After the longest presidential election campaign in history, voters have chosen Senator Barack Obama as President-elect and Senator Joseph Biden as Vice President-elect.
During the third quarter of 2008, governments focused, for the most part, on making moderate adjustments to their employment, social security, and tax systems.
On September 30, 2008, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) published Notice 2008-82, which provides guidance on qualified reservist distributions (QRDs) from health flexible spending arrangements (FSAs) under the HEART Act.
Argentina
On October 21, 2008, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner submitted to Congress a bill that would, effectively, nationalize the privately managed defined contribution pension funds (AFJPs).
Puerto Rico
On August 7, 2008, Act 186 amended the Puerto Rico Internal Revenue Code of 1994 to increase the annual limitation on pretax employee contributions to Puerto Rico qualified retirement plans with a cash or deferred arrangement ("Section 1165(e) plans").
United States of America
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has issued final regulations defining the minimum coverage that a health insurance policy must provide in order to be deemed "minimum creditable coverage."
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has tightened the rules on employers for making a "fair and reasonable" premium contribution to employer group health plans and avoiding a $295 penalty tax.
President Bush signed the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) into law, which
clarifies the definition of disability and addresses reasonable accommodations and mitigating measures.
On October 9, 2008, President Bush signed "Michelle's Law" (H.R. 2851) designed to ensure that dependent college students who take a medically necessary leave of absence do not lose health insurance coverage.
On October 3, 2008, the President signed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) into law, which has numerous provisions that will affect employers.
Mental health parity for group health plans was enacted as part of a broad financial bailout package on October 3, 2008.
On September 8, 2008, Hewitt submitted comments to the Department of Labor (DOL) on fiduciary requirements for disclosure in participant-directed individual account plans.
On September 16, 2008, Hewitt submitted comments to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on proposed amendments to Treasury Regulation section 1.411(b)-1, which describes the accrued benefit requirements for defined benefit pension plans.
On August 20, 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Hurlic v. Southern California Gas Company (SCGC) rejected three of the most common claims brought against cash balance plan sponsors in recent years.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have released the first in a series of documents regarding implementation guidance for the new mandatory reporting requirements under the Medicare Secondary Payer (MSP) program.
