Show t E I PENSION REFORM HAS liAS SOME ROUGH EDGES When the Congress convenes In January awaiting it will be a thick dossier of the complaints about the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ERISA and suggestions as to how the Act should be amended The number of complaints and suggestions will ensure a place on the agenda for scale full hearings designed to throw light lighton on how the pension reform law lawIs lawis lawis is actually working and what whai should be done to make it work better beller So the hearings will be held in good faith and probably in some depth But that does not necessarily mean that remedial a action Uon will be forthcoming quickly At best Congress moves at measured pace and arid it itIs itis itis is notoriously slow t to face up to its mistakes Hence an ERISA revamp is hardly likely to come before lat late 1977 for it will take that long for Congress to reach an acceptable consensus COST COSTA A PROBLEM Erisa's provisions are so complicated and administrative administrative administrative ad ad- decisions regarding regarding regarding ding them so conflicting that most moot firms with pension plans in effect or in prospect find they need actuarial and legal advice to avoid running afoul of oft the law Need for such professional help has expanded also because not all administrators of the law have been adequately briefed on its ramifications and implications implications im im- All of this has served to put the required actuarial and legal advice at a premium especially for small firms Big corporations corporations corporations cor cor- with long experience in the pension area have fared better by comparison for fora a large part of ERISA's rules and andregs andregs andregs merely confirm and codify what for them has long been accepted practice Even the the big companies however find they require expert help in interpreting ERISA's eligibility and vesting provisions For the large corporations cor cor- 1 dt it isi more more of ir a w nuisance and an exasperation For the small firms it is is- proving to be quite costly ADMINISTRATIVE SNAGS Compounding the problem adding to the expense and boosting the need for expert professional advice are administrative administrative administrative ad ad- snags that are bewildering and annoying When Congress drafted the pension reform package it gave the Labor Department and the Internal Revenue Service joint authority to administer the act Now its it's alleged that this division of power is at the root of many o of the problems that companies are having as they try to bring their pension plans into compliance with the law The dual jurisdiction makes for needlessly long delays in processing requests for in in- formation It also leads to uncertainty as to compliance dates and terms the more so because in many instances the supervisory agencies have not yet formulated a definite date- date pattern on an annual basis for requisite compliance data BROAD IMPACT FAVORABLE On the whole however the law is a success in its main goals of uplifting the norms for pension funds effecting desirable eligibility criteria and providing for vesting rights While it is true that the stricter norms it lays down have forced a number of companies to abandon pension plans instituted before its passage the total of such phase phase- outs is not considered to be alarming Indeed through duplications arising from the problems of the dual jurisdiction the original count was found to have been exaggerated But in addition to finding ways of correcting administrative ad ad- deficiencies in ERISA Congress will also be asked to study the effect of the law on x society as a whole and on business in particular It will surely look into and probably do something about the obvious necessity of preventing raids against pension assets by hard hard- pressed federal state and local governments seeking to raise revenues or engineer shifts in income distribution Jt The word hangnail tomes comes from fro the tha Old English hang meaning pain |