Insights

On February 28, 2024, Chairperson Bernard Sanders (I-VT) and the majority staff of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee released its report “A Secure Retirement for All” in coordination with that day’s full committee hearing on the potential for the expansion of defined benefit pension plans. The report takes a dim view of the state of retirement in America, highlighting a 2019 report by the US Government Accountability Office showing nearly half of Americans 55 an

An employer can provide tax-free student loan payment assistance only through a formal education assistance program. If they do not have one in place, they must adopt one. Otherwise, the benefit cannot be provided on a tax-free basis. The CARES Act added (and the CAA, 2021 extended) “eligible student loan repayments” to the list of items that can be reimbursed under an educational assistance program under Code Section 127. That list also includes, but is not limited to, tuition, fees, and simil

Effective December 14, 2023, amounts paid or incurred by an employer for dependent care assistance provided to an employee under an IRC § 129 dependent care assistance program are not included in the employee’s taxable compensation for Pennsylvania personal income tax purposes. This includes: (a) the fair market value of benefits provided in kind by the employer, (b) an amount paid directly to a daycare facility by the employer or reimbursed to the employee to subsidize the benefit, or (c) bene

A recently filed lawsuit has increased awareness of the ERISA fiduciary obligations of employers in their role as group health plan sponsors, particularly the “duty of prudence” in selecting and monitoring health plan vendors.

If the deepfake technology is only to become more sophisticated, how can companies protect themselves from ever-evolving financial scams?

A Delaware Chancery Court recently voided Elon Musk’s Tesla compensation package, overriding a favorable shareholder vote to find that an executive compensation package was fundamentally unfair.  While Tesla may appeal and the broader implications will take some time to reveal themselves, there are three general themes to note from the decisions:   The Moving Goalposts of Executive Compensation   What constitutes an enlightened executive compensation program has long been s

On January 17, 2024, HHS released its Annual Update of the HHS Poverty Guidelines for 2024. The notice provides an annual update on poverty guidelines based on the prior calendar year’s increase in prices as measured by the Consumer Price Index. These guidelines are used, in part, to help determine eligibility for federal programs such as Medicaid and to determine eligibility for subsidies in the individual marketplace. Further, these guidelines impact employers who use the Federal Poverty Line

On February 9, 2024, in Watson v. EMC Corp., the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that an employer may be liable for the value of group life insurance benefits that would have been available under an insured policy absent the employer’s failure to adequately inform the employee of the plan’s conversion requirements. The plaintiff in this case, Marie Watson, sued EMC Corporation, her husband’s former employer, for leading her husband to believe his basic life insurance coverage re

On February 12, 2024, the IRS released Revenue Procedure 2024-14, which in part provides indexing adjustments for penalties under the ACA employer mandate. As a reminder, the ACA requires applicable large employers (ALEs), those with 50 or more full-time employees (FTEs) and full-time equivalent employees, to offer affordable minimum value (MV) coverage to all FTEs and their dependents or risk a penalty. Notably, the employer mandate penalty amounts for 2025 are reduced from the 2024 penalty am