At some point in their lives, most people have thought about what they would do if they had a sudden positive change in their finances – maybe quit their job, travel the world, buy a house or pay off their mortgage. I certainly have played the game with my husband, dreaming about what we would do if we inherited or won a million dollars! Neither of these has happened and both are probably a LONGSHOT. If it does happen, boy, do I have plans for those dollars….
JANUARY PLAN SPONSOR CHECKLIST:
• Send payroll and employee census data to the plan’s recordkeeper for plan-year-end compliance testing (calendar-year plans).
• Audit fourth quarter payroll and plan deposit dates to ensure compliance with the Department of Labor’s rules regarding timely deposit of participant contributions and loan repayments.
• Verify that employees who became eligible for the plan between October 1 and December 31 received and returned an enrollment form. Follow up for forms that were not returned.
For many couples, retirement planning takes on fresh importance once their children leave the nest, especially if they have put off savings during the child-rearing years. If this is your situation, think about directing a greater share of your income toward your retirement. It may be helpful to devise a strategy several months before you face an empty nest, figuring out how far behind you are in building your nest egg. Having a written budget is critical, as is auto-depositing your contributions. That way you’re not tempted to spend your increased income once the kids are launched.
There is a provision in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed December 22, 2017, that affects plan participants who terminate employment with an outstanding loan. Before passage of the law, the loan would have been due immediately.
Everybody imagines retiring early, but few people manage to do it. A recent Willis Towers Watson survey reported that far more working Americans are planning to retire after age 65 (46%) than before it (30%).1 Here are five steps you can take to jumpstart the process.
It was a good year for individual account plans, including 401(k)s and 457s. In fact, 2017 may go in the record books as the first year the number of plans with an average auto-enrollment deferral rate of 6% exceeded the number of plans with a default deferral rate of 3%, as it has commonly been.
