Cash Balance Plans: More Options, More Solutions

First introduced in the 1980s, cash balance (CB) plans continue to grow, especially among smaller enterprises. According to the DOL, as of 2012, there are almost 9,400 CB plans, 8,100 of which have fewer than 100 participants1 . This growth is likely to continue thanks to newly released IRS Final Regulations2 , which give plan sponsors more flexibility than ever in designing (and redesigning!) CB plans to meet their retirement program needs. Moreover, these regulations make CB plans attractive to an even broader array of plan sponsors – from small businesses to professional services partnerships to corporations and even labor unions – with a wide range of risk tolerance characteristics.