Retirement Income Incentives and Administrative Simplification Act of 1979

Retirement Income Incentives and Administrative Simplification Act of 1979 - Sets forth the findings and policies of this Act, including: (1) the consolidation in a single independent agency of certain administrative, regulatory, and policymaking functions relating to employee benefit plans; (2) the establishment of a national policy to encourage savings to meet the needs of employees and their families in the event of death, disability, or retirement; and (3) the clarification and simplification of certain provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and of the Internal Revenue Code relating to employee benefit plans.

Title I: Employee Benefit Administration - Amends the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to direct the President to establish by the beginning of the third calendar year after enactment the Employee Benefit Administration as an independent agency within the executive branch to be headed by a five member Board of Directors. Creates two new positions, entitled "special liaison officer to the Administration," one within the Department of Labor and one within the Department of the Treasury, to serve as directors. Provides that the remaining three directors shall be an Executive Director and two additional members appointed by the President.

Transfers to the Administration the authority of the Secretary of Labor granted under ERISA, and functions of the Secretary of the Treasury relating to employee benefit plans. Directs the President to transfer to the Administration additional functions of any Federal agency which is necessary to effectuate the maximum feasible consolidation of administrative and related functions of the Government relating to employee benefit plans. Retains the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation within the Administration.

Directs the Administration to promulgate regulations providing for the maximum consolidation of all reports respecting employee benefit plans and governmental plans required under ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code.

Title II: Deduction by Certain Employees and Their Spouses for Contributions to Retirement Plans - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to permit employees participating in employer pension plans an income tax deduction for contributions to an individual retirement account. Establishes the amount of such deduction at the lesser of 15 percent of an employees' taxable compensation or $1,000. Permits such employees to apportion one-half of the total deductible amount to individual retirement accounts established for the benefit of such employees' spouses.

Title III: Amendments to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 - Amends the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to direct the Secretary of Labor to prescribe rules applicable to one or more categories under which severance pay arrangements and supplemental retirement income arrangements shall be considered to be welfare plans instead of pension plans. Specifies supplemental retirement income arrangements which are to be considered welfare plans. Authorizes the Secretary to exempt any severance pay or supplemental income arrangement from provisions applicable to welfare plans and to provide alternative methods of compliance with any such provision.

Conforms the definitions of "part in interest" and "governmental plan" with the Internal Revenue Code. Revises the definitions of "normal retirement age" and "relative".

Requires, rather than allows, accountants to rely on the correctness of any actuarial matter certified by an enrolled actuary. Requires, rather than allows, an enrolled actuary to rely on the correctness of accounting matters to which a qualified public accountant has expressed an opinion for purposes of certification.

Allows a pension plan which is held in a trust consisting of the assets of two or more participating plans which are maintained by a single employer or two or more employers all of whom are members of the same controlled group, to elect to include as part of its annual report certain information relating to all of the assets of the trust in lieu of the information currently required respecting the assets of the plan.

Modifies the current requirement that a plan administrator furnish to a participant or beneficiary a copy of certain financial statements to direct such administrator to post such statements at the principal work sites of employee participants, along with a statement of the right of employee participants to receive copies of the latest annual report and summary plan description. Directs the Secretary to provide for alternative means by which such information may be adequately communicated to employee participants. Sets a $10 limit on the amount an administrator can charge for a copy of the full annual report.

Specifies notice requirements which the Secretary of the Treasury, before issuing an advance determination of whether a pension or other type plan meets the requirements of a qualified plan under the Internal Revenue Code, shall require the person applying for the determination to provide. Allows such applicant to establish to the Secretary that the employees have been adequately notified of the filing of the request for such a determination by other satisfactory means.

Revises the information which each administrator of an employee benefit plan must furnish to any plan participant or beneficiary who so requests in writing. Requires in the case of individual account plans that the balance in the account be furnished. Directs each administrator to issue a report informing each plan participant of the nature, amount, and form of the deferred vested benefit to which he is entitled if such participant: (1) separated from the service covered by the plan if such separation resulted in a one-year break in service; (2) is entitled to a deferred vested benefit; and (3) with respect to whom retirement benefits are not paid during the particular plan year and are not scheduled for payment before the end of the 180-day period following the plan year. Requires each employer to maintain records with respect to each of the employees sufficient to determine the benefits which are due, or which may become due, to such employee.

Requires pension report information to be provided in computer-compatible form to the public only after a statement has been filed with the Secretary by the person receiving the information which provides that the information will not be used for commercial purposes.

Requires, rather than allows, the Secretary to prescribe an alternative method for satisfying certain reporting requirements, under specified circumstances. Sets forth additional alternative methods of compliance with certain reporting requirements.

Specifies circumstances in which the administrator of any multiemployer plan shall be considered to have satisfied certain reporting requirements.

Revises certain participation and vesting provisions. Permits the determination of pension plan eligibility on a plan-year basis.

Allows multiemployer plans to suspend the payment of benefits while an employee is reemployed in the same industry, trade, or craft, and the same geographic area covered by the plan, as when such benefits commenced.

Stipulates that the employee notification and election requirement (triggered when vesting schedules are changed), is only applicable to employees who might be adversely affected by the change.

Makes 125 days of service in any maritime industry equivalent to 1,000 hours of service.

