Law & Policy
Law and Policy
Health, wealth and global news, views and analysis, written by Mercer legislative, regulatory and policy pros with practical insights for employers and benefit…
IRS Rev. Rul. 2019-06 provides 2019 covered compensation tables, including unrounded and rounded values, confirming Mercer’s earlier estimates. Some qualified retirement plans use covered compensation in their benefit formulas, consistent with the design-based, safe-harbor "permitted disparity" rules under Internal Revenue Code Section 401(l). Other qualified retirement plans use covered compensation to determine "imputed disparity" under the general nondiscrimination testing rules of Section 401(a)(4).
2019 covered compensation is determined using the 2019 Social Security taxable wage base of $132,900 — a 3.26% increase from the $128,200 wage base used to determine 2018 covered compensation.