Benefit Insights Newsletter - Summer 2024
August 28, 2024
We are excited to deliver the Summer 2024 Newsletter.
In this edition, we discuss:
- Effective Communication with Participants
- Participant Notices: A Quick Overview
- Mastering the Art of Distributing Participant Notices
- Plan Ahead for 2025 Long-Term, Part-Time (LTPT) Employees
- Upcoming Compliance Deadlines for Calendar-Year Plans
Many business owners assume that once tax season passes, the opportunity to reduce last year’s tax bill is gone. That’s often not the case. If you filed a tax extension, you still may have time to establish and fund a retirement plan for the prior year and generate meaningful tax deductions .
As we move further into 2026, one thing is clear: retirement plan administration continues to get more complex and more important to get right. This past quarter, we published several articles addressing common (and costly) misconceptions, emerging compliance challenges, and structural issues we’re seeing across plans of all sizes. Below is a quick summary of what you may have missed, along with a few important reminders for the year ahead.
Due to its seasonal nature, the winery industry operates on a business cycle fundamentally different from most other industries. From harvest and tourism season workforce spikes, to fluctuating tasting room staffing, wineries manage a highly variable employee base throughout the year. In addition, many wineries operate across multiple business lines—production, distribution, and retail, for example—often structured as separate legal entities. Aside from the day-to-day operational complexity these factors imply, they also have important and material implications for a winery’s retirement plan(s), primarily from a federal tax perspective. The complexity inherent in the classification of various employee types introduces unique challenges, which we discuss below.