The Department of Labor issued guidance in mid-2018 which allowed employer associations to adopt a single multiple employer health plan to cover a greater number of employers and their employees. These Association Health Plans (or “AHPs”) were intended to allow more smaller employers and self-employed individuals to band together in order to secure simpler health plan arrangements and cheaper coverage in the marketplace (our February Benefits Bulletin provides some of the details here).

All transactions involving the purchase or redemption of employer stock by an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (“ESOP”) must be conducted at fair market value. This assures that the statutory prohibited transaction exceptions available to compliant ESOPs will apply. Fair market value for private companies must be determined by an independent appraisal. This would include annual valuations and, more important, the valuation of the ESOP’s critical acquisition of the employer stock that it is required to maintain as its “principal investment.”

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 But the employer’s records are out of date and the former employee cannot be located.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.