Tax-Qualified Retirement Plans

Our practice in the area of tax-qualified retirement plans – pension, profit sharing, 401(k) and stock bonus plans – encompasses a vast body of law and practice. We represent for-profit, nonprofit, governmental and other tax-exempt clients on a wide range of issues affecting their retirement programs. Our practice covers the full spectrum of plan design from traditional defined benefit pension plans to hybrid plans on the forefront of benefits law and employer-provided benefits delivery.

Other areas of our practice that deal with tax-qualified retirement plans include:

• Governmental compliance, such as procuring determination letters and private letter rulings from the Internal Revenue Service, securing advisory opinions or prohibited transaction exemptions from the U.S. Department of Labor, analyzing participant directed plans for compliance with ERISA and preparing prospectus and other disclosure materials required by the Securities and Exchange Commission
• Plan administration, including the evaluation of plan record-keeping and administrative service systems for compliance with plan design parameters, negotiating record-keeping and administrative service agreements, evaluating and responding to participant benefit claims and designing efficient procedures for processing plan loans, qualified domestic relations orders and other participant-initiated transactions
• Corporate transaction work, such as designing and negotiating qualified plan aspects of corporate acquisitions, dispositions and reorganization and implementing qualified plan mergers, spin off terminations and transfers of assets and liabilities
• Pension plan investments, including advising on fiduciary duty requirements, unrelated business income tax and plan asset issues, structuring and negotiating limited partnership agreements, escrow arrangements, group trusts and other investment vehicles
• Representation in government agency proceedings, such as filings under the Internal Revenue Service’s EPCRS voluntary compliance program or the U.S. Department of Labor’s companion program, investigations and plan audits by the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Labor, and proceedings before the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation