August 1, 2014 SUMMARY: The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a deferred compensation plan through which key employees received annual bonuses and were able to defer both bonuses and other income was an “employee pension benefit plan” governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Although the primary purpose of the plan was to provide bonuses rather than retirement income, the court concluded that the plan was governed by ERISA because it pro

June 2, 2014 SUMMARY: The IRS is getting ready to ramp up enforcement of Section 409A (§409A) compliance with respect to non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements. This new compliance initiative project (“CIP”) for §409A will focus on fifty large companies. However, this foreshadows a much broader §409A enforcement initiative. The Service plans to issue Information Document Requests (“IDRs”) to about 50 large employers. These initial IDRs will request documents regardi