Guidance Document Database

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.

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

Answers common questions about PBGC’s Special Financial Assistance program.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Physician-secretary is a Professional Service Employer plan exempt from Title IV coverage.

A trust under a plan must be "created or organized" in the "United States" and be "maintained at all times as a

Plan is not an Individual account plan and is not exempt from coverage under Title IV.

A plan without a written plan document is not a qualified plan and is excluded from coverage.

Addresses whether the construction industry exception to withdrawal applies where a contractor terminates its CBA, its employees do not perform any more work for which the contractor was previously required to make contributions, but the contractor subcontracts for the performance of such work.

Addresses whether or not an 18-month contribution holiday is a partial withdrawal.

Addresses effects on withdrawal liability of a proposed transfer of benefit liabilities from a multiemployer plan to a single-employer plan.

Look to plan documents to determine plan administrator

Assets intended to fund insurance company annuities, but which are retained by the plan are subject to allocation procedures.

Real estate broker is not a professional individual for purposes of the Professional Service Employer plan exemption.

Corrects opinion letter 85-1 and addresses calculation of withdrawal liability installment payments other than on a quarterly schedule.

Plan has not met conditions for coverage since ERISA enacted; Title IV doesn’t apply to the termination of the plan.