Lewis can help. For additional information please call us at 770-476-1004 or click here to contact us. We look forward to speaking with you soon.
I want you to imagine hearing the three words, “You have cancer.” Sadly, this has…
Atlanta accounting and advisory firm Wilson Lewis was honored this month as one the top…
Pass-through entities (PTEs), including partnerships, S corporations, and certain LLCs, make up a large share…
Procurement fraud is one of the most reported economic crimes, yet many businesses don’t realize…
New tariffs are pushing up the cost of key materials used in construction and real…
The majority of businesses in the United States (about 95%) are structured as pass-through entities.…