The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has released the final rules defining normal retirement age for defined benefit and money purchase pension plans. These rules allow distributions to be made from a plan upon a participant’s attainment of normal retirement age prior to severance.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued final regulations under Section 415 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) that cover limitations on benefits and contributions for qualified retirement plans.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued final regulations regarding Section 409(A) of the Internal Revenue Code. The new rules restrict the timing of nonqualified deferred compensation (NQDC) plan elections to defer income, as well as the time and form of payment of deferred compensation.

A new white paper released by JPMorgan Asset Management suggests that target date funds are too narrowly constructed and make incorrect assumptions about investor behavior. As a result, the research suggests that such funds may leave investors with far less money than envisioned.

A new study by CFO Research Services and Towers Perrin shows that corporate plan sponsors with defined benefits plans still have a surprisingly strong commitment to those plans. Many respondents noted that they have no plans to curtail or eliminate their defined benefit plans, except under extreme conditions.

The Department of Labor has recently published its report on pensions for 2004 based on Form 5500 data. The report shows a decline in the overall number of pension plans and a continued broad move away from defined benefit to defined contribution plans. However, cash balance plans grew 30% in 2004.

A new study argues that trading costs have an increasingly negative impact on performance as the fund’s relative trade size increases. The researchers determined that trading costs were comparable in magnitude to expense ratios, and they found a statistically significant negative relationship between annual trading costs and performance.

The Journal of Financial Planning recently published a study providing retirement savings guidelines for typical individuals of different ages, income levels, and initial wealth. Given these guidelines, the authors suggest that investors should start saving for retirement before age 35 or face the challenge of saving at an increasingly higher rate.