LPL Teams with Dave Ramsey in Financial Wellness Program

LPL has established a relationship with Ramsey Solutions to offer SmartDollar to LPL retirement plan advisers and plan sponsors.

Retirement plan advisers and plan sponsors of LPL Financial will be able to offer the financial wellness program, SmartDollar, to their participants. SmartDollar is the creation of Ramsey Solutions, Dave Ramsey’s personal finance organization. The program adds to the financial planning and financial education resources available on LPL’s Worksite Financial Solutions platform.

Created by financial expert Dave Ramsey, SmartDollar is designed to educate, inspire and empower employees to proactively take control of their money and get on track for retirement. It aims to help participants change their behavior toward money, and use their income to save and invest instead of paying consumer debt. SmartDollar will be offered as part of LPL’s Worksite Financial Solutions platform.

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LPL’s Worksite Financial Solutions delivers services to employees who participate in retirement plans managed by LPL plan advisers. The goal is to provide employers with a guidance-based, beginning-to-end retirement solution to help employees become more confident financially. Employees can use a range of services to save, track retirement plan assets and appropriately invest their savings.

Access to the program will better position workers to reach long-term goals, according to David Reich, executive vice president and head of Retirement Partners, LPL Financial. “We strive to provide the best options to advisers and plan sponsors so that they can customize programs to best address their needs,” he says. “We understand that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for employers and advisers to take in planning for the future.”

“With so many Americans living paycheck to paycheck, it’s no wonder that employees are not on track for retirement,” said Brian Hamilton, vice president of Financial Wellness for Ramsey Solutions. “SmartDollar is designed to get to the root of the problem and helps employees have a step-by-step plan to get on a budget, build their emergency savings and get out of debt so they free up their largest wealth-building tool: their income.”

Last September, LPL entered into an arrangement with Financial Finesse to provide wellness content through interactive webcasts and workshops. According to an LPL spokesman, Financial Finesse is no longer the exclusive vendor for LPL’s Worksite platform. New subscriptions to Financial Finesse’s learning center and platform must be established through Financial Finesse.

IRS Revises Determination Letter Program

Going forward, individually designed retirement plans may only receive a determination letter for initial plan qualification and for qualification upon plan termination.

As has been reported by some law firms and certain Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials, the agency is eliminating the staggered five-year determination letter remedial amendment cycles for individually designed retirement plans.

In IRS announcement 2015-19, the agency says it needs to more efficiently direct its limited resources. Effective January 1, 2017, the scope of the determination letter program for individually designed plans will be limited to initial plan qualification and qualification upon plan termination.              

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Although, as of that date, the IRS will no longer accept determination letter applications based on the five-year remedial amendment cycles, sponsors of Cycle A plans will continue to be permitted to submit determination letter applications during the period beginning February 1, 2016, and ending January 31, 2017.

The IRS is requesting comments on specific issues relating to the implementation of these changes to the determination letter program.  According to the announcement, the Department of the Treasury and the IRS are considering ways to make it easier for plan sponsors to comply with the qualified plan document requirements. This may include, in appropriate circumstances, providing model amendments, not requiring certain plan provisions or amendments to be adopted if and for so long as they are not relevant to a particular plan (for example, because of the type of plan, employer, or benefits offered), or expanding plan sponsors’ options to document qualification requirements through incorporation by reference.

The IRS has already expanded its preapproved plans program to include defined benefit plans with cash balance plan features and defined contribution plans with employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) features. And 403(b) plan providers expect that within a year or so preapproved 403(b) plans will be available for plan sponsors to adopt.

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