After multiple delays and extensions, the Service Provider Fee Disclosure (408(b)(2)) Regulations are effective on or before April 1, 2012. The Participant Fee Disclosure (404(a)) Regulations are generally effective May 31, 2012 (60 days after the 408(b)(2)) Regulations. The Regulations are similar in that both of these cover all company-sponsored retirement plans with a purpose of disclosing Fees but different in that the Service Provider Fee Disclosure’s purpose is to disclose fees that various service providers charge in servicing the plan to the Plan Sponsor while the purpose of the Participant Fee Disclosure is to provide plan expenses, i.e. investment-related, to the participants.

Regarding the Service Provider Fee Disclosures, PENSIONS LTD would only need to prepare these Disclosures for those plans whose participants pay a pro-rata share of the administrative fees. If the business pays PENSIONS LTD directly, these new Disclosures are not applicable.

Regarding the Participant Fee Disclosures, PENSIONS LTD will be satisfying the requirements of this regulation by expanding the currently provided quarterly periodic benefit statements. We are required to prepare these statements for those plans that offer participants the right to (investment) direct their own accounts. The first Disclosure will be included in the first quarterly statement due by 05/15/12.

…to restate the plan and trust document. This is the IRS final deadline. The process of amending and restating the plan documentation in its entirety was last completed in 2004. It is required generally every six years. Every ‘open’ DB plan must be restated as the process updates the plans to legislation that has passed SINCE 2004. In other words, we are picking up from where we last left off. Frozen, inactive, even plans wanting to terminate or in the process of terminating are affected.