Guidance Document Database

Reviews information that PBGC finds helpful and factors that PBGC considers in reviewing multiemployer plan proposals for alternative terms and conditions to satisfy withdrawal liability.

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

Discusses how the PBGC's maximum guarantee limit works under the multiemployer insurance program and explains an increase in maximum guarantee limit for participants in multiemployer plans.

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.

Clarifies the Line 14 Instructions for the Schedule R (Form 5500) and provides partial reporting relief for completing Line 14 for the 2009 plan year.

Expands on guidance in Technical Update 07-3 on lump sum valuation issues for single-employer plans that terminate in a standard termination. Applies to plans that terminate on or after the effective date of certain amendments to the law as enacted by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA 2006) concerning how to apply the PPA 2006 changes in the interest rate and mortality table used in calculating minimum lump sum amounts.

Guidance on lump sum valuation issues for single-employer plans that terminate in a standard termination with a termination date prior to, and a final distribution date on or after, the effective date of changes in the interest rate and mortality table used in calculating minimum lump sum values under the Pension Protection Act.

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

PBGC’s Freedom of Information Act Guide

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).

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

Addresses the calculation of reallocation liability when calculating withdrawal liability under the "presumptive method" and whether to include the unfunded vested benefits of an employer that is subject to the construction rule.

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.

Transfer of plan assets to another plan does not require PBGC approval, but it is a reportable event requiring notification.

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.