Archives: Resources
Spousal Consent for Thrift Savings Plans
The Restoring Pension Promises to Workers Act of 2007 would require that wives and husbands of federal employees agree to the employees’ designation of another beneficiary to receive the money in their Thrift Savings Plan accounts if they die. Under current law a federal employee with a TSP account may designate anyone as the beneficiary of […]
Provides a Special Survivor Annuity to Divorced Spouses
This provision would make a special survivor annuity available to a small group of surviving former spouses of federal employees who were not originally eligible because of the timing of their divorces and the fact that their former husbands had remarried. In 1984 Congress passed the Civil Service Retirement Spouse Equity Act of 1984 (CSRSEA). […]
Commencement of Former Spouse Benefits
The Restoring Pension Promises to Workers Act of 2007 would allow former spouses of federal employees to begin collecting their court awarded share of the pension benefits when the employees become eligible to retire. Under current law both federal pension systems Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) allow for the […]
Civil Service Survivor Annuities Protected
The Restoring Pension Promises to Workers Act of 2007 would ensure that surviving spouses of former federal employees under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) would receive their survivor benefits regardless of when the worker left employment. Under current law widows and widowers of federal employees under CSRS receive survivor annuities if the employee dies while still […]
Limitations on Recovery of Overpayments
The Restoring Pension Promises to Workers Act of 2007 would impose limitations on a pension plan’s ability to collect money from pension recipients for overpayments. Under current law, if a pension plan discovers that it made a mistake in a retiree’s pension benefit, the plan can recover the amount of the overpayment regardless of whether […]
Protections When Companies Sell Divisions
The Restoring Pension Promises to Workers Act of 2007 would protect certain early retirement pensions when companies sell divisions and employees continue working for the new owner. Current law protects the portion of a subsidized early retirement benefit that an employee has earned at the time a company changes or terminates its plan if the […]
Executive Tax Breaks Linked to Worker Plans
Under the Restoring Pension Promises to Workers Act of 2007, retirement plans that only benefit top paid executives will lose their special tax treatment if the company does not offer a defined benefit pension plan to its non-executive workforce. Current law allows companies to have separate retirement plans just for top paid executives with no requirement that […]
Interest Rates For Lump Sums
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 changes the interest rates used to calculate lump sum distributions, also known as cashouts. Many traditional defined benefit plans permit retirees to choose to take a single lump sum payment rather than a lifetime monthly annuity. If a lump sum is selected, the interest rate used to calculate the amount of […]
Pension Funding Notices
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 requires both single and multiemployer defined benefit pension plans to provide annual plan funding notices. These funding notices inform pension plan participants about the financial status of their pension plans. Under prior law, all private retirement plans were required to provide overviews of their financial status to employees in […]
Office of Pension Participant Advocacy
The Restoring Pension Promises to Workers Act of 2007 would establish a new agency within the Department of Labor called the Office of Pension Participant Advocacy. The Office would be charged with several tasks relating to pension policy and serve as a resource to individuals affected by shortcomings in private pension law. The functions of […]
Increase in Maximum Bond Amount
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 increases the bond requirement for people handling private retirement plan money. All individuals with control over retirement plan assets and other plan fiduciaries must be bonded. The bond, which must represent at least 10 percent of a plan’s assets, is used to protect the plan from fraud committed against the plan by […]
Increased Penalties for Coercive Interference with Pension Rights
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 increases penalties for coercive interference with pension rights. The private pension law makes it unlawful for anyone to use fraud, force, violence or threat of violence to restrain, coerce, or intimidate a retirement plan participant or beneficiary for the purpose of interfering with or preventing the exercise of any right under the […]
