Employee benefits journal最新文献

{"title":"A Proposal for Taking the Complexities Out of Taxing U.S. Retirement Distributions to Foreign Nationals","authors":"C. Blum, P. N. Singer","doi":"10.5744/ftr.2012.10101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5744/ftr.2012.10101","url":null,"abstract":"As the global mobility of workers increases, more and more foreign nationals participate in U.S. retirement plans and eventually receive payments from these plans. The current system for U.S. taxation of these payments is exceedingly complex and uncertain. An elderly recipient of these payments living outside the U.S. finds it difficult and expensive to obtain the tax advice necessary for filing an accurate nonresident Form 1040NR. As a result, many do not file the return, and few are likely to be contacted by the IRS. Whatever tax, if any, was withheld by the payer becomes by default the final tax, even though it is unlikely to correspond with the actual tax liability prescribed by Congress and the applicable U.S. treaty. Moreover, foreign recipients are often able to avoid disclosure of their payments to tax authorities in their home countries.We recommend a new system for taxing retirement payments to foreign nationals that would alleviate these serious administrative burdens. Under our proposal, Congress would establish two withholding rates for these distributions: a low rate of 15% for periodic distributions or minimum required distributions; and a 30 percent rate for other lump sum distributions, which are most conducive to avoiding home country tax and depleting retirement savings. The 30 percent withholding rate would also apply whenever a payee fails to provide documentation of his U.S. or foreign status. These rates would be, by design, the final U.S. tax liability for foreign nationals, who would generally have no need to file a nonresident Form 1040NR. In addition, the Treasury would provide more detailed guidance to payers regarding the types of distributions that qualify for treaty relief; and a recipient’s request for treaty relief would always trigger notification to the home country so as to permit it to collect its own tax. Our proposal would greatly reduce administrative burdens for the IRS, for payers and for payees, and would provide greater assurance that the tax prescribed by Congress and by our treaty partners is accurately collected.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87211917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Do Social Movements Spur Corporate Change? The Rise of “MeToo Termination Rights” in CEO Contracts","authors":"Rachel S. Arnow-Richman, J. Hicks, Steven Davidoff Solomon","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3787232","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3787232","url":null,"abstract":"Do social movements spur corporate change? This Article sheds new empirical and theoretical light on the issue through an original study of executive contracts before and after MeToo. The MeToo movement, beginning in early 2018, exposed a workplace culture seemingly permissive of high-level, sex-based misconduct. Companies typically responded slowly and imposed few consequences on perpetrators, often allowing them to depart with lucrative exit packages. Why did companies reward rather than penalize bad actors, and has the movement disrupted this culture of complicity? This Article tackles these questions through the lens of executive contracting. Economic theory posits that CEO employment agreements are not negotiated at arms’ length and contain terms that strongly favor the executive. We hypothesize that these dynamics—typically associated with outsized compensation packages—resulted in pro-executive termination provisions that left room for executives to engage in sex-based misconduct without fear of reprisal. We argue that the MeToo movement represented a major shock to these bargaining dynamics and predict that, in the face of new reputational and liability risks, corporate boards will seek to reserve greater power to terminate CEOs for sex-based misconduct in post-MeToo agreements. We test—and substantiate—our hypotheses using a novel dataset of CEO employment agreements, focusing on changes to the contractual definition of a “for-cause” termination. In the wake of MeToo, we find a significant and growing rise in the prevalence of what we call “MeToo termination rights”—definitions of cause that permit companies to terminate CEOs without severance pay in cases of harassment, discrimination, and violations of company policy. Such grounds for cause broadly capture most forms of sex-based misconduct. This documented rise in MeToo termination rights holds important lessons for corporate governance, executive contracting, and gender equity. First, our results show that external shocks can disrupt traditional corporate bargaining dynamics, bringing contract terms more in line with changing expectations. Second, our results provide insight into contract design, suggesting possible tradeoffs that companies make in structuring these novel termination rights. Finally, our results can be understood as reflecting a realignment of the treatment of top-level executives with the treatment of ordinary workers who have long been subject to capacious sexual harassment policies. We conclude that the rise in MeToo termination rights offers promising evidence of increased corporate control of CEO behavior and greater institutional accountability for sex-based misconduct. We are therefore cautiously optimistic about the long-term effects of the MeToo movement and the ability of powerful social movements to inspire change within private institutions.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75347189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rules of Medical Necessity","authors":"Amy B. Monahan, D. Schwarcz","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3777505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3777505","url":null,"abstract":"Health insurance contracts have long excluded coverage for care that is “experimental” or not “medically necessary.” Historically, insurance policies defined these key terms of coverage using broad standards. For example, “medically necessary” care might be defined as care that is “generally accepted in the medical community.” This contractual structure provided insurers with significant flexibility when making coverage determinations, even though denying coverage could pad their bottom line. For this reason, lawmakers developed various tools to prevent insurers from exploiting their discretion to determine when care was “medically necessary” or “experimental.” These safeguards allowed insureds to challenge coverage denials internally within the insurance company, externally to an independent medical expert, and before courts via a contract law or ERISA cause of action. Additionally, state and federal mandates required insurers to cover specific medically necessary treatments and services. This Article documents a dramatic shift in health insurers’ contracts and practices from a standard-based approach to determining the medical and scientific appropriateness of health care towards a rule-based approach for making these determinations. It shows how health insurers have increasingly made incredibly detailed and specific rules of medical necessity part of their formal contractual obligations to policyholders. The Article then argues that health insurers’ shift from standards to rules for defining medically and scientifically appropriate health care undermines the effectiveness of traditional legal tools designed to constrain the risk of health insurer over-reaching. The Article concludes by exploring reforms that might effectively address the increasing rulification of medical necessity.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83031890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Does Employee Ownership Reduce Strike Risk? Evidence from U.S. Union Elections","authors":"Steven Xianglong Chen, Edward Lee, K. Stathopoulos","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3708117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3708117","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the impact of employee stock options (ESO) on labor unions’ likelihood to initiate strikes. Using the unique setting of union elections in U.S. firms, we find that firms offering higher levels of equity incentives to their employees are exposed to significantly lower post-unionization strike risk. Furthermore, firms strategically grant more stock option incentives to employees in response to the unionization of the labor force. The increase in option incentives is more pronounced among firms holding union elections in states with stronger union bargaining power and when the strike risk is perceived to be higher.