Executive Comp Exchange

On June 21, 2016, the Internal Revenue Service issued long-awaited guidance on deferred compensation arrangements under Sections 409A and 457 of the Internal Revenue Code. The proposed regulations under Section 409A clarify and/or modify certain provisions of the final regulations issued under that Section in 2007, and also withdraw a specific provision of earlier proposed regulations under Section 409A issued in 2008 that addressed the calculation of amounts includible in income under Section 409A(a)(1), replacing it with revised proposed regulations. The proposed regulations under Code Section 457 prescribe rules for the taxation of deferred compensation arrangements established and maintained by state or local governments or other tax exempt organizations. In each case, the proposed regulations would affect participants, beneficiaries, plan sponsors, and administrators.

A link to the proposed regulations under Section 409A may be found here, and the proposed regulations under Section 457 may be found here.

Stay tuned for our in-depth analysis on these proposed regulations.

In light of the new final and temporary regulations issued by the IRS and the U.S. Department of Treasury (Reg. 301.7701-2T), partnerships that have been using wholly-owned disregarded entities to “employ” partners (in order to provide access to various tax benefits, including cafeteria plans, parking and transit benefits, and other employee benefit plans) will need to reevaluate their structure and treatment of partner/employee classification. In the new rules, which were published on May 4th, 2016, the IRS moved to halt this practice, providing that where partners of a partnership are separately working for a second (disregarded) subsidiary legal entity, such individuals may not be treated as employees of the subsidiary. Instead, they are considered self-employed individuals for both self-employment and employment benefit plan purposes.