On December 20, 2019, President Trump signed into law H.R. 1865, the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (now Pub. L. 116-94) (the “Appropriations Act”), which, among other things, contains the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act (the “Act”). The Act is a significant piece of retirement legislation which seeks to expand access
On December 20, 2019, the President signed legislation repealing the excise tax, otherwise known as the “Cadillac tax,” on high cost health insurance plans. Both houses of Congress had adopted the legislation the day before, as part of a federal spending package.
The excise tax was a component of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Without
Effective October 1, 2019, a new Connecticut law, P.A. 19-177, changed the existing requirements in Connecticut General Statutes Section 20-298b that apply to the ownership of architectural firms doing business as professional corporations incorporated in Connecticut. The new law now permits these architectural firms to have more than 33-1/3% of their voting stock owned by
In May we wrote about a Connecticut Senate Bill 435 (S.B. 435) and certain proposed federal legislation which would have created incentives for Connecticut employers to help their student loan-burdened employees pay down their debt.
The 2019 legislative session adjourned in June, and at that time, S.B. 435 had been referred to the Committee on
One hotly debated aspect of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) has been the so-called “Cadillac Tax” on high-cost health benefits, currently slated to take effect in 2022. The Cadillac Tax is a 40% excise tax on the amount of employer-sponsored health care coverage which exceeds $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. (Higher thresholds apply
On June 25, 2019, Governor Lamont signed into law “An Act Concerning Paid Family and Medical Leave,” (“PFMLA”) enacting what is reported to be the most generous family leave law in the country. The law provides employees with up to 12 weeks of paid leave (14 weeks for those incapacitated by pregnancy) in a 12-month
Assisting employees who are struggling with student loan debt is an emerging priority for many employers. Following the Internal Revenue Service’s release in August 2018 of a private letter ruling, widely thought to have been requested by Abbott Laboratories, that permits the employer to “match” student loan repayments in the company’s 401(k) plan, there have
Shipman & Goodwin attorney Richard Cohen will be a speaker at the “Employee Benefit Plans Conference” presented by the Connecticut Society of CPAs. He will present the session “Legal Issues facing Qualified Retirement Plans and Plan Sponsors in 2019.”
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Although Section 408(d)(8) has been part of the Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) for more than 10 years, and provides for a popular benefit by enabling persons who are older than age 70 ½ to make charitable contributions (up to $100,000 for a taxable year) by directing that all or any portion of their required minimum
Connecticut is one of five states that, in recent years, has implemented an “auto-IRA” program, in which private employers automatically deduct a set amount from their employees’ paychecks and contribute that amount to an individual retirement account established through the state system. The Connecticut Retirement Security Exchange (the “Exchange”), along with similar programs in California,