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90584769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"All that Glitters Is not Gold. Effects of Working from Home on Income Inequality at the Time of COVID-19","authors":"Luca Bonacini, Giovanni Gallo, Sergio Scicchitano","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3597996","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3597996","url":null,"abstract":"The recent global COVID-19 pandemic forced most of governments in developed countries to introduce severe measures limiting people mobility freedom in order to contain the infection spread. Consequently, working from home (WFH) procedures became of great importance for a large part of employees, since they represent the only option to both continue working and keep staying home. Based on influence function regression methods, our paper explores the role of WFH attitude across labour income distribution in Italy. Results show that increasing WFH attitudes of occupations would lead to a rise of wage inequality among Italian employees. Specifically, a change from low to high WFH attitude would determine a 10% wage premium on average and even higher premiums (+17%) in top deciles of wage distribution. A possible improvement of occupations WFH attitude tends to benefit male, older and high-paid employees, as well as those living in provinces more affected by the novel coronavirus.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"69 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83813739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Story of the Open Pension Funds and the Employee Capital Plans in Poland. Will It Succeed This Time?","authors":"B. Błaszczyk","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3586519","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3586519","url":null,"abstract":"Poland’s new Employee Capital Plans (PPK) scheme, which is mandatory for employers, started to be implemented in July 2019. The article looks at the systemic solutions applied in the programme from the perspective of the concept of the simultaneous reconstruction of the retirement pension system. The aim is to present arguments for and against the project from the point of view of various actors, and to assess the chances of success for the new system. The article offers a detailed study of legal solutions, an analysis of the literature on the subject, and reports of institutions that supervise pension funds. The results of this analysis point to the lack of cohesion between certain solutions of the 1999 pension reform and expose a lack of consistency in how the reform was carried out, which led to the eventual removal of the capital part of the pension system. The study shows that additional saving for old age is advisable in the country’s current demographic situation and necessary for both economic and social reasons. However, the systemic solutions offered by the government appear to be chiefly designated to serve short-term state interests and do not create sufficient incentives for pension plan participants to join the programme.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77638878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An Illustrated Case for Unemployment Insurance Reform","authors":"C. O’Leary, S. A. Wandner","doi":"10.17848/wp19-317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17848/wp19-317","url":null,"abstract":"We present a graphic case for unemployment insurance (UI) program reform. Through a series of illustrations summarizing historical trends, we show how the UI system has diverged from its intended purposes. Our figures show the decline of the program in addressing its essential aims of paying adequate unemployment compensation during involuntary unemployment and providing reemployment services. We illustrate the big differences in UI programs that have emerged because of the broad discretion afforded states to determine benefit generosity. We also illustrate declines in the financial means for providing benefits and reemployment services and a widening divergence among states in the quality of UI programs. Our concluding section presents a list of reforms that would restore UI as a pillar of social insurance and the labor market.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80286546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dangerous Flexible Retirement Reforms – A Supplementary Placebo Analysis Across Time","authors":"Nicolas Goll","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3580946","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3580946","url":null,"abstract":"In the last decades, many governments have enacted flexible retirement reforms as a seemingly elegant way to increase older workers’ labor supply. Börsch-Supan et al. (2018) use the synthetic control method to evaluate the effects of flexibility reforms from nine OECD countries that came into effect between 1992 and 2006. To evaluate the significance of the treatment effects, the authors apply in-space placebo studies. This paper scrutinizes these results by applying in-time placebo studies. Using the time dimension means an artificial reassignment of the flexibility reforms to placebo reform dates other than the actual reform year. The supplementary analysis reveals that the results found in Börsch-Supan et al. (2018) are valid to this robustness check. Overall, the supplementary analysis sustains the result that the reforms have produced zero to negative effects on total labor supply.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76587231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Case For (And Against) Surrogate Taxation","authors":"Julie Roin","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3456923","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3456923","url":null,"abstract":"The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act significantly revised long-standing rules regarding the tax treatment of many employer provided in-kind benefits. Instead of including the value of these benefits in the recipients’ taxable income, for the most part the new rules disallow employers a deduction for the cost of providing the affected benefits. This article argues that the two components of this legislative scheme – relying on cost of provision as the measure of taxable income and on imposing the nominal tax obligation on providers rather than recipients – are distinct policy decisions. It argues that the better approach would be to require employers to allocate their costs of providing benefits among recipients of those benefits.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"79 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82673775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How do CDC Schemes Qualify Under the IORP II Directive?","authors":"P. Bennett, H. V. Meerten","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3354549","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3354549","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers whether a collective defined contribution pension scheme (a “CDC scheme”) provides “cover against biometric risk” or “guarantees … a given level of benefits” for the purposes of Article 13(2) of EU Directive 2016/2341 (the “IORP II Directive”) or its predecessor, IORP I Directive (2003/41/EC), Article 15(2). If no such cover and no such guarantee are provided, then a CDC scheme is not required to comply with the technical provisions, buffer and other funding requirements applicable to an IORP which is classified as a “regulatory own fund” in Article 15 of the IORP II Directive.","PeriodicalId":76903,"journal":{"name":"Employee benefits journal","volume":"150 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76403155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}