Review How America Saves 2021 Small business edition

Vanguard Retirement Plan Access™ (VRPA) is pleased to present How America Saves 2021 Small Business Edition. This new research provides valuable insights into small-business defined contribution (DC) plans and participant behaviors over the course of 2020. We hope it will serve as a useful reference tool to encourage engagement and drive outcomes for your employees.

Gain insight from this new report

Stay up-to-date on the SECURE Act

The SECURE Act, signed into law 12/20/2019, provides two tax credits for small employers. Both credits are available to employers for three tax years, beginning with the 2020 taxable year.

Get ready for more efficient communications. eDelivery is coming soon.

eDelivery enables employees to receive digital enrollment guides and statement notifications securely via email. Eventually, they can also receive plan notices, disclosures, and other required documents electronically—significantly reducing your workload and mailing costs.

Plan enrollment for eDelivery is coming in the fourth quarter. Look for an announcement on the plan website. Once enrolled, you’ll be required to inform your employees. We’ll help by mailing the initial paper notice to your employees or providing you with a template—the choice is yours.

In the meantime, get ready by submitting your employees' workplace email addresses from the plan website under Employees > Upload Work Email.

Stay ahead of RMD compliance… take these steps today.

To help you ensure that affected participants and beneficiaries take their RMDs—which generally must be distributed by December 31 each year—we’ll post your 2021 RMD package to the plan website in October and send a reminder when it's available. In the meantime, for more information on your responsibilities and steps to prepare, please refer to the 2021 RMD Package Overview.

When it comes to managing plan expenses, you’ve got options.

Depending upon plan provisions, you may have options to help offset costs and mitigate fiduciary risk through expense management. For example:

Paying plan expenses with forfeitures

Preserve corporate assets without shifting fee payments to your employees. Plan permitting, you can use forfeiture funds to pay certain administrative costs, make required contributions, or allocate to participant accounts.

 

Taking action on former employee accounts

Are you maintaining accounts for former employees or beneficiaries who have not taken a distribution? You may be able to reduce the expenses by rolling over small balances into IRAs or making cash payouts where possible.

 

Enhanced self-service for employees through the READYSAVE™ mobile app

New features have been added to the READYSAVE™ mobile app that make it easier for your employees to manage their retirement accounts.

The latest releases provide a clear snapshot of how participant accounts are diversified through simplified asset categories and a new navigation tray. Employees will also find fund details such as Morningstar rating and benchmarks, expense ratio, quarter and month-end performance, fact sheets, prospectuses, and other applicable disclaimers.

To download the app, your employees can search “READYSAVE” on the Apple App Store or Google Play.