Tom Schendt is a partner in the firm’s Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group. His practice focuses on qualified plan compliance and matters before U.S. Federal agencies, including the IRS, Department of Labor, PBGC and others. Tom handles audits, civil and criminal investigations, voluntary compliance initiatives, and a variety of other matters before the agencies.
Before joining the firm, Tom was employed by the IRS as technical assistant to the associate chief counsel, Employee Benefits and Exempt Organizations (EBEO) for the Office of Chief Counsel. He currently serves as chair of the IRS Liaison Group for the Mid-Atlantic Region and as chair of the Department of Labor’s National Conference.
Tom is a frequent speaker on the topic of employee benefits. He has spoken to a variety of groups, including SPARK, ASPPA, ALI-ABA, the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, Tax Management Institute, Institute for Applied Management and Law and many others. Since 2006, Tom has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America.
- Serves as outside counsel to The SPARK Institute, the industry’s premiere plan provider association that represents 98 percent of the employee benefit plans across the country.
- Coordinated over 50 IRS/DOL civil and criminal audits and investigations. Obtained favorable results, including, in many cases, the closure of audits without penalty or indictments.
- Implemented over 60 closing agreements with the IRS, DOL, SEC and Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation affecting issues relating to areas including retirement plan and welfare plan compliance and reporting.
- Designed corporate governance infrastructures relating to the fiduciary concerns over benefit plan administration for boards of directors for several Fortune 100 companies.
- Regularly conducts employee plan compliance self-reviews and provides alternative approaches to addressing complex plan administration issues.
- Assisted a client in correcting errors that affected over 175,000 active and retired employees. Led the negotiations of several corrections involved in this matter with the IRS. The IRS approved a level of correction that saved the client an estimate of approximately $85 million in potential exposure.
- Provides in-house training for clients to assist in the education of their employees on their benefit programs.
- Advises various benefit plan committees on corporate governance matters as they relate to ERISA roles and responsibilities.
- Lobbied Treasury and IRS on various health and welfare matters, including Health Savings Account implementation.
- Lobbied DOL on Plan Fee issues, default investment and investment advice concerns.
- Lobbied Treasury and IRS on various retirement plan matters, including cash-balance remediation.
- Lobbied SEC concerning various matters affecting retirement plan administrators, including mutual fund restitution issues.
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One hundred and forty-seven Alston & Bird attorneys have been selected for inclusion in the 2013 edition of The Best Lawyers in America. The publication is universally regarded as among the few definitive guides to legal excellence, and its rankings are based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 36,000 leading attorneys cast almost 4.4 million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas.
September 18, 2012
In the Press
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September 12, 2011
In the Press
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August 30, 2010
In the Press
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Third Qtr 2009
Publications
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"Regulatory Update—The Summer's Proposed Regulations at DOL and IRS," The SPARK Journal, Vol. 18, No. 3, Third Quarter, 2008.
Third Qtr 2008
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"Washington Update — LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Associates: Implications for the Defined Contribution Plan Industry," The SPARK Journal, Vol. 18, No. 2, Second Quarter, 2008.
Second Qtr 2008
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"Enhanced Disclosure and New Prospectus Delivery Option for Mutual Funds," The Spark Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1, First Quarter 2008.
First Qtr 2008
Past Events
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November 12-16, 2012
Seminar
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June 4-6, 2012
Seminar
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March 19-23, 2012
Seminar
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March 19-23, 2012
Seminar
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January 4-8, 2012
Seminar
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November 22, 2011
Seminar
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November 7-11, 2011
Seminar
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January 5-9, 2011
Seminar
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June 7-9, 2010
Seminar
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March 22-26, 2010
Seminar
- Chair of ASPPA’s Mid-Atlantic IRS Benefits Conference
- Chair of DOL’s National Conference
- Chairman of the IRS Liaison Group for the Mid-Atlantic Region, a group that provides the IRS with practical business experience in assisting them in developing guidance in the employee benefits area
- Chairman of the advisory board for BNA’s new web-based “ERISA Compliance and Enforcement Library”
- Advisory board for BNA’s Pension and Benefits Reporter
- Advisor board for Corporate Accountability Report
- Editorial board of Aspen Publishers’ Pension Plan Administrator
- Editorial board of the Journal of Pension Planning & Compliance