Guidance Document Database

Not appropriate to charge against plan assets legal fees arising from plan termination.

Once irrevocable commitments are purchased, PBGC no longer guarantees the benefits.

Company owners are physicians and company provides medical services. Plan is exempt as a Professional Servicer Employer plan.

Original plan is a Title IV covered plan. Successor plan is also a Title IV covered plan. Successor plan does not qualify as an exempt plan under the Professional Service plan exemption even though successor plan has fewer than 25 employees.

Plan meets the Substantial Owner plan coverage exemption.

A plan maintained by a public agency or political subdivision which has been taken over from a private business is excluded from coverage.

Addresses whether a reciprocity agreement operates to impose on certain employers and defined contribution pension plans the minimum contribution requirements or the withdrawal liability provisions of the law.

Addresses whether a withdrawal liability overpayment must be refunded by a multiemployer plan sponsor to an employer where the plan sponsor subsequently discovers the underlying calculation error and the employer had failed to initiate the plan review and arbitration process.

Because benefit increases became effective through collective bargaining agreements (not specific action by the Board of Trustees), PBGC looks to the adoption and effective dates of those agreements to apply the five-year phase-in rule.

Individual account plan is exempt from coverage under Title IV.

Individual account plan exemption from coverage.

The plan must pay premiums to PBGC for annuitants covered by an insurance contract that does not provide for irrevocable commitments to pay the benefits.

Addresses the applicability of the “sale of assets exception: to the construction industry complete withdrawal rules.

Title IV does not cover Individual account plans or welfare plans.

Addresses the calculation of partial withdrawal liability and why the allocation fraction uses a ratio of contribution base units as opposed to contributions.

Addresses the meaning of “total amount contributed” for the purpose of the denominators in PBGC’s interim regulation on withdrawal liability alternative allocation methods.

Surveying and engineering design consultant is a professional individual for purposes of the Professional Service Employer plan coverage exemption.

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.

Provides information about PBGC’s review of corporate transactions or events that may pose an increased risk to single-employer pension plans.

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

Initial determination that notice of intent to terminate not valid where not issued by plan administrator, where company argued it was de facto plan administrator but plan clearly identified board to be created as plan administrator.

States the conditions that must be met for the sale of assets exception to withdrawal liability to apply; buyer did not comply with the bond/escrow and sale contract requirements.

Plan is not an Individual account plan because it does not provide for individual accounts for each participant. Plan is covered under Title IV.