Ethos Business Law

Looking for a way to increase your retirement savings? Still trying to catch-up after the “Great Recession?” Worried about your increasing tax bills that may become even more onerous over the next couple years? If so, Cash Balance Plans may be something to look at.

Some of the interesting attributes of Cash Balance Plans include:

• Are a type of defined benefit plan governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

• May be well-suited for high income-earning professionals and owners of small, closely-held businesses.

• Feature deferral of more pre-tax income than 401K or profit sharing plans.

• Can often be layered on top of a 401K or profit sharing plan.

I recently saw a research article here that provided a great summary of Cash Balance Plans.  This was put together by Bernstein Global Wealth Management and was sent to me by Paul Borowski, one of their advisors (Paul.Borowski@bernstein.com).  Take a look and see if this might be right for you.

Executive Compensation . . . you can’t open your eyes or ears nowadays and not hear something juicy on this topic.  However, far from the typical Executive Compensation discussions of the day, lays a far less scandalous, but more relevant topic to consider.  How can you fairly compensate your employees and, in fact, motivate them to work harder in these recessionary times.  Fear of losing their job?  I prefer the carrot rather than the stick approach.  Perhaps it’s time to think slightly out of the box and motivate your team to succeed through alternative compensation methods rather than beat them into submission with pay-cuts and lay-offs.

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