On March 12, 2008, the House of Representatives passed their version of the Pension Protection Technical Corrections Act (H.R. 3361), a bill to make minor and technical corrections to the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA). The bill is now scheduled to be reviewed to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions.
The House version of the PPA technical corrections bill has been modified since its original introduction in August 2007 and contains several differences from the Senate version of the bill, Pension Protection Technical Corrections Act (S. 1974), which the Senate passed in December 2007. Both bills will now be sent to a congressional conference committee to resolve the differences between them. If no further amendments are made to the bill, once out of conference committee, it can go directly to the President’s desk for his signature.
Final reconciliation of the two bills has not occurred as of April 30, 2008. Updates on the progress of this legislation will be published in future editions of eNews & Views, as well as in the PPA Resource Center.
Key elements of the House corrections bill include:
· No defined benefit plan asset smoothing provision The new House bill does not contain the defined benefit plan asset smoothing provision that is in the Senate version.
· Plans must offer non-spousal rollovers as of 2009 plan year The effective date of the provision clarifying that the non-spousal rollover provision of PPA is mandatory is defined as “plan years beginning after December 31, 2008.”
· Problematic blackout period provision dropped The provision of the Senate bill applying the PPA blackout period notice and fiduciary relief provisions to blackout periods of fewer than three business days is not in the new House bill. This provision had been criticized as it would have required 30-day advance notices for blackout periods of fewer than three days and there did not seem to be much concern about fiduciary liability for these short blackout periods.
Other technical corrections included in the bill would make clarifying changes to interest rate provisions, the PBGC’s missing participant program, reporting and disclosure and prohibited transaction rules, deduction limits, automatic contribution rules and health and medical benefits.
Source: American Benefits Council BENEFITS BYTE, March 13, 2008
