Employee Benefits Design and Planning: A Guide to Understanding Accounting, Finance, and Tax Implications

Book description

This book offers  guidance for understanding benefits options and plan structures, and making better decisions for your organization. Writing for both HR and finance professionals, internationally respected compensation and benefits professor and consultant Bashker Biswas drills comprehensively into today's most important benefits-related topics and challenges. Employee Benefits Design and Planning covers all this, and much more:  

  • Finance and accounting implications of Healthcare benefits

  • Other risk benefits

  • Severance benefits

  • Disability and group life insurance programs

  • Flexible benefits

  • Non-qualified deferred arrangements

  • 409A plans, ESOPs, Money Purchase Pension Plans, Cash Balance Plans, 401(k),  403(b) plans and 457 Plans

  • Employee benefit plan financial reporting, legal compliance, and auditing

  • Employee benefits in mergers and acquisitions

  • Self-funding vs. insurance funding decisions

  • Global employee benefits including umbrella pension plans and multi-national pooling

  • Equity participation in employee benefit plans

  • Biswas introduces and explains key employee benefit metrics and ratios, and demonstrates best practices for forecasting costs and budgeting appropriately. For all compensation professionals, benefits professionals, human resource professionals, accounting professionals, labor attorneys, financial analysts, and finance professionals. Readers will have roles in benefits-related consulting, finance, accounting, and human resource management, both domestic and international.

    Table of contents

    1. About This eBook
    2. Title Page
    3. Copyright Page
    4. Dedication Page
    5. Contents
    6. Foreword
    7. Acknowledgments
    8. About the Author
    9. Preface
    10. 1. Setting the Stage
      1. Functional Categories of Employee Benefits
      2. The Employee Benefits Environment
      3. Employee Benefits under Adverse Economic Conditions
      4. Strategic Considerations in Designing Employee Benefit Programs
      5. The Integrated Systems Approach to Employee Benefits Planning
      6. The Cost Dimension
      7. Key Concepts in This Chapter
    11. 2. Healthcare Benefits
      1. A Brief History of Healthcare Benefits
      2. The Prevalence of Healthcare Benefit Plans
      3. The Structure of Healthcare Benefit Plans
      4. Healthcare Benefit Plan Design Considerations
      5. Consumer-Driven Healthcare
      6. Accounting Implications and Issues Affecting Healthcare Benefit Plans
      7. Self-Funding of Healthcare Benefits
      8. Tax Dimensions of Healthcare Plans
      9. International Financial Reporting Standards and Employee Health and Welfare Plans
      10. Summary
      11. Key Concepts in This Chapter
      12. Appendix: Definitions Of Health Insurance Terms
    12. 3. Healthcare Benefit Financing
      1. Financing Approaches to Healthcare Programs
      2. Healthcare Cost Containment
      3. Utilization Reviews
      4. Value-Based Benefit Design
      5. Concluding Thoughts on Healthcare Benefits
      6. Summary
      7. Key Concepts in This Chapter
      8. Appendix: Tax Implications of the Affordable Care Act
    13. 4. Other Risk Benefits
      1. Group Life Insurance Programs
      2. Group Dependent Life Insurance
      3. Supplemental Life Insurance
      4. Accidental Death and Dismemberment Plans
      5. Group Disability Benefits
      6. Sick-Leave Plans
      7. Insured Disability Programs
      8. Long-Term Care Benefits
      9. Group Business Travel Insurance Benefit
      10. Tax Implications of Other Risk Benefits Plans
      11. Summary
      12. Key Concepts in This Chapter
    14. 5. Retirement Plans
      1. Types of Pension Plans
      2. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act
      3. The Retirement Equity Act of 1984
      4. Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation
      5. The Nature of Pension Plans
      6. Plan Accounting
      7. Accounting for Defined Benefits Plans
      8. Pension Plan Assets
      9. The Pension Expense
      10. Accounting Recordkeeping
      11. Statement of Accumulated Plan Benefits for Defined Benefit Pension Plans (ERISA)
      12. ERISA Reporting Requirements for Defined Contribution Plans
      13. Accounting Standards Affecting Pension Plans
      14. Summary
      15. Key Concepts in This Chapter
    15. 6. Other Types of Retirement Benefits
      1. Cash Balance Pension Plans
      2. Money Purchase Pension Plans
      3. Simplified Employee Pension Plans
      4. 403(b) Plans
      5. 409A Plans
      6. 457 Plans
      7. Summary
      8. Key Concepts in This Chapter
    16. 7. Equity-Based Employee Benefit Plans
      1. Employee Stock Ownership Plans
      2. Employee Stock Purchase Plans
      3. Equity in Pension Plans
      4. Summary
      5. Key Concepts in This Chapter
    17. 8. International Employee Benefits
      1. Multinational Pooling
      2. Multinational Pension Plans
      3. Taxation of International Employee Benefits
      4. Accounting Implications for International Benefits: IAS 19
      5. Summary
      6. Key Concepts in This Chapter
      7. Appendix: A Summary of IAS 19 Employee Benefits
    18. 9. Ancillary Benefits
      1. Severance Benefits
      2. Voluntary Insurance Benefits
      3. Workers’ Compensation
      4. Unemployment Benefits
      5. Cafeteria Benefits
      6. Summary
      7. Key Concepts in This Chapter
    19. 10. Employee Benefits Cost Management
      1. Benchmarking and Cost Containment
      2. Human Resources Department Efforts at Managing Employee Benefit Costs
      3. Sample Benefits Objective
      4. Key Concepts in this Chapter
    20. Conclusion
    21. Bibliography
      1. Books
      2. Articles
      3. Websites
    22. Index

    Product information

    • Title: Employee Benefits Design and Planning: A Guide to Understanding Accounting, Finance, and Tax Implications
    • Author(s): Bashker D. Biswas
    • Release date: April 2014
    • Publisher(s): Pearson
    • ISBN: 9780133481419