An Employee Stock Ownership Plan (“ESOP”) has become a popular tool for succession planning and tax structuring, especially for S corporations. As more business owners look to retire and wish to avoid selling their life’s work to private equity, an ESOP provides an excellent transition vehicle. When set up thoughtfully, an ESOP can ...
If you serve on a retirement plan committee, you’ve taken on an important and legally significant role. As a fiduciary under the ERISA, you are personally liable for the decisions you make regarding the plan. That’s not a metaphor: your personal assets could be at risk in the event of a fiduciary breach.
Yet, many plan fiduciaries don’t ...
Employers that do not timely deposit participant deferrals and loan contributions to their employer sponsored retirement plans can be subject to Department of Labor (DOL) penalties for breaching their fiduciary duties. We discussed in our prior blog post the DOL’s amendments to its Voluntary Fiduciary Compliance (VFC) Program, which now ...
As businesses continue to respond to recent shifts in the U.S. economy, some employers have had to make the challenging decision to implement cost-cutting measures and reductions to their workforce. While a reduction in force can result in many moving parts for business operations, employers should be careful not to overlook the less obvious ...