Timothy Goodman’s practice focuses on assisting employers with executive compensation and employee benefit plans. Employers turn to Tim for assistance on wellness programs, health care reform, and other welfare plans (including cafeteria, dependent care, education assistance, health FSAs, HRAs, HSAs, parking, and tuition plans, and wellness programs), and severance. Tim also assists employers with advice on qualified and nonqualified retirement plans (including 401(k), 403(b), 457(b), 457(f) plans, and section 409A). Employers also turn to Tim for advice on executive compensation and deferred compensation programs. His assistance includes advising employers on responding to benefit claims, answering questions regarding the extension of health coverage under COBRA and state law, assisting them with Form 5500, drafting employee communications, USERRA, complying with the HIPAA privacy and security rules, and worker classification. Tim has worked with a variety of employers on their wellness programs including issues ranging from design, incentives, and taxation of incentives, to responding to DOL audit requests on disclosure of wellness program alternatives to employees.
Tim also advises employers by updating them on legislation (such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA – health care reform), American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Pension Protection Act, the American Jobs Creation Act, the Veterans Benefits Improvement Act, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act). This includes advising employers on the impact of section 409A on nonqualified deferred compensation plans. Tim also assists employer with new regulations, such as the GINA Part I regulations issued by the DOL, IRS, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; and the GINA Part II regulations from the EEOC. In addition to advice, Tim works with employers on benefit issues that arise in M&A transactions and employer securities in retirement plans. Employers regularly have Tim assist them with plan drafting and design, including plan formation, IRS qualification, administration, merger, and termination of employee benefit plans, and the submission of errors under voluntary correction programs including IRS employee plan correction program (EPCRS) and the delinquent filer program (DFVC).
Representative examples of employee benefit matters that Tim has assisted employers with recently include:
- assisting employers with merging 401(k) and money purchase pension plans;
- assisting health care entities in establishing 457(b) plans;
- assisting health care entities with 457(f) plans and section 409A;
- assisting private and public employers by reviewing retiree medical benefits;
- assisting employers with DOL investigations of demutualization proceeds and plan contributions;
- assisting employers with plan submission to the IRS for favorable determination letters;
- preparing retirement plan amendments for employers to address law and regulatory changes, including HEART, WRERA, PPA, EGTRRA, GUST, and minimum required distributions;
- preparing model domestic relation orders for employers;
- preparing HIPAA health privacy documents for employers including plan amendments, policies and procedures, and privacy notices; and
- assisting tribal entities with questions regarding the applicability of ERISA and plan qualification.
As these examples indicate, Tim assists a broad array of employers, with a special focus on assisting agribusiness and cooperatives, and tax exempt and governmental organizations (primarily health care entities and Indian tribes).