Not-for-Profit Accounting & Auditing Update

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Join our annual review highlighting recent developments and new audit and accounting standards that affect not-for-profit organizations. Professionals of our Not-for-Profit practice will cover these and proposed changes on the FASB’s agenda.Specific areas of discussion will include:

  • New Audit and Accounting Guide for not-for-profit entities
  • New accounting standards
  • The new audit clarity standards and what you can expect
  • The agenda topics at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee (NAC)
  • Proposed changes to OMB A-133

Thursday, May 30, 2013
9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. PT
Free Webcast | 1.5 CPE Credit

Click here for more information and to register.

How to Detect, Deal, and Prevent Fraud in Your Benefit Plan Webcast – June 19

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Did you know:

  • Fraud is a multiple-trillion dollar business
  • Preventative controls alone are not enough to prevent fraud
  • Benefit plans often lack the oversight and review given to other operational activities

The average company in the United States loses 5 percent of its revenue to fraud each year. That’s an annual median loss of $120,000. On a national level the total cost of business fraud reaches nearly $3.5 trillion a year. Benefit plans are no stranger to fraud schemes. Individuals have been known to falsify physician records, pay distributions to terminated employees, skim from distributions, or even create fictitious plan participants.

In this webinar you will learn how to detect fraud, how to deal with it, and how to develop and deploy strong internal controls that plug the holes a criminal might try to exploit.

Wednesday, June 19
10:00 a.m.-11:00 am. PT
Free Webcast | 1 CPE Credit

Click here for more information and to register.

What Are Your Benefit Plan Fees Buying You?

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When it comes to employee benefit plans, many accounting firms struggle to balance competitive audit fees with the service level needed for you to stay in compliance with all regulations.

In the Spring edition of our Benefit Plan Services Newsletter, we explore why this is the case as well as how you can prepare for the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate and the latest news from the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

Continue reading.

If you have any questions, please contact the team at Moss Adams, or your accounting professional.

You may also be interested in:
Understanding Your Role as a Benefit Plan Sponsor or Fiduciary Webcast Video
Checklist for Every Responsible Plan Sponsor 

Optimized Your Retirement Savings with a Cash Balance Plan

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If you are currently contributing money to a Simplified Employee Pension (SEP), 401(k) or profit sharing plan, your company could be paying more taxes than necessary. Defined benefit plans offer a way for companies to decrease taxable income and allow individuals to increase their retirement contributions. Contributing to a defined benefit plan, particularly a cash balance plan, allows for the ability to make additional contributions of pre-tax dollars to optimize your retirement savings and reduce your taxable income each year.

Cash balance plans are a type of defined benefit plan. Your benefit is defined as a Hypothetical Account Balance (HAB). You fund the account with “cash credits,” which could be a percentage of pay, a flat dollar amount, or a percentage of the maximum allowed by law. You then get a return on the balance in the plan; typically plans return a flat rate of no more than 5%. The plan promises to pay the HAB regardless of actual investment returns, so that means if assets underperform, the sponsor must contribute additional amounts to fund the shortfall. Participants in a cash balance plan receive their balance as a lump sum or the balance can be paid in one of several annuity options.

Continue reading →

Understanding Your Role as a Benefit Plan Sponsor or Fiduciary Webcast Video

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The IRS, the Department of Labor, ERISA—when you’re a sponsor or fiduciary of an employee benefit plan, many eyes are watching. How best to comply with their standards while still performing your role efficiently and effectively?

We recently hosted an interactive webinar covering plan compliance, fiduciary governance, and investment oversight. We shared real-world examples and give you best practices to take back to your organization to help strengthen your plan operations. If you missed it, you can watch the presentation by clicking here.

If you have any questions, please contact the team at Moss Adams, or your accounting professional.

