Philadelphia Employee Benefits Attorney
Meant to increase the economic security of employees, employee benefits are non-wage compensations in addition to normal wages or salaries. Employee benefits could be in the form of health and dental plans; retirement benefit plans; group-term life and long-term-care insurance plans, legal assistance plans, adoption assistance, relocation assistance, child care benefits and miscellaneous employee discounts. The miscellaneous discounts may cover movies and theme park tickets, hotels and resorts, etc.
Some of these benefits, such as accident and health plans and group-term life insurance, may be excluded from the employee’s gross income and therefore exempt from federal income tax. Benefits provided by employers are normally tax-deductible to the employer and non-taxable to the employee. Among exceptions to this general rule are executive benefits like golden parachute plans.
ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act) or employee benefits attorneys provide a great service to limit the liability of plan sponsors and help protect employees. An employee benefits attorney should be involved in any area of merger, acquisition or divestiture. In addition, whenever a company enacts an employee benefit plan, the involvement of such an attorney should be welcomed. In case a company excludes attorney review in their employee benefit plan implementation, it is wise to seek counsel and review those plan documents and procedures. An experienced ERISA attorney should review all aspects of any fiduciary decision that could impact plan qualification.
Such attorneys should also be retained for current qualified retirement plan issues like merging an existing Money Purchase Plan with an existing 401k Plan, providing investment advice to participants, and withdrawal liability from multi-employer pension plans. They should also be consulted on current welfare benefit plan issues like understanding ERISA compliance for companies with a third-party insurance agent or administrator, COBRA issues, and fiduciary insurance and bond review.
Sandals & Associates, P.C. has a practice concentrating in nationwide litigation involving employee and retiree benefits and pensions (ERISA), employment discrimination, Fair Labor Standards Act, antitrust, consumer protection, and class actions generally. Attorneys of the firm have had a leading role in many successful, precedent-setting cases in these fields on behalf of employee and consumer clients. Please visit their site at SandalsLaw.com for more information.
