Month: October 2005

Wouldn’t the IRS just love it if folks got excited about paying their taxes? A very famous 16-year-old thinks it’s cool! From the TimesOnLine.com—Composed Wie not heavily taxed by cares of adult life. Excerpt:

The twinkling eyes are the same. So is the gosh-golly charm and the dangling earrings that are as long as the head of her putter. Michelle Wie looks, sounds and says that she feels the same now that she is 16 as she did when she was 15, which is to say that she remains the composed youngster who has the world of golf at her feet.

But when a cake for her was wheeled in on Tuesday, the candles were lit and a spontaneous chorus of Happy Birthday arose from well-wishers, the reality hit home. The precocious athlete who is competing in the Samsung World Championship this week, her first event as a professional, had become old enough to drive a car and to fulfil other duties as a citizen. In time, these will cause her to groan inwardly, but in this, like so much else, Wie is effervescently different. “I’ve just got my first tax form,” she said, giggling. “It’s not something you should be excited about, but I thought it was pretty cool.”

The President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform is getting ready to recommend capping the employer’s deduction on employer-provided health insurance as reported here by KaiserNetwork.org. Excerpt:

Under the current tax code, employers can take a deduction for health insurance provided to employees and workers pay no tax on the value of the coverage. However, some experts have said that those provisions benefit higher-income employees and contribute to the number of uninsured, the AP/Arizona Republic reports (Dalrymple, AP/Arizona Republic, 10/12). In fiscal year 2005, the exclusion of contributions for health insurance premiums and medical care from employee income cost the U.S. Treasury $112 billion in revenue, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Panel member Timothy Muris, a professor at the George Mason School of Law and a former head of the Federal Trade Commission, said that the federal government should cap employer-sponsored health insurance tax deductions at $11,000 annually for family coverage (Guy Matthews, Wall Street Journal, 10/12). Panel members could not agree on whether the proposed cap should apply to employers or employees (AP/Arizona Republic, 10/12). The cap likely would affect only the most comprehensive employer-sponsored health plans. A September survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the average annual premium for family coverage was $10,880.

A Wall Street Journal article reports that the tax break provided to employers for health insurance is “the single largest tax break in the federal budget” according to the Tax Policy Center.

Don’t miss this awesome 10-minute sermon, I mean, uh, commentary, posted here at CompensationStandards.com of Ed Woolard – former DuPont CEO and current Chair of the NYSE Comp Committee – discussing the topic of excessive CEO and executive pay. He explains how Comp Committees can remain truly independent, and challenges CEOs and directors throughout the country to restore the respect of the public and employees by demonstrating leadership in the area of compensation.

Broc Romanek discusses the video here.

From the Washington Policy Center (via The Heartland Institute), The How-To Guide to Health Savings Accounts.

From the Yahoo! Search Blog:

During Hurricane Katrina millions of people came to Yahoo! News for authoritative information. At the same time thousands of bloggers were posting first-hand accounts, photos, personal stories, and opinions. But without mainstream exposure, many important voices went unheard.

Today we’ve begun the integration of blogs in Yahoo! News Search. Now when you search on Yahoo! News you will see blog results as well as content from thousands of trusted news sites. The experiences and opinions published on blogs make a great addition to the mainstream news people read everyday. And major world events are further fueling the growth of blogs as platforms for anyone who wants to have a public voice. At times, even everyday bloggers beat the mainstream media to a story.

In addition to blog posts, we will also be including Flickr photos and links from My Web, tapping into a large grassroots media network. By bringing mainstream and personal media together we can offer a greater variety of sources and viewpoints to the millions of people who want to find out what’s going on in the world.

The search index we are beta testing currently contains content from a subset of blogs, but look for this to continue growing and ultimately include the 20+ million blogs from the blo.gs ping stream.

(Blog content appears in the sidebar on the right when you do a Yahoo! News Search.)

You can access a compilation of information about Harriet Miers, Supreme Court Nominee, here. (Source: Tom Mighell)

This article from Law.com–“Pension Bill at Risk of Dying in Senate“–suggests that the pension legislation before Congress could be “dead for the year.” Excerpt:

A memo that congressional aides said came from Majority Leader Bill Frist’s office said that when the Senate reconvenes on Oct. 17, it will focus on spending bills, Hurricane Katrina-related items and the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“Thanks to everyone for all of their hard work on this. We got very close, but were ultimately unable to get it over the finish line,” the memo said, referring to the pension bill.

I have created a new search tool at Rollyo here which will allow you to search all of the following sites in one fell swoop (sites are listed in random order):

Benefitsblog
The ERISA Blog
Benefitslink
401kHelpCenter
BenefitsAttorney (Carol Calhoun’s site)
IRS
DOL
SEC
PBGC
Treasury
ERIC
ASPPA
American Benefits Council
403bwise
Benefit News
EBRI
Fiduciary 360
CybERISA
McKay Hochman Co., Inc.
Reish Luftman Reicher & Cohen

Rollyo allows a user to take up to 25 urls and create a search tool (what Rollyo calls a Searchroll), that searches ONLY the selected domains. The database you are pulling sites and content from is powered by Yahoo. The site allows you to edit and modify a Searchroll at any time.

I will be adding a search box on my site for those who wish to search using the new tool as soon as it is available from Rollyo.

(Give it a test drive by searching for “409A”.)

Hat tip goes to Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell.

The Association of Corporate Counsel (“ACC”) is sponsoring a free webcast tomorrow discussing the recently issued Section 409A proposed regulations. Speakers will include “lead authors” of the regulations: Dan Hogans, Attorney-Advisor, Office of Tax Policy, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Stephen Tackney, Office of Associate Chief Counsel (TE/GE), and William Schmidt, Office of Associate Chief Counsel (TE/GE). The webcast is presented by ACC’s Corporate and Securities Law Committee and Kilpatrick Stockton LLP.

From Reuters.com: “U.S. senators think airline pension dispute solved.” Excerpt:

U.S. senators trying to agree on pension law changes said on Wednesday they believed they had resolved a dispute over special aid for troubled airlines but new disagreements began to surface.

“I believe we’ve reached an agreement on the things that deal with the airlines,” said Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, a co-sponsor of the pension bill. . .

Grassley said he was now worried about a push to revert to a previous version of the pension bill, and warned he would not go along. Some analysts consider the version, by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, to be generally less strict on companies funding traditional pensions.