Forced savings Yea or Nay!!

[MomToOne]

Which is exactly why some people don't want to participate but don't want anyone to know why they don't want to participate. If you know your marriage is on the rocks but your just waiting for x, y or z to happen before taking the plunge into divorce land would you sock away money in a 401(k) where your possibly soon to be ex could get half or would you do like my cousin's spouse did and sock it away in cans then hide it at a relative's house and you get to keep it all.

I'm not sure what your point is here. When you opt out of a 401K, you don't have to say why you are opting out, just that you are.

 

[PrincessJo]

They don't, but remember a company is not just about "one person". They have 58,000 employees that they have to offer benefits to. So the question can't be what's best for one person.

I guess this is where we differ in thought. I learned quite a bit after growing up in a socialist country. It might sound awful, but I don't care what the gal or guy in the next office is doing. It's none of my business. It is also none of my boss's business. The last company I worked for was full of chatty Kathys who were always gossiping about EVERYTHING and everyone. It was disgusting.

The guy in charge offers what they think is best and I can choose to participate or not. I can go work somewhere else. Shoot, I can even move to another state with better options if I want!! I'm blessed to live here.

 

[amcnj]

I thought I had read years ago that such plans also must meet certain participation rates among different income classes. The idea was to prevent plans from being devised to benefit only the executives/highly paid I believe. I am not sure what happens if you are not in compliance. Does the plan lose it tax status, or does it have to be modified or dissolved? Anyway, this may also be why they are trying to broaden the use of the plan via automatic enrollment.

 

[eliza61]

I guess this is where we differ in thought. I learned quite a bit after growing up in a socialist country. It might sound awful, but I don't care what the gal or guy in the next office is doing. It's none of my business. It is also none of my boss's business. The last company I worked for was full of chatty Kathys who were always gossiping about EVERYTHING and everyone. It was disgusting.

The guy in charge offers what they think is best and I can choose to participate or not. I can go work somewhere else. Shoot, I can even move to another state with better options if I want!! I'm blessed to live here.

But once again you are confusing "personal" from "professional". Sure you might not care what the"chatty Kathies" are saying but as a company I legally have to make sure their conversation is not inflammatory, harassing or demeaning. It's called an obligation to provide a safe work environment which has nothing to do with socialism, so yeah we do get to monitor certain speech. Also I think there were a number of court cases that already said that employers can monitor their employee email and computer time. we just had our annual mandatory "respect for each other" training.
Also remember employees do have an option not to do it. Sure they are making opting out a bit time consuming but you can still do it.
Socialism and employment requirements are two totally different things. Very few people in life get to do what they want, when they want without repercussions.

 

[crisi]

Also remember employees do have an option not to do it. Sure they are making opting out a bit time consuming but you can still do it.

And opting out will be a personnel matter. If you have chatty Kathy's in your HR department that give out confidential personal information like your 401k enrollment status, your company has bigger problems than 401k information - and you probably do as well since its much more fun to gossip about how much everyone makes and who is on a PIP.

I can see where a really small firm might not want to do this because of the risk of everyone knowing what everyone does - but within a big company they tend to take HR confidentiality VERY seriously.

 

[bumbershoot]

A lot of employers I am fmailiar with do the automatic enrollment, but none that I am aware of require a notarized anything to opt out. It seems just requiring that you opt out using the same method you would have otherwise opted in would be sufficient. Getting something notarized is a pain, and seems totally unnecessary in this instance.

I agree.

Oh well, they did send out an email saying there were quite a number of notaries on each site (most of the senior admin. Assistance are notaries) and we have a credit union on site also.

Well that's different! No need to go to your own bank, etc etc, if you can just do it right there on-site.

Still not sure WHY they need it notarized (unless they've been burned by employees in the past swearing they didn't send that letter) but at least they are making it easy.

good point. Not sure. I do know that as of right now, if a person wanted to take a withdrawal (not a loan) and they were married they would have to have the withdrawal request signed by spouse and notorized. Not sure why that is, as I've never taken a hardship withdrawal.

And that totally makes sense. Absolutely positively.

Here's a story... My FIL was a rotten husband. My MIL never left him. Everyone thought MIL would die first, because of health issues, despite being 10 years younger than FIL. MIL had a really nice life insurance policy, I think it's called a Whole Life one where there's a cash value that you can get loans from, etc? Whatever it's called, it's the one where there is value that you can withdraw/get a loan.

In what turned out to be the last 2 months of FIL's life, he decided to take a MASSIVE withdrawal from *her* insurance policy. He got my BIL's now-ex partner to help him, to sign as a witness. And FIL forged her signature. I don't know if the man knew it was forged or not. I believe this man was the ultimate recipient of the loan, but we'll never know because FIL died and the man broke up with BIL, took off for a few years, and is unfortunately back and has been mystifyingly forgiven and we're not allowed to talk about it. ANYWAY, the money was gone. We found out about all of this when I called the life insurance company to liquidate it all because MIL didn't feel there was any need for her to have life insurance anymore, now that her husband was gone. Only to find out there was about $800 in assets left in the account. (the withdrawal was for about 20K)

After finding this out, we tore through FIL's files, and actually found a file that he had kept (because he was a horrid husband who KNEW beyond a shadow of a doubt that MIL would never think of looking through his stuff) with pages of him practicing her signature until he perfected it.


If only this form had required a notary, this wouldn't have happened. All it required was a "witness", though.


And I bet it's no surprise to know that FIL filed their taxes with turbotax one year, then never filed again, without MIL knowing because you only need the physical signature once! (someday TT will get sued so badly for this loophole in their system...not by us, but by someone) MIL is stil paying off the 50K IRS debt and fines and interest on debt and fines and penalties...refuses to file innocent or injured spouse as she feels she "should have known". (FIL had no insurance to help cover anything, because they thought MIL would die first, so the above is ALL he left behind....oh and an RV "timeshare" that no one could afford to keep)