The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) recently released a list of the rules it plans on promulgating during the fall of 2021. These rules are part of the agency's efforts to fulfill the mandate under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to provide special financial assistance in the form of make-up payments of suspended benefits for participants and beneficiaries who are in pay status because their retirement plans adopted a benefit suspension under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (MPRA), as well as certain insolvent plans that suspended benefits upon insolvency. The agency is also tasked with providing prospective reinstatement of suspended benefits for all participants and beneficiaries. In addition, PBGC plans to publish rules that prescribe actuarial assumptions that a multiemployer plan actuary may use to determine an employer's withdrawal liability and provide guidance on determining the monthly amount of multiemployer plan benefits guaranteed by the agency.

The rules are listed below:

Proposed Rules

• Valuation Assumptions and Methods: Interest and Mortality Assumptions for Asset Allocation in Single-Employer Plans and Mass Withdrawal Liability Determination in Multiemployer Plans
• Multiemployer Plan Guaranteed Benefits
• Improvements to Rules on Recoupment of Benefit Overpayments
• Penalties for Failure to Provide Certain Notices or Other Material Information
• Actuarial Assumptions for Determining an Employer's Withdrawal Liability

Final Rules

• Benefit Payments and Allocation of Assets
• Examination and Copying of PBGC Records
• Adjustment of Civil Penalties
• Special Financial Assistance by PBGC

Employers who provide single-employer defined benefit pension plans or are part of multiemployer defined benefit pension plans should be aware of these pending developments.

Agency Rule List - Fall 2021 »
Statement of Regulatory and Deregulatory Priorities »