Abstract

Employer provided Qualified Plans ("Qualified Plans") are the most efficient supplement to Social Security savings and benefits. Given the significance of the benefits provided as well as the short-term Revenue constraints upon the Federal government in the form of substantially protracted tax deferrals, Qualified Plan legislation should maintain a conservative disposition. Incremental legislative action in the right direction will steadily graduate ERISA to its intended purpose. Unfortunately ERISA is a convoluted maze of formalities, definitions, and regulation that are only substantially understood by an expert and have yet to be adequately explained to the public at large. Recent publications such as Retirement Heist rouse the public's consciousness of retirement Plans by enumerating perceived abuses by large corporations. These alleged abuses certainly reflect innovative manipulations within the constraints of Qualified Plans. However, my thesis will prove that these "abuses" reflect the United States' disposition toward the rights of proprietorship regarding the Qualified Plan. The intent of the thesis is to illustrate this disposition through a study of the Amara v. Cigna Corp. case as well as a review of an actual LLC's defined benefit plan conversion to a cash balance plan. I will compare and contrast the different approaches taken by these two employers and justify the varied success they each experienced in converting their plans. Through this process, the thesis shall draw conclusions on the United States' dispositions toward ownership of the qualified plan.

Notes

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Thesis Completion

2012

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Klintworth, Nancy

Degree

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (B.S.B.A.)

College

College of Business Administration

Degree Program

Accounting

Subjects

Business Administration -- Dissertations, Academic;Dissertations, Academic -- Business Administration

Format

PDF

Identifier

CFH0004164

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Document Type

Honors in the Major Thesis

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Included in

Accounting Commons

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