von Briesen Health Law Blog

Two recent developments under Wisconsin law eliminate disparities with federal law and may simplify health plan administration for Wisconsin employers. First, the Wisconsin insurance law requirement that dependent child coverage be offered to the adult children of covered employees has been amended to conform to the federal adult child coverage requirement. Second, Senate Bill 203, which recently passed both houses of the Wisconsin Legislature and is awaiting Governor Scott Walker’s signature, would amend Wisconsin tax law to conform the state income tax exclusion for coverage provided to an employee’s adult child to the federal income tax exclusion.

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The Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) recently issued a list of retirement plan items that employers should review this year. This Update briefly highlights those items and provides you with useful resources for proper operation of your retirement plan.

Is Your Retirement Plan Right for Your Business?
An employer should review its retirement plan periodically to determine whether that plan remains suitable given the employer’s objectives.

Employers sometimes adopt retirement plans that prove to be overly complicated given the employer’s budget, the nature of the employer’s workforce, etc. For example, we recently helped a small non-profit organization unwind its defined benefit retirement plan. Given the organization’s objectives and budget and the nature of the organization’s workforce, the plan was too complex and costly to administer. The organization replaced that plan with a new defined contribution plan that (i) is much easier for employees to understand, (ii) is much less costly to administer, and (iii) provides the organization with needed funding flexibility.

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