Guidance documents database

Answers common questions about eligibility and applications for partitions of multiemployer plans.

Answers common questions about reasonable administrative expenses of insolvent multiemployer plans.

Provides information on filing a standard termination, distribution of benefits, and standard termination audits

Guidance on determining the present value of the maximum benefit guaranteed by PBGC.

Provides simplified methods for the application of the statutory requirement that multiemployer plans in critical status disregard certain benefit reductions in determining the plan's unfunded vested benefits for purposes of determining an employer's withdrawal liability under section 4201 of ERISA.

Sets forth the requirements for special financial assistance applications and related restrictions and conditions pursuant to the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.

Provides guidelines for changes to certain assumptions that multiemployer plans may use for purposes of determining eligibility for special financial assistance (SFA) and the amount of SFA.

Announcement of relief that will generally enable plan sponsors to take advantage of the CARES Act contribution due date extension and still ultimately pay the same variable-rate premium they would have owed had those contributions been made by the regular contribution due date.

General information on submitting domestic relations orders to PBGC after PBGC becomes trustee of a terminated pension plan and the procedures PBGC follows to determine whether an order is a qualified domestic relations order

Describes the revised penalty for failing to timely provide required information to PBGC in standard terminations and sufficient distress terminations.

Answers common questions on liability and notice requirements following a substantial cessation of operations.

Describes PBGC’s revised policy on assessing penalties for failing to timely provide required information to PBGC.

Addresses PBGC’s policy on accepting and responding to amended premium filings based on recharacterization of contributions.

Provides relief from certain premium penalties and in certain situations involving alternative premium funding target elections.

Provides guidance on the bonding and escrow requirements imposed on employers that sell their assets.

Clarifies that any multiemployer plan that is not amended to adopt a non-presumptive allocation method is required to allocate unfunded vested benefits using the presumptive method.

Describes the penalty for failing to timely provide required premium related information to PBGC.

Guidance on the timing of premium payments for plan years beginning in 2025, which, because of a provision in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, are generally due a month earlier than the due date provided in PBGC’s Payment of Premiums regulation (29 CFR part 4007).

Provides guidelines for changes to certain assumptions that multiemployer plans may use for purposes of determining the amount of SFA.

Addresses variances from the bond/escrow and contract-language prerequisites to the asset sale exception to withdrawal.

A participant who has completed the requisite number of years of service and has attained retirement age has a nonforfeitable vested benefit in the plan, even if he has not ended his employment as the time of plan termination.

Addresses the calculation of withdrawal liability in a situation where several members of a controlled group have an obligation to contribute to the same multiemployer pension plan and are sold or liquidated in a series of transactions.

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

Addresses the circumstances under which a bankruptcy proceeding may give rise to withdrawal liability.