You may also be interested in:
Checklist for Every Responsible Plan Sponsor
Participant-Directed Investments in Defined Contribution Plans

Checklist for Every Responsible Plan Sponsor

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Companies have a responsibility to serve their employees by protecting their retirement benefits as best as they can. This responsibility is the main role of a retirement plan fiduciary. Fiduciaries are obliged to act according to prudent financial standards, and there are penalties associated with negligence. This is especially true in today’s environment, one in which fiduciaries are closely scrutinized on a daily basis by government agencies such as the IRS and the Department of Labor.

The following checklist will help you operate your plan in accordance with the terms of the plan documents, reduce opportunities for operational defects, and fulfill your fiduciary responsibilities to your employees.

Continue reading.

If you have any questions, please contact the team at Moss Adams, or your accounting professional.

You may also be interested in:
Participant-directed Investments in Defined Contribution Plans
Benefits and Compensation Quick Glossary Tip: Market Capitalization

Business Fraud: Detecting It, Dealing with It, and Preventing It from Ever Happening in the First Place

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The average company in the United States loses 5% of its revenue to fraud each year. That’s an annual median loss of $120,000 from paddled expense reports, understated sales, sophisticated billing schemes, and other fraudulent business behavior. On a worldwide level the total cost of business fraud reaches nearly $3.5 trillion a year.

It usually takes 18 months to discover fraud inside a company, and during that period a colleague or employee—someone in the next office or just down the hall—continues to lie, manipulate, and steal in a way that corrodes an organization’s culture and values.

Continue reading.

If you have any questions, please contact the team at Moss Adams, or your accounting professional.

You may also be interested in:
NASDAQ Proposes Rule to Require Internal Audit Function
FASB Clarifies Disclosure Requirements for Offsetting Assets and Liabilities

Eye on Money: Financial Tips for Every Stage of Your Life

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In this edition of Moss Adams Wealth Advisors’ Eye on Money:

Learn about financial tips for every stage of your life, when to begin social security benefits, more on the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, whether converting to a Roth 401(k) is a good move for you, and more. Articles include:

  • Should You Convert to a Roth 401(k)?
  • A Financial To-Do List for Newlyweds
  • Claiming a Home Office Deduction Just Got Easier
  • Financial Tips for Every Stage of Your Life
  • The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012: How Will It Affect Your Taxes
  • Social Security: What is the Best Age to Begin Your Benefits?

Continue reading.

If you have any questions, please contact the team at Moss Adams, or your accounting professional.

You may also be interested in:
The 2013 Tax Outlook: Individuals
The 2013 Tax Outlook: Estate Plans

How to Decide Whether to Switch to C Corporation Status

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Expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts raised the top individual income tax rate to 39.6 percent, prompting owners of pass-through entities to consider switching to C corporation
status to avoid higher individual taxes.

“Now that the tax rate for pass-through entities like S corporations and partnerships is effectively going up because individual tax rates are going from 35 to 39.6 percent, people are wondering if it still makes sense to be a pass-through entity,” says Alan Villanueva, a tax partner at Moss Adams. “In California, a proposition passed in November increased the maximum state individual rate from 10.3 to 13.3 percent, so a California resident with a pass-through entity is looking at a combined rate of almost 53 percent.”

Continue reading.

If you have any questions, please contact the team at Moss Adams, or your accounting professional.

You may also be interested in:
The 2013 Tax Outlook: Businesses
Food for Thought: The Tax Implications of a Free Lunch

Participant-Directed Investments in Defined Contribution Plans

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Do you know what type of investments your benefit plan offers and how investment decisions are made? Does your plan offer mutual funds, pooled separate accounts, a group annuity contract, or a self-directed brokerage account option? Do you know what your responsibilities are to the participants investing in the plan?

If you’re a plan sponsor or fiduciary of a plan that allows participants to direct their own investments, you need to define the menu of investment options offered to plan participants. But what you may not realize is, participant-directed investing has been allowed only since 1992 and has very specific laws regarding its application to plans and participants. As a plan sponsor, you should be aware of these laws.

Continue reading.

You may also be interested in:
Benefits and Compensation Quick Glossary Tip–Market Capitalization
Are Self-Funding Health Plans on the Rise Because of Health Care Reform?