President Trump last week nominated Eugene Scalia to head the DOL following Secretary Acosta's resignation. Scalia was instrumental in the first version of the rule's defeat last year. He was the lead counsel for SIFMA and the body of trade groups that defeated the rule. On June 5, 2019, the 4-member Securities and Exchange Commission voted to approve the "Reg BI Package."

Passion led us to create a "better" 403(b) retirement option for employees in the non-profit and charter school sectors.

Fred Reish is a highly esteemed and well-respected ERISA attorney who focuses on fiduciary responsibility, retirement income, and plan operational issues. He has written a series of Best Practice articles for plan sponsors and advisors.

In case you are tasked with administering your company's 401(k) plan, along with all of your other duties, we were wondering if a few thoughts about 401(k) audits might be helpful. Whether your plan is currently required to do an audit or not, it may be in the future. So let's look at some of the basics.

Does your 401(k) plan utilize a fee payment system known as revenue sharing? Whether you are a plan participant or especially if you are a plan sponsor, you should know. If you are a plan sponsor, you are required to know as a plan fiduciary.

One of the most under considered aspects of 401(k) plans, especially smaller ones, is overall plan design. This can happen when a small plan chooses a very large 401(k) provider who provides more standardized plan designs due to their sheer size. These plans may work satisfactorily but it is possible that rethinking and customizing a smaller plan's design might better suit both the principals and the employees in the sponsoring company.

Target date funds and target risk funds are two common types of investments in 401(k) plans. Both contain pro's and con's for participants and plan sponsors.

We have discussed index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) several times in the past in conjunction with expert articles from others. We have also mentioned the ongoing industry discourse about the relative pros and cons of passive fund management vs. active management. Since plan sponsors for 401(k)s continue to move away from actively-managed funds, now is a good time to acknowledge this change and discuss some of the reasons why exclusive use of index funds and ETF's in 401(k) plans makes sense.

One of the main questions we often hear is "What's the difference between mutual funds, low-cost index funds, and ETFs?" This post breaks down the definitions for each one and compares their overall offerings.