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Lisa Loesel

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Lisa Loesel focuses her practice on employee benefits matters, including the design, amendment and administration of pension and 401(k) plans, nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements, and employee stock ownership plans. She counsels privately and publicly held corporations regarding the employee benefits design and transition matters arising from corporate mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. She also advises clients regarding fiduciary and plan investment issues under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Lisa also has experience counseling plan fiduciaries with respect to the claims and appeals procedures under ERISA. Read Lisa Loesel's full bio.

Join us Friday, November 2 for our monthly Fridays with Benefits webinar. With 2019 right around the corner, now is the time to dust off your year-end checklist and take stock of changes we have seen in 2018, and how they project to impact planning for the new year. Join us for an interactive discussion designed to draw attention to the key employee benefits issues you should tackle before New Year’s Eve. Our lively 45-minute discussion will include a tax reform update, an overview of retirement plan disaster relief, responding to new disability regulations from the DOL, and how to implement final regulations on QNECs and QMACs.

Friday, November 2, 2018
10:00 – 10:45 am PDT
11:00 – 11:45 am MDT
12:00 – 12:45 pm CDT
1:00 – 1:45 pm EDT

Register now.

Late last month, the IRS released the latest version of its Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System, the IRS’s program for correcting retirement plan errors. The newest version of the correction program—effective beginning in 2019—includes mostly minor changes and clarifications. Most importantly, however, it requires electronic filing of Voluntary Correction Program submissions beginning April 1, 2019.

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Socially responsible investing often sounds like an intriguing idea, but investing plan assets in a socially responsible manner is a notoriously tricky proposition. Earlier this year, the US Department of Labor issued additional guidance clarifying existing DOL guidance applicable to socially responsible investment of plan assets. However, the clarifications included in FAB 2018-01 may further limit the scenarios in which socially responsible investing could be considered prudent under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA).

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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has again extended the temporary nondiscrimination relief for closed defined benefit plans. This extended relief is intended to enable closed pension plans (defined as pension plans that have been closed to new participants before December 13, 2013 but continue to provide ongoing benefit accruals for certain participants) to more easily satisfy certain nondiscrimination testing requirements. In most cases where the relief applies, the closed defined benefit plan is aggregated with a defined contribution plan to satisfy the nondiscrimination testing requirements. The relief assists the aggregated plan in passing nondiscrimination requirements that apply to accrued benefits and to certain rights and features relating to those benefits.

The original nondiscrimination testing relief for closed pension plans was provided in a 2014 IRS Notice. This relief was already extended on three prior occasions, and the most recent IRS Notice further extends the relief until the end of plan years that begin before 2020, as long as the conditions of the original 2014 IRS Notice continue to be satisfied. In 2019, the IRS also intends to issue final regulations under Section 401(a)(4) of the tax code that address the nondiscrimination requirements for closed pension plans. Until then, the IRS indicated that plan sponsors can rely on the proposed 2016 IRS regulations under Section 401(a)(4) for plan years that begin before 2020.

Since the announcement by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that sponsors of individually designed retirement plans may no longer receive a periodic determination letter, plan sponsors have faced uncertainty about how to demonstrate compliance for their retirement plans. Our McDermott Retirement Plan Compliance Program, a new opinion letter and operational review program for individually designed 401(a) and 403(b) retirement plans, will allow plan sponsors to document their plans’ compliance with tax code requirements in response to the curtailment of the IRS’ determination letter program.

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Join members of the McDermott Employee Benefits team in May at one of these programs covering a variety of employee benefits topics.

The John Marshall Law School The Center for Tax Law & Employee Benefits 14th Annual Employee Benefits Symposium | May 1, 2017 | Chicago, Illinois | Speaker, Joseph S. Adams

Proposed 457(f) Regulations: Opportunities and Challenges | May 3, 2017 | Webinar presented by Mary K. Samsa, Joseph K. Urwitz, Ruth Wimer

M&A Workshop: New Developments and Key Legal and Tax Issues Throughout the Life Cycle of a Deal | May 4, 2017 | Chicago, Illinois | Speaker, Joseph S. Adams

Benefits Emerging Leaders Working Group | May 10, 2017 | Chicago, Illinois | Speakers, Lisa K. Loesel, Lisa Schmitz Mazur, Jacob M. Mattinson, Jeffrey Arnold, Sarah Raaii

“I would like to start receiving my retirement benefits now, but I would also like to keep working for a bit.  Can I do this?”  Baby boomers pose this question to their employers on a routine basis.

Unfortunately, there is no stock answer to this common question.  The employer response depends on a variety of factors, including the types of retirement benefits payable to the employee and the arrangement under which the employee will continue providing services to the employer.

This article provides employers with a roadmap for analyzing this common employee request.

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