Guidance Document Database

Plan meets the Governmental plan coverage exemption.

Addresses the “unrelated party” requirement for the sale of assets exception to withdrawal liability.

Addresses calculation of the annual withdrawal liability payment amount of an employer that incurred successive partial withdrawals. PBGC subsequently adopted a rule addressing the issue. (See 29 CFR part 4206.)

Addresses abatement rules for employers that reenter a multiemployer plan.

A plan with one participant who is a substantial owner is not covered.

A reduction in benefits is not considered a plan termination but is a reportable event.

PBGC recognizes pension credits for discharged employees found to have been illegal discharged and reinstated for the period after the illegal discharge and ending with the date of plan termination.

Section 4044 asset allocation rules take precedence over any contrary plan provisions.

A tax qualified defined benefit plan is covered.

Because plan does not provide for reversion of excess assets to sponsor, residual assets must be distributed to plan participants and their beneficiaries, pro rata, in relation to their accrued benefits.

Addresses the individual account plan coverage exemption.

State licensed planner whose company provides consulting services to assist municipal planning boards with development plans, land use studies and housing surveys is a Professional Service Employer and plan is exempt from Title IV coverage.

Where proposed language in CBA will not affect Title IV coverage, it will not prevent PBGC claim for employer liability.

Regards a statutory provision under which a contributing employer to a multiemployer plan that sells its assets to an unrelated buyer does not withdraw from the plan if (among other things) the buyer posts a bond or escrow and the sales contract makes the seller secondarily liable if the buyer withdraws during the 5 plan years after the sale. Addresses calculation of withdrawal liability of an employer that previously sold some of its assets where, under that statutory provision, the asset sale was not a withdrawal.

A plan maintained by a union and funded only by contributions from union members is not covered under Title IV

Whether PBGC will permit a plan to be restored after it has submitted its Notice of its Intent to Terminate.

Addresses the exclusion of employee contributions in withdrawal liability allocation fractions.

Management consultant is not a professional individual for purposes of the Professional Service Employer plan coverage exemption.

A plan was not a successor plan to another plan, because both plans existed during the same plan year.

A death benefit is not a pension benefit and as such is treated as a liability before plan termination and must be deducted from the plan’s available assets.

Disability benefits that become payable after the date of plan termination are not guaranteed.

Optician is not a professional individual for purposes of the Professional Service Employer plan exemption.

Addresses which of two limitations on withdrawal liability applies—one applicable to a dissolving or liquidating employer, the other applicable to an employer that sold its assets to an unrelated party—when an employer satisfies the prerequisites for both.

PBGC will look to the terms of the plan documents in determining whether a benefit is nonforfeitable.

Transfer of plan assets to another plans is a reportable event.