Many of us have believed that every ERISA plan must have both a plan document and a summary plan description (“SPD”). An SPD is required for all ERISA plans in order to explain them in plain English. ERISA also requires subject plans to have a “written instrument” and it is the usual practice, for retirement plans in particular, to have both a plan document and an SPD.

You or your retirement plan’s third party administrator (TPA) need to make a benefit distribution to an ex-employee. But the employer’s records are out of date and the former employee cannot be located. Worse yet, the missing participant has attained age 70½ so the plan is required to make minimum distributions (RMDs) but cannot do so.

Most larger group health plans are self-funded, which means the employer, not an insurer, is primarily responsible for paying benefits. These plans also are likely to require employee contributions towards the cost of benefits, and those contributions typically are paid to the employer (not a trust) on a pre-tax basis through a cafeteria (Section 125) plan.

Consider a typical retirement plan sponsored by a private employer. The employer is a fiduciary to the plan along with employees who individually serve as trustees or members of the plan’s investment or retirement committee.

You’re a successful business owner and you’d like to plan ahead. Professionals are urging you to prepare a “succession plan” – but you look at it as a retirement plan. Getting out of the daily grind might be nice, but giving up your life’s work and your legacy business? Maybe not so nice. No matter how they sugar coat it, “succession planning” looks like you’re calling it quits.

If your organization sponsors a 401(k) or other retirement plan, you or someone in your organization is a fiduciary to that plan. You may have hired a service provider to administer the plan (a third party administrator, or “TPA”), but the buck stops with your organization. This is because the fine print in your TPA’s service agreement says the official “Plan Administrator” is the employer, not the TPA. This means the employer has the ultimate responsibility for the plan’s ERISA compliance.

Many 401(k) plan sponsors have wisely selected investment professionals to assist in selecting the plan’s investment menu, typically a listing of various mutual funds. Other plan sponsors may allocate this duty to company officers and other key employees. In either case, the resident plan fiduciaries (the company officers and key employees who act on behalf of the sponsor as plan administrator or trustee) have a legal duty to “select and monitor” plan investments and, in the case of sponsors who have hired investment professionals – to monitor not only investment performance but also the performance of the investment professionals.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has tied the hands of employers who would like to reimburse employees for the cost of their individual health insurance coverage. Under the ACA, tax-free reimbursement of employee health insurance costs was not permitted through a health reimbursement arrangement (HRA) unless it was “integrated” with an employer-provided group health plan. Stand-alone HRAs were prohibited even for small employers that were not subject to the ACA mandate to offer group health coverage.

Entrepreneurs who work hard and build a business over decades realize that, at some point, they need to think about slowing down and stepping back. Frequently, planning and specific decisions about transition are put off. Entrepreneurs worry about two things that can make delay an attractive option. Number one is a concern about their standard of living if they sell their business. Number two is facing the prospect of disposing of the entrepreneur’s legacy business that may represent a lifetime of work and achievement.