第八章
1、The key factor in explaining pension fund growth is that the employer’s contributions and a specified amount of the employee’s contributions, as well as the earnings of the fund’s assets, are tax exempt . In essence, a pension is a form of employee remuneration for which the employee is not taxed until funds are withdrawn. Pension funds have also traditionally served to discourage employees from quitting, since the employee, until vested, could lose at least the accumulation resulting from the employer contribution.
养老基金计划中雇主支付的资金、雇员支付款项以及基金资产收益都是免税的，这可作为养老基金发展的关键因素。实际上，养老金是雇员另一种形式的薪酬，而且只有在赎回时才征税。传统上认为，养老金计划可起到影响雇员离职的作用，因为如果雇员离职就会至少损失由雇主累计支付的养老金。
2、In a defined benefit plan, benefits become vested when employees reach a certain age and complete enough years of service so that they meet the minimum requirements最低要求 for receiving benefits upon retirement. The payment of benefits is not contingent upon取决于 a participant’s continuation with the employer or union. In recent years, firms have not adopted defined-benefit plans. Major firms that have them have been freezing their plans. This is because they are costly and firms have found that the plans hinder their competitiveness.
在固定收益计划中，当雇员达到一定年龄且服务了足够年限时，雇员就满足获得福利的最低要求，也就是说能够合法的领取收益。而收益的支付则与养老金计划的参与人是否继续为雇主或工会工作无关。近些年来，许多企业都没有采用固定收益计划，而之前采用固定收益计划的大多数公司也都冻结了计划。这是因为该计划花费太高而且降低了他们的竞争力。
A plan sponsor chooses one of the following to manage the defined benefit pension assets under its control: (1) use in-house staff 内部员工to manage all the pension assets itself, (2) distribute the pension assets to one or more money management firms to manage, (3) combination of both. Public pension funds typically manage a good portion较大部分 of their assets internally. In the case of至于 a defined contribution pension plan, the plan sponsor typically allows participants to select how to allocate their contributions among funds managed by one or more fund groups.
养老金计划的发起人管理其控制下的固定收益的养老金计划资产的方法有以下几种：（1）使用内部员工来管理养老基金的所有资产；（2）把养老金资产分配给一家或多家货币公司管理；（3）结合(1)和(2)两种方法。对于公众部门的养老基金，通常内部管理的资产占较大的比例。对于固定缴费养老金计划，计划发起人通常允许参与者
自主选择将雇主支付的存在雇员账户上的资金如何在一家或多家基金公司管理的基金中进行配置
4、Today, the crisis facing defined benefit pension plans threatens the solvency of corporations, cities, states, and even the U.S. government. At the end of 2003, corporations’ pension underfunding or deficit was close to $250 billion, officially. Other commentators estimate that if pension liabilities were assigned market values, as they properly should be, then the U.S. corporate pension deficit would probably be double that.
如今，固定收益养老金计划面临的危机，正威胁着企业、市政和州、甚至美国政府的偿付能力。2003年年末，官方公布的公司养老金资金不足或赤字接近于2500亿美元。一些评论员估计，如果按市场价值计算养老金负债，其实负债正应当按照市场价值计，则赤字数量将会翻倍。
5、In essence, corporate and public plan sponsors have systematically underestimated pension liabilities. In making pension-funding decisions, corporations have often failed to take into consideration the liability structure of the plan. Their primary concern, naturally, is with the impact on the earnings, and because pension contributions show up as an expense on the income statement, corporations seek to minimize or even eliminate them.
事实上，公司和公众部门养老金计划发起人由于受监管者和会计师的唆使都系统地低估了养老金的负债。在制定养老金融资决策时，企业常常不考虑养老金计划的负债结构。它们主要关心的是盈余，由于支付的养老金作为一项费用列支在损益表中，因而企业要使其最小化或减少这一项费用。
With respect to funding, in April 2004, the Pension Funding Equity Act was passed. The purpose of the act was to give U.S. companies some “relief” from burdensome繁重的 pension contributions and, as the act’s summary stated, “protect the retirement benefits of millions of American workers and help ensure that their pension benefits will be there when they retire.” The relief came in the form of a higher permissible discount rate, the critical number临界值 for valuing pension liabilities and therefore funding requirements.
对于基金，2004年4月通过了养老基金股权法案。这部法案旨在减轻美国公司的养老费用负担，正如法案提到的：“保护美国百万名劳动者的退休福利、确保劳动者在退休后等获得养老金收益”。由于该法案允许使用更高的贴现率及用临界值评估养老金的负债等，从而减轻了公司支付养老金费用的负担和融资约束条件
7、According to the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA), employers can automatically enroll their employees in a defined contribution plan. It also permits employees to choose default缺失 options on behalf of the plan participants who do not make an election on how to inv
est their funds, and enables employers to obtain more investment advice for their employees by removing the fiduciary liability based on the perceived conflict of interest of self-interested investment advice provided by the employer.
根据《2006年养老金保护法案》，在固定缴款计划中，雇主可以自动登记其员工。它还允许员工代表那些对于如何投资他们的基金的计划不做出选择的参与者做出默认选择,也使雇主通过基于感知到的利己主义的利益冲突获得更多投资建议
8、In a defined contribution plan, regulations issued by the U.S. department of Labor 劳工部require firms to offer their employees a set of distinctive 不同的choices, a development that has encouraged pension plans to select mutual funds as the investment vehicle of choice because families of mutual funds can readily容易地 provide investment vehicles offering different investment objectives.
在固定缴款计划中，美国劳工部通过的法规要求企业为他们的员工提供一系列不同的选择，这就鼓励了养老金计划选择共同基金作为投资选择工具，因为共同基金的基金族能方便的提供投资多种投资目标的投资工具.
9、Managers of pension fund money obtain their income from managing the assets by charging a fee. The annual fee can range from 0.75% of assets under management to as little as 0.01%. Some plan sponsors have entered into management fee contracts based on performance rather than according to a fixed percentage of assets under management. In addition to money managers, advisers called plan sponsor consultants咨询 provide other advisory services to pension plan sponsors.
养老金计划的管理人通过对所管理的资产收取费用来获得收入，年费收取的范围一般为所管理的资产规模的０.０１％～０.７５％。有些计划发起人是基于基金业绩而不是所管理资产的规模的一定比率来收取费用。除了资金管理人外，投资顾问又称计划发起人顾问也会给养老金计划发起人提供咨询服务。
10、Because pension plans are crucial for U.S. workers, Congress passed comprehensive legislation in 1974 to regulate pension plans, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Its major provisions include, for example, Minimum funding standards最低缴费标准; Fiduciary responsibility信托责任; Minimum vesting standards最低退休年龄标准; Created the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) to insure vested pension benefits. Responsibility for administering执行 ERISA is delegated ['deliɡeit]委托、指派 to the Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service国税局. To ensure that a pension plan is in compliance with 遵守ERISA, periodic reporting and disclosure statements must be filed with these government agencies.
由于养老金计划对美国的劳动者是十分重要，美国国会在1974年颁布了一项综合
法规来监管养老金计划，即《1974年雇员退休收入保障法》,例如，它主要的条款包括：最低缴费标准、信托责任、最低退休年龄标准。创建美国联邦养老金担保公司确保合法的养老金收益。美国劳工部和税务部门承担着管理ERISA的责任。为了保证养老金计划与ERISA一致，养老金计划必须向这些政府机构递交定期公告和披露声明.