Guidance Document Database

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.

PBGC will not insure annuities purchased by a terminated multiemployer plan and PBGC is not authorized to pay benefits when a non-insolvent multiemployer plan terminates.

Plan meets the Governmental plan coverage exemption.

Plan meets the Church plan coverage exemption.

A plan amendment that preserves a defined benefit does not allow a plan to fit under the individual account exemption from coverage.

Involuntary termination requirements in section 4042(a) do not apply to voluntary terminations under section 4041.

Addresses abatement when a contributing employer withdraws and then acquires a division of a company that contributions to the same plan.

Individual account plan is exempt from coverage.

A fully insured plan is covered under Title IV and must pay premiums to PBGC.

A plan document’s provision allowing for reversion of residual plan assets to the plan sponsor was invalid and therefore residual assets were required to be distributed to participants.

PBGC suspended the processing of a plan termination following receipt of a letter from a union that the termination of the plan violated the terms of a collective bargaining agreement.

The sponsor of a multiemployer plan, other than a plan that primarily covers employees in the building and construction industry, may adopt any of the statutory allocation methods and any of the modifications set forth in §§ 4211.12 and 4211.13, without PBGC’s approval. PBGC will not opine on whether such adoption is consistent with trustees’ fiduciary duties.

Addresses the method of calculating the withdrawal liability of a purchaser of the assets of an unrelated contributing employer.

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 for 5 years and the sales contract makes the seller secondarily liable if the buyer withdraws during the 5 plan years after the sale. Addresses whether that exception to withdrawal applies if the buyer initially posts a bond for only the first two years.

PBGC did not issue a premium refund for plan that it found was not terminated.

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