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PENSION BENEFIT GUARANTY CORPORATION (PBGC)
Statement of Regulatory and Deregulatory Priorities
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) protects the pensions
of over 44 million working men and women in about 30,500 private
defined benefit plans. PBGC receives no funds from general tax
revenues. Operations are financed by insurance premiums, investment
income, assets from pension plans trusteed by PBGC, and recoveries from
the companies formerly responsible for the trusteed plans.
To carry out these functions, PBGC issues regulations interpreting such
matters as the termination process, establishment of procedures for the
payment of premiums, reporting and disclosure, and assessment and
collection of employer liability. The Corporation is committed to
issuing simple, understandable, and timely regulations to help affected
parties do business.
PBGC's intent is to issue regulations that implement the law in ways
that do not impede the maintenance of existing defined benefit plans or
the establishment of new plans. Thus, the focus is to avoid placing
burdens on plans, employers, and participants, wherever possible. PBGC
also seeks to ease and simplify employer compliance whenever possible.
PBGC Insurance Programs
PBGC administers two insurance programs for private defined benefit
plans under title IV of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of
1974 (ERISA): a single-employer plan termination insurance program and
a multiemployer plan insolvency insurance program.
<bullet> Single-Employer Program. Under the single-employer program,
PBGC pays guaranteed and certain other pension benefits to
participants and beneficiaries if their plan terminates
with insufficient assets (distress and involuntary
terminations). The single-employer program had a $13.1
billion deficit at the end of fiscal year 2007.
<bullet> Multiemployer Program. The smaller multiemployer program
covers about 1500 collectively bargained plans involving
more than one unrelated employer. PBGC provides financial
assistance (in the form of a loan) to the plan if the plan
is unable to pay benefits at the guaranteed level.
Guaranteed benefits are less than single-employer
guaranteed benefits. The multiemployer program, which is
separately funded from the single-employer program, had a
$955 million deficit at the end of fiscal year 2007.
Recent Legislation
Early in 2005, the Administration proposed reforms to improve funding
of plans and restore the financial health of the insurance program,
which had a $233.billion deficit at the end of fiscal year 2004.
Legislation signed into law in 2006 -- the Deficit Reduction Act of
2005 (DRA 2005) and the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA 2006) --
contain various provisions intended to improve plan funding, enhance
pension-related reporting and disclosure, and strengthen the insurance
programs.
Regulatory Objectives and Priorities
PBGC's current regulatory objectives and priorities are to continue
implementation of the PPA 2006 changes by issuing simple,
understandable, and timely regulations that do not impose undue burdens
that could impede maintenance or establishment of defined benefit
plans. (PBGC has completed its implementation of DRA 2005.) These
regulatory objectives and priorities are developed in the context of
the Corporation's statutory purposes:
<bullet> To encourage voluntary private pension plans;
<bullet> To provide for the timely and uninterrupted payment of pension
benefits; and
<bullet> To keep premiums at the lowest possible levels.
PBGC also attempts to minimize administrative burdens on plans and
participants, improve transparency, simplify filing, and provide relief
for small businesses. As mentioned below, the first set of rulemakings
concerns premiums, disclosure of termination information, annual
financial and actuarial reporting, treatment of bankruptcy filing date
as termination date for certain purposes, multiemployer plan withdrawal
liability, and missing participants.
The Corporation seeks to improve transparency of information to plan
participants, investors, and PBGC, in order to better inform them and
to encourage more responsible funding of pension plans. PPA 2006
contains provisions for disclosure of certain information to
participants regarding the termination of their underfunded plan. PBGC
published a proposed regulation on this disclosure of termination
information in December 2007 and expects to publish a final regulation
in October 2008.
PPA 2006 also makes changes to the plan actuarial and employer
financial information required under section 4010 of ERISA to be
reported to PBGC by employers with large amounts of pension
underfunding. PBGC published a proposed regulation implementing those
changes in February 2008 and expects to publish a final regulation in
October 2008.
PBGC also seeks to simplify filing with PBGC by increasing use of
electronic filing. Electronic filing of premium information has been
mandatory for all plans for plan years beginning on or after January 1,
2007. Filers have a choice of using private-sector software that meets
PBGC's published standards or using PBGC's software. Electronic premium
filing simplifies filers' paperwork, improves accuracy of PBGC's
premium records and database, and enables more prompt payment of
premium refunds.
In December 2007 and March 2008, PBGC published final rules
implementing most of the premium changes under PPA 2006. The
Corporation has incorporated the changes to the flat-rate and variable-
rate premiums into software so that it will be easy to comply with the
premium changes under the new law.
Plan actuarial and employer financial information required under
section 4010 of ERISA to be reported to PBGC by employers with large
amounts of pension underfunding is required to be filed electronically.
Electronic filing reduces the filing burden, improves accuracy, and
better enables PBGC to monitor and manage risks posed by these plans.
PBGC is incorporating the PPA 2006 changes to this reporting into
software so that it will be easy to comply with the reporting changes
under the new law.
In July 2008, PBGC published a proposed rule that would implement a PPA
2006 provision that treats the bankruptcy filing date as the plan
termination date for purposes of determining the amount of benefits
PBGC guarantees and the amount of assets allocated to participants who
retired or have been retirement-eligible for three years. The provision
applies to plans that terminate in a distress or involuntary
termination while the sponsor is a bankruptcy proceeding that was
initiated on or after September 16,
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2006. PBGC expects to publish a final rule in 2009.
PPA 2006 provides for changes in the allocation of unfunded vested
benefits to withdrawing employers from a multiemployer pension plan and
requires adjustments in determining an employer's withdrawal liability
when a multiemployer plan is in critical status. In March 2008, PBGC
published a proposed rule to implement these provisions. The proposed
rule also would provide new modifications to the statutory methods for
determining an employer's allocable share of unfunded vested benefits
and improve the process of fully allocating a plan's total unfunded
vested benefits among liable employers in a plan terminated by mass
withdrawal. PBGC expects to issue a final rule in October 2008.
PBGC gives consideration to the special needs and concerns of small
businesses in making policy. A large percentage of the plans insured by
PBGC are small or maintained by small employers. The first proposed
rule PBGC published under PPA 2006 implemented the cap on the variable-
rate premium for plans of small employers. In 2009, the Corporation
expects to issue a proposed regulation implementing the expanded
missing participants program under PPA 2006, which will also benefit
small businesses.
PBGC will continue to look for ways to further improve its regulations.
BILLING CODE 7709-01-S