Guidance Document Database

Addresses the Professional Service Employer plan and Substantial Owner plan coverage exemptions.

Addresses whether an employer that has withdrawn from a multiemployer plan may be relieved of withdrawal liability by a subsequent sale of assets.

A plan year is the fiscal year on which the records of a plan are kept.

PBGC has no legal authority to terminate and then restore a pension plan in order to implement more lenient funding requirements for the successor plan.

How to determine eligibility for a “Category 3 Benefit,” which is a benefit of a participant who retired, or could have retired, 3 years or more before the plan terminated.

Standard termination of plans and establishment of new plans that do not include past service credits will not cause PBGC to reject a proper notice of intent to terminate.

Discusses how the five-year phase-in rule impacts guarantee of certain recent benefit increases and that certain early retirement supplements are not guaranteed.

Addresses the procedure to follow when parties to a dispute over withdrawal liability do not agree on the selection of an arbitrator. PBGC adopted a rule addressing the issue. (See 29 CFR § 4221.4.)

Plan meets the Church plan coverage exemption.

A plan amendment that preserves a defined benefit does not allow a plan to fit under the individual account exemption from coverage.

Involuntary termination requirements in section 4042(a) do not apply to voluntary terminations under section 4041.

Addresses abatement when a contributing employer withdraws and then acquires a division of a company that contributions to the same plan.

Individual account plan is exempt from coverage.

A fully insured plan is covered under Title IV and must pay premiums to PBGC.

A plan document’s provision allowing for reversion of residual plan assets to the plan sponsor was invalid and therefore residual assets were required to be distributed to participants.

PBGC suspended the processing of a plan termination following receipt of a letter from a union that the termination of the plan violated the terms of a collective bargaining agreement.

The sponsor of a multiemployer plan, other than a plan that primarily covers employees in the building and construction industry, may adopt any of the statutory allocation methods and any of the modifications set forth in §§ 4211.12 and 4211.13, without PBGC’s approval. PBGC will not opine on whether such adoption is consistent with trustees’ fiduciary duties.

Addresses the method of calculating the withdrawal liability of a purchaser of the assets of an unrelated contributing employer.

Regards a statutory provision under which a contributing employer to a multiemployer plan that sells its assets to an unrelated buyer does not withdraw from the plan if (among other things) the buyer posts a bond or escrow for 5 years and the sales contract makes the seller secondarily liable if the buyer withdraws during the 5 plan years after the sale. Addresses whether that exception to withdrawal applies if the buyer initially posts a bond for only the first two years.

PBGC did not issue a premium refund for plan that it found was not terminated.

Pharmacist is a professional individual for purposes of the Professional Service Employer plan exemption.

Plan termination date agreed to by PBGC and the company was after participants had constructive notice of termination .

Addresses the special partial withdrawal rule for the retail food industry, and the meaning of “retail food industry.”

Professional service employer plans and individual account plans are excluded from coverage.

A profit-sharing benefit in the plan is nonforfeitable and a pension benefit because the plan states it may be paid as an annuity. Because PBGC guarantees and pays the benefit as an annuity, it won’t be paid in a lump sum if the plan is insufficient.