Blue Ridge ESOP Associates Industry News

It's time for the 35th Ohio Employee Ownership Conference - Virtual and Blue Ridge ESOP Associates is proud to be one of the sponsors for this great event. Registration is still open and for one low price, you can send multiple individuals from your company.

May 5-7, 2021

Bret Keisling of the EO Podcast invited Tom Roback, President of Blue Ridge ESOP Associates, onto the podcast to discuss Blue Ridge's acquisition of Coastal Pension Services, Inc. He explains in the podcast why this is a strong strategic move for both companies and gives more depth to the 401(k) administration services. Overall, both companies have operated under the same structure and are not financial advisors nor daily recordkeepers, so this will allow us to continue to work with any financial advisors and almost any 401k recordkeeper platform. The expansion of the Blue Ridge team allows us to keep in line with our mission which is to continue to be the ESOP and 401(k) administration firm of choice. The podcast can be heard here on our growing YouTube channel.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA - APRIL 21, 2021: Blue Ridge ESOP Associates (“Blue Ridge”) is pleased to announce it has acquired Coastal Pension Services, Inc. (“Coastal Pension”), of Columbia, MD. The acquisition allows Blue Ridge to continue as the leader in ESOP administration while expanding its qualified retirement plan administration. In addition to our ESOP business, this will expand the administration of 401(k), Profit Sharing, Money Purchase and Defined Benefit plans to more than 1,000 qualified retirement plans. As we continue our leadership in the ESOP industry, the addition of Coastal Pension accelerates Blue Ridge’s efforts to grow through strategic acquisitions in the ESOP and 401(k) markets.

It's time for the NCEO Employee Ownership Conference and Blue Ridge is a proud sponsor.

Some temporary relief to the partial plan termination rules was recently provided for companies that experienced significant turnover in 2020. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, which was signed into law on December 27, 2020, includes a rule that provides some short-term relief regarding partial plan terminations.

Before the SECURE Act was enacted, a 401(k) plan was permitted to exclude employees who did not work 1000 or more hours in a 12-month period. The SECURE Act will impose a new requirement for 401(k) plans to include employees in 401(k) plans for salary deferral contribution purposes if the employees 1) are at least age 21, 2) not in an excluded class of employees and 3) complete at least 3 consecutive 12-month periods with at least 500 hours of service in each 12-month period.

To know how to adjust S Corporation stock basis, we first need to answer the question: What is stock basis? Stock basis is the amount of original value or cost of the shares, which is needed for tax purposes. For S Corporations, though, stock basis becomes a moving target because it goes beyond just the original cost of the shares. Stock basis for S Corporations also considers annual fluctuations in income or loss, and deductions.

Blue Ridge is proud to be a lead sponsor for the Mid-Atlantic Chapter Spring Meeting and Roundtables on March 10-11, 2021 hosted by The ESOP Association. Tom Roback, Dolores Lawrence, and Jon Williams will be attending this conference. This is a great opportunity for your employee-owned company to "send" multiple owners at an affordable price, as content will be geared towards "middle managers, employee owners and members of company ESOP committees".