Whether it's Bob Clark, my colleague over at ThinkAdvisor who recently opined on what 401(k) plans should cost, or a certain law professional at a deep blue school, who recently threatened to expose plan sponsors who pay "high" fees, the subject of 401(k) fees, strangely dormant since the advent of 408(b)(2) last summer, has erupted with a frenzy this summer. Through all this bickering, though, no one has stood up and identified the real issue with 401(k) fees.
Until now.
It's not the high cost of regulation, as one of Clark's readers mentioned, although there certainly is a cost to regulation. It's not service providers who gouge their clients, although, without a strictly enforced fiduciary rule, the possibility certainly exists for this to happen. It's not naïve plan sponsors duped into believing they can get a 401(k) plan "for free," although you definitely don't have to be naïve to be duped.
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Christopher Carosa
Chris Carosa has been writing a weekly article and monthly column for BenefitsPRO online and BenefitsPRO Magazine since 2011 and is a nationally recognized award-winning writer, researcher and speaker. He’s written seven books, including From Cradle to Retire: The Child IRA; Hey! What’s My Number? – How to Increase the Odds You Will Retire in Comfort; A Pizza The Action: Everything I Ever Learned About Business I Learned By Working in a Pizza Stand at the Erie County Fair; and the widely acclaimed 401(k) Fiduciary Solutions. Carosa is also Chief Contributing Editor of the authoritative trade journal FiduciaryNews.com and publisher of the Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, a weekly community newspaper he founded in 1989. Currently serving as President of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and with more than 1,000 articles published in various publications, he appears regularly in the national media. A “parallel” entrepreneur, he actively runs a handful of businesses, including a small boutique investment adviser, providing hands-on experience for his writing. A trained astrophysicist, he also holds an MBA and has been designated a Certified Trust and Financial Advisor. Share your thoughts and story ideas with him through Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christophercarosa/)and Twitter (https://twitter.com/ChrisCarosa).
