I remember being involved in student politics and finding out that with any student leader, there were bound to be rumors about that individual whether the rumor resembled the truth or not.
So while I was with a client this week, who is in the recordkeeping business, we were trading notes on how overblown the rumors have surrounded the use of open multiple employer plans (MEPs).
A registered investment advisor client of mine introduced me to a potential sponsor of an open MEP, who advised me that they heard that MEPs were illegal. Where did that rumor come from? Perhaps, where all the rumors concerning MEPs surfaced from.
This recordkeeping client of mine advised me one of the premier ERISA law firms out there have contacted the certain Department of Labor official who supposedly made some offhanded remark about his concerns about MEPs and will issue a white paper concerning MEPs. Again, that is rumor too.
As an ERISA attorney and a former student journalist, I like facts, pure and simple. Rumors and false innuendo get a lot of people in trouble and have tarred quite a few people as well. I believe that open MEPs are legal and sound as long as they are structured properly (you can always ask for details, there is no special sauce except Russian Dressing) until the Internal Revenue Service tells me otherwise. And again, as my recordkeeping client pointed out, most of the decision making on what makes a MEP or not is the IRS and not the DOL.
I will keep helping people put open MEPs together until the government tells me otherwise. To succumb to rumors and possible false innuendo would do my clients and the followers of my writings harm.