Allows a multiemployer plan to provide that a participant's accrued benefit upon his separation from the service is the sum of the different rates of benefit accrual for different periods of participation as defined by one or more fixed calendar dates or by employment in different bargaining units. Permits the accrued benefit to be determined, for purposes of the three-percent accrual method or the fractional method, by projecting the normal retirement benefit to which a participant would be entitled if he continued to accrue benefits at the average of the rates applicable to this period of actual participation.

Provides that a plan offering optional benefit forms shall not be treated as altering a participant's accrued benefits by reason of a change in the actuarial assumptions used to compute such benefits if an enrolled actuary makes an appropriate certification.

Defines "seasonal establishment" and "seasonal employee" for the purposes of ERISA. Requires plans in which a majority of employees are seasonal employees to use 500 hours, rather than 1000 hours, for purposes of defining a year of service.

Makes certain revisions with respect to joint and survivor annuities.

Specifies the circumstances in which pension benefits may be paid to another person pursuant to a State court decree of divorce, annulment, legal separation, or family support. Prescribes certain notification requirements with respect to any such payment.

Directs the Secretary to prescribe by regulation methods of determining length of service by an elapsed time measurement.

Makes certain revisions with respect to funding, including a requirement that changes in funding method or plan year need be approved only when such changes are made more than once in a three-year period.

Makes certain revisions with respect to fiduciary responsibilities. Provides, with respect to a plan funded by a contract or policy of insurance, that the assets of the plan shall include such contract or policy, but shall not include the insurer's general account assets.

Allows a collectively bargained plan maintained by more than one employer to return an employer contribution within one year after the plan administrator knows that the contribution was made by mistake of fact or violated the Labor-Management Relations Act ( currently, such contribution must be returned within one year of the payment).

Amends the cofiduciary provision to stipulate that, with respect to a fiduciary who is not a natural person, "knowledge" means knowledge actually communicated to an officer or employee of the fiduciary.

Stipulates, with respect to qualifying employer real property, that the current requirement that the parcels be dispersed geographically must be met only when three or more parcels are involved.

Conforms certain provisions relating to transactions by parties in interest with provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.

Makes the exemption procedure relating to prohibited transactions available to persons who are "owner-employees".

Establishes a special exemption procedure with respect to certain currently prohibited transactions, by which certain pending exemption applications shall be considered to have been granted where a fiduciary or class of fiduciaries satisfy specified requirements.

Makes certain revisions with respect to the indemnification of fiduciaries, including allowing a multiemployer plan to pay the cost of defending plan trustees in certain circumstances and to indemnify them subject to a determination that the trustees acted in good faith.

Provides that amounts collected by the Department of Labor from persons requesting information shall inure to the Department.

Requires that at least one member of the Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans be a representative of employers maintaining small plans.

Directs the Secretary of Labor to publish at least annually a report showing the number of plans and plan participants, plan assets, and other plan information by type and size.

Provides that a State insurance law which requires that a specific benefit be provided by a contract or policy of insurance issued to an employee benefit plan is preempted by ERISA.

Limits, in the case in which two or more plans covered under title IV of ERISA are terminated simultaneously be any employer, such employer's liability to 30 percent of net worth. Provides that the amount of such liability shall be reduced by the amount of any payments relating to a previously incurred liability.

Directs the Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of the Treasury to conduct jointly a detailed study of: (1) the reporting requirements of ERISA and an analysis of means to improve such requirements to reduce the administrative burdens on employee benefit plans; and (2) means by which certain institutions, such as registered investment advisors, banks, savings and loan associations, and insurance companies, may be enabled to develop master and prototype pension plans for adoption by employers.

Title IV: Amendments to the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to conform such Code to the amendments made to ERISA by title III of this Act.

Provides that employee participation in a predecessor employer pension plan or other plans of related employers is to be counted toward the eligibility requirements for capital gains treatment and the ten year averaging of lump sum distributions from such plans.

Specifies that multiemployer plans established by tax-exempt charitable, labor, agricultural, or horticultural organizations shall be classified as single defined benefit and contribution plans for purposes of the capital gains treatment and ten year averaging of lump sum distributions from such plans.

Provides that a separation from service will be deemed to have occurred for purposes of determining eligibility for capital gains tax treatment of lump sum distribution from a multiemployer plan if any employee has not worked in service covered by such a plan for a period of six consecutive months.

Permits a taxpayer to roll over a complete distribution from a money purchase plan or report income from such distribution according to the ten year income averaging rules, even if there is no similar distribution from another pension plan of the same employer in which the taxpayer is a participant.

Provides for the deductibility of employer contributions to plans which are maintained outside the United States primarily for the benefit of nonresident aliens.

Title V: Individual Retirement Payroll Deduction Plans for Employees Not Covered by Pension Plans - Amends ERISA by adding a new title V, "Individual Retirement Payroll Deduction Plans for Employees Not Covered by Pension Plans." Requires a covered employer to have in effect an individual retirement payroll deduction plan for eligible employees. Excludes from such requirement: (1) an employer having fewer than ten eligible employees; and (2) an employer who has conducted a referendum of eligible employees and the number of such employees wanting such a plan is less than the greater of ten or ten percent of the number of eligible employees.

Establishes civil penalties for covered employers who fail to deduct an amount from the wages of an eligible employee in accordance with an election under an individual retirement payroll deduction plan.

Charges the Employee Benefit Administration with the administration of such plans.