Ken Ruthenberg

"Who has to pay for COBRA coverage?" is a question we often hear from transaction lawyers and their clients in a stock sale or an asset sale.  COBRA requires some employers to provide certain participants and their beneficiaries with group health plan coverage after certain events occur that ...
[Read more] about Don’t Pick Up COBRA As Part of Your Next Deal

Advice on how and when to file Form 5500… How can filing an annual return/report on a Form 5500, a relatively simple information return that does not require the payment of any taxes, become so complicated and result in such huge penalties for noncompliance? The answer lies in the complex filing ...
[Read more] about Form 5500: Are You Sure You Are Filing All That Are Required?

A large employer is one that for a year employed an average of at least 50 full-time employees (at least 30 hours per week) on business days during the preceding calendar year. In order to make this determination, the employer must not only count all of its full-time employees, it must count the ...
[Read more] about Health Care Reform: Are You A “Large” Employer

First In A Series It was not a dark and stormy night--at least it didn't start out that way. Instead, it was a sunny and calm afternoon, and a routine year-end review meeting was taking place between the owners of SMALLCO (a manufacturing business), their accountant and their retirement plan ...
[Read more] about Employee Aggregation Rules: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

Second In A Series In our last episode we left our heroes spending a dark and stormy night arguing about who screwed up and failed to recognize that SMALLCO and SMALL Vineyards had to be considered one employer for employee benefit plan purposes. SMALLCO and SMALL Vineyards were ...
[Read more] about Employee Aggregation Rules: Controlled Groups

Third In A Series In the first two installments of this series on the aggregation of employers and employees, we spent a dark and stormy night with the owners of SMALLCO and SMALL Vineyards and their advisors learning about the controlled group rules and why the employees of the two businesses ...
[Read more] about Employee Aggregation Rules: Affiliated Service Groups

Fourth And Final (Whew!!) Of A Series In our first three action-packed episodes on the aggregation of employers and employees, we spent a dark and stormy night with the owners of SMALLCO and SMALL Vineyards and their advisors learning about the steamy world of controlled group rules. We ...
[Read more] about Employee Aggregation Rules: Leased Employees