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The final PPA issue, Wagner said, is that of funding methodologies. There is also a push to allow employers to change from the yield curve to the spot rate, at least for 2009 and 2010, to take advantage of higher interest rates. However, Hagan said, she gave it "a 50/50 shot at best" and is not hopeful, because part of the difficulty in getting this relief is needing to explain the rate impact and why such action would be helpful. One pension issue Ford noted was that of full disclosure of pension investments. He said that plan sponsors likely will be expected to list investments, disclose their performance, and disclose probable future investment strategies. Apart from the pension relief initiatives, one of the issues that Ford predicted might get taken up is the issue of required mandatory distributions. He noted that the Obama camp had talked about eliminating age 70½ mandatory distributions from DC plans, such as IRAs. Another potential consideration would be to allow for penalty-free withdrawals or loans from DC plans in light of the current economic crisis. (Editor's note: The RMD relief, at least for 2009, was included in the pension relief bill awaiting President Bush's signature as we went to press.) —Alison Cooke Audio files of all the conference sessions are available at a special conference audio page: http://ww2.plansponsor.com/conferences/audio/dbsummit08/
The final PPA issue, Wagner said, is that of funding methodologies. There is also a push to allow employers to change from the yield curve to the spot rate, at least for 2009 and 2010, to take advantage of higher interest rates. However, Hagan said, she gave it "a 50/50 shot at best" and is not hopeful, because part of the difficulty in getting this relief is needing to explain the rate impact and why such action would be helpful.
One pension issue Ford noted was that of full disclosure of pension investments. He said that plan sponsors likely will be expected to list investments, disclose their performance, and disclose probable future investment strategies.
Apart from the pension relief initiatives, one of the issues that Ford predicted might get taken up is the issue of required mandatory distributions. He noted that the Obama camp had talked about eliminating age 70½ mandatory distributions from DC plans, such as IRAs.
Another potential consideration would be to allow for penalty-free withdrawals or loans from DC plans in light of the current economic crisis. (Editor's note: The RMD relief, at least for 2009, was included in the pension relief bill awaiting President Bush's signature as we went to press.) —Alison Cooke
Audio files of all the conference sessions are available at a special conference audio page: http://ww2.plansponsor.com/conferences/audio/dbsummit08/
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