My final post relating to Secure 2.0 is about the expansion of what can be self-corrected in retirement plans. What we are talking about when we talk about self-correction is things that happen in the day to day administration of a retirement plan. We all know that mistakes happen and that retirement plans continue [...]
There are 2 provisions that are part of Secure 2.0 that I am calling “in case of emergency”. I think both are interesting provisions that should be considered from both a positive and a negative standpoint.First is the provision of penalty free distributions in case of domestic abuse. This provision is effective for 2024 but [...]
So, there are two changes in Secure 2.0 relating to Roth contributions that I will cover.First effective January 1, 2024, it will be required for all catch-up contributions to be Roth for participants who earn more than $145,000 per year. In my opinion this will be very difficult for plan sponsors to administer…and they need [...]
There are a few “miscellaneous changes” that happened in the Secure 2.0 act that I will cover briefly here. As always, reach out to me for more information on any of these topics that I have covered. First Required Minimum Distributions (RMD’s) under Secure 2.0. The RMD age was 70 ½ for as long [...]
LTPT??? What does that mean and why is it something we now need to worry about in our retirement plan?? First of all, it means Long Term Part Time employees. The worry and the reason for the addition is that there may be employees that have worked for an employer as a part time [...]
This week I am going to talk about tax credits available for tax credits available for retirement plans as part of Secure 2.0. I am going to break it down into the two types of tax credits that are available which are the plan expense tax credit and the plan contribution tax credit. But [...]
Let’s talk about one of my favorite topics, auto enrollment. Auto enrollment has been around since 1998 (Revenue Ruling 98-30) but has only been widely used since the Pension Protection Act of 2006. Secure 2.0 made it so that plans adopted after 12/29/2022 will be required to automatically enroll eligible participants at a default [...]
So, we all know that SECURE 2.0 contained a TON of updates relating to retirement plans (92 to be exact). I will spend a few blog posts talking about provisions that will truly affect our plan sponsors and changes they might consider relating to their qualified retirement plans. Before I start talking about the good [...]
Let’s continue talking about the provision in SECURE 2.0 that will truly affect our plan sponsors and the changes they might consider relating to their qualified retirement plans. First up, the self-certification of hardship distributions. Most plans allow active participants to take a hardship distribution in the case of an immediate and heavy financial [...]
In 2022, Theresa became a certified life coach and business consultant – something she has always wanted to do. Upon selling her business in 2023 Theresa was already planning for her next chapter – and unsurprisingly that is not retirement. Theresa is continuing all of her retirement industry involvement – including speaking engagements, writing articles [...]
Theresa has always felt that keeping up with the industry was important to herself and the others around her. In the early 2000’s she joined both ASPPA and NIPA. Within ASPPA she obtained her QKA (Qualified 401(k) Administrator) designation and in the year 2014, she also became a member of NAPA and NTSA. In [...]
In 1998, Theresa started Sunwest Pensions. While growing her own client base, initially she started by focusing on doing work for other third party administrators (TPAs). During her 25 years of owning Sunwest Pensions, she helped many clients with plan design and plan corrections. In addition, she started several subsidiaries including Sunwest Actuarial Services [...]
After graduating from college, Theresa (& Peter) left Scranton for Philadelphia. Theresa got a job with William M. Mercer working as an assistant for an actuary. She had no idea what an actuary was but her relationship with her boss and mentor, started her career in defined contribution plans. After working for Mercer for [...]
Theresa was born in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. Growing up in a small town where her family had settled and where everyone knew everyone else (and a lot were related). She graduated from Pocono Mountain High School spending most of her extracurricular time in the band and chorus with her focus on being [...]
