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The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in financial upheaval for a number of businesses that sponsor an employee retirement plan. As a result, some of them have taken a fresh look at their plan design to see if there are any changes that could help them better weather the financial storm.

As an employee benefit plan sponsor, you are required to complete a variety of ERISA compliance tasks throughout the year. Your third-party administrator may be engaged to handle some of the tasks for the plan. Here are the 2021 plan year deadlines for some of the most common ERISA compliance tasks:

Target date funds (TDFs) have become an increasingly popular investment choice for many retirement plan participants. According to a recent estimate by Bloomberg Law, participants currently hold about $1.4 trillion in TDFs.

As the sponsor of a qualified retirement plan, you’re subject to certain fiduciary responsibilities. These include administration functions like maintaining the plan’s financial records and filing an annual report for the plan.

Despite your best efforts to remain compliant, operational errors are sometimes made in the administration of employee retirement plans. When errors occur, you generally have two main options for correcting them:

The American Institute for Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) recently issued a Technical Question and Answer (TQ&A) that provides guidance on accounting for loans issued under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

As an employee benefit plan sponsor, you could face harsh consequences for failing to satisfy ERISA requirements as they relate plan fiduciaries. One of the best ways to defend against these liabilities is to form an effective employee benefit plan governance committee.

They are two of the most common questions that many businesses sponsoring an employee retirement plan ask: Do we need to have an annual audit performed on our plan? And if so, how can we best prepare for the audit?

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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the temporary closure, or a reduction of operating hours, of office buildings, shopping centers, restaurants, and other businesses. As a result, many lessors have, or will be, providing lease concessions to tenants who have faced economic disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lease concessions may vary in form, but payment forgiveness and deferral of payments are expected to be the most common types of concessions granted. As a result of lease agreements not containing provisions for rent concessions specific to COVID-19, in early April, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued a question-and-answer document (Q&A) addressing questions on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on lease concessions.