Guidance Document Database

Provides guidance on the bonding and escrow requirements imposed on employers that sell their assets.

Clarifies that any multiemployer plan that is not amended to adopt a non-presumptive allocation method is required to allocate unfunded vested benefits using the presumptive method.

Addresses the calculation of reallocation liability when calculating withdrawal liability under the "presumptive method" and whether to include the unfunded vested benefits of an employer that is subject to the construction rule.

Not appropriate to charge against plan assets legal fees arising from plan termination.

Once irrevocable commitments are purchased, PBGC no longer guarantees the benefits.

Company owners are physicians and company provides medical services. Plan is exempt as a Professional Servicer Employer plan.

Original plan is a Title IV covered plan. Successor plan is also a Title IV covered plan. Successor plan does not qualify as an exempt plan under the Professional Service plan exemption even though successor plan has fewer than 25 employees.

Plan meets the Substantial Owner plan coverage exemption.

A plan maintained by a public agency or political subdivision which has been taken over from a private business is excluded from coverage.

Addresses whether a reciprocity agreement operates to impose on certain employers and defined contribution pension plans the minimum contribution requirements or the withdrawal liability provisions of the law.

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.

Addresses whether or not an 18-month contribution holiday is a partial withdrawal.

Addresses effects on withdrawal liability of a proposed transfer of benefit liabilities from a multiemployer plan to a single-employer plan.

Look to plan documents to determine plan administrator

Assets intended to fund insurance company annuities, but which are retained by the plan are subject to allocation procedures.

Real estate broker is not a professional individual for purposes of the Professional Service Employer plan exemption.