| The following is an excerpt
from the publication "Understanding Retirement Plan
Fees And Expenses," published by the U.S. Department
of Labor Employee Benefits Security Administration:
The Department of Labor is continuing to focus
on plan fees and expenses. As a result, if your plan
is investigated by the DOL, they will look at the expenses
being paid by your plan, both directly and through investments.
Since Fiduciaries have a duty to know the fees being
paid and to understand both the amount of those fees
and the services being received for those fees, ignorance
and/or lack of effort are tantamount to breach of Fiduciary
Duty.
Although it may seem to to a simple thing to know what
your plan fee and expenses are, our experience has shown
that upto 85% of plan sponsors routinely do not know the
total costs of their plans. This is not entirely their
fault. Many providers have made it nearly impossible to
determine the true costs of the plans due to complicated
fee structures, hidden costs, revenue sharing relationships,
sub advisors fees etc. But ignorance is no excuse, and
it has its consequences!
Your plan participants can easily cause the DOL to audit
your plan. If more than one participant of a plan complains
to the DOL about the costs of the plan the DOL automatically
categorizes the complaints as a multiple complaint and
it goes to the top of the stack! The participant can simply
request what the total fees are from your benefit coordinator
and if they are not able to disclose the total actual
fees to the participant, there is justification for the
audit! Audits costs time and a lot of money!
Blue Water Capital Management, L.L.C. can help you avoid
this expensive problem because our fees are always well
disclosed and documented. You will have no problem disclosing
the costs of the plan to your participants.
If you are being audited by the DOL, Blue Water Capital Management, L.L.C. can help document your processes, identify
your costs, and if necessary offer plan comparisons that
will help you comply with their requests. Call us at (858) 547-1810 to discuss our DOL audit services.
(click here for more information) |
