The Pension Protection Act of 2006 (Pub. L. 109–280), 120 Stat. 780, was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on August 17, 2006.
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This legislation requires companies who have underfunded their pension plans to pay higher premiums to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) and extends the requirement of providing extra funding to the pension systems of companies that terminate their pension plans. It also requires companies to analyze their pension plans' obligations more accurately, closes loopholes that previously allowed some companies to underfund their plans by skipping payments, and raises the cap on the amount employers are allowed to invest in their own plans. This will allow employers to deduct more money using the pension tax shield in times of high profits.
It requires actuaries to use the equivalent of the projected accrued benefit cost method for determining annual normal cost.
Other elements:
The Pension Protection Act also reformed several types of tax-exempt charitable organizations including donor-advised funds, private foundations, and supporting organizations.
The Pension Protection Act cracks down on supporting organizations, particularly type III supporting organizations. This act applies further regulations and penalties that takes away several of the privileges that supporting organizations have over private foundations. This includes applying private foundation law of excess benefit transactions, excess business holding rules, and pay out requirements among others.
One tax benefit allowed under the pension protection act is that qualified retired "Public Safety Officers" may exclude from income the cost of health insurance. This exclusion is shown on the tax return as simply subtracting the exclusion from the figure shown on the 1099-R form, and placing the smaller figure on the pension income line on the 1040. The text literal "PSO" must be written on the dotted line to the left of your figure. See IRS Pub 575 for more details.
Public safety officers include Police, Firefighters, ambulance workers, and many types of federal and state employees dealing with criminals.
The PPA tells the Secretary of Treasury to provide further exceptions to the 10% penalty on withdrawing from a retirement account before reaching proper retirement age. In particular, some penalty exceptions are narrowly defined to only covering IRA accounts, leaving 401(k) and other plan holders in the cold. Broadening those exceptions to cover any retirement plan is one hoped-for change. Also, relief for taxpayers who use retirement funds to protect their home and mortgage is anticipated, but again not written into law. IRS publications provide little guidance on this topic, if it has been acted on at all.
The PPA provides a new mechanism for an IRA to be passed on to a non-spouse beneficiary. Transferring an IRA account this way can allow better control over when to withdraw (and pay taxes on) the IRA funds. An IRA account can only be passed on once, and it is not directly transferred into the beneficiary's account. Instead, a special IRA account with the heading " Deceased Name For the Benefit of Beneficiary Name " is made to keep the transfer. As this is a new rule on a subject with long term financial consequences, approach this cautiously. There are several gotchas that could invalidate the transfer, causing everything to be taxed in one year.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is a federal corporation created under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. It currently guarantees payment of basic pension benefits earned by 44 million American workers and retirees participating in over 29,000 private-sector defined benefit pension plans. The agency receives no funds from general tax revenues. Operations are financed largely by insurance premiums paid by companies that sponsor pension plans and by investment returns.
Some of the provisions of the PPA of 2006 that affect the PBGC include:
On December 23, 2008, P.L. 110-458 (H.R. 7327), the Worker, Retiree, and Employer Recovery Act of 2008, was signed into law by the President. The Act makes technical corrections related to the PPA of 2006.