07/24/2020
Keith Gredys and Matthew Gredys from Kidder were part of a two day virtual Washington D.C. delegation to discuss 401(k) legislation with U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley and U.S. Senator Joni Ernst and their legislative staff. Senator Grassley is Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and Tax Committee and directly involved in the current COVID-19 related economic stimulus legislation. We are grateful that he was willing to take some time away from these discussions to meet with us. Both Senators and their staff had favorable views of our proposals.
This year the NAPA (National Association of Plan Advisors) Annual Fly-In was conducted virtually for the first time. is part of the American Retirement Association (ARA) and with over 30,000 members advocates on behalf of plan sponsors, plan advisors, third party administrators and actuaries to improve retirement outcomes for the citizens of the U.S. The purpose this year was to work with the leading members of Congress to include additional COVID-19 relief for 401(k) plan sponsors. Specifically, our focus is to include in proposed additional COVID-19 relief legislation (CARES Act #2) being debated this week specific funding relief for Plan Sponsors and Small Businesses for the 2019 and 2020 plan years. Our proposal helps the cash flow of small businesses by permitting the delay for one year of employer contributions that have not been made to satisfy 2019 plan funding obligations. And we want to permit for the 2020 plan year the suspension of employer contributions without impacting any “Safe Harbor” requirements, and waiving ADP/ACP testing for 2020, if those are applicable. There were additional discussions on Partial Plan Termination relief, greater utilization of electronic disclosure, working against any proposed financial transaction taxes on 401(k) plans, and providing incentives to make it easier to adopt features that benefit participants. Our Iowa group included Keith Gredys, Matthew Gredys, Brian Graff (CEO of ARA), Jean Duffy, Mike Hulme and Brian Buhrow.