Internal Revenue Service June 19, 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document contains temporary regulations relating to multiemployer pension plans that are projected to have insufficient funds, at some point in the future, to pay the full benefits to which individuals will be entitled under the plans (referred to as plans in ``critical and declining status''). The Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (``MPRA'') amended the Internal Revenue Code to incorporate suspension of benefits provisions that permit these multiemployer plans to reduce pension benefits payable to participants and beneficiaries if certain conditions are satisfied. MPRA requires the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the Secretary of Labor, to approve or deny applications by these plans to reduce benefits. As required by MPRA, these temporary regulations, together with proposed regulations being published at the same time, provide guidance implementing these statutory provisions. These temporary regulations affect active, retired, and deferred vested participants and beneficiaries of multiemployer plans that are in critical and declining status as well as employers contributing to, and sponsors and administrators of, those plans. The text of these temporary regulations also serves, in part, as the text of the proposed regulations (REG-102648-15) set forth in the notice of proposed rulemaking on this subject in the Proposed Rules section of this issue of the Federal Register.