Jim has more than 40 years of professional experience working on issues related to retirement and welfare benefit plans.
His experience includes helpings consultants and clients understand and apply rules and regulations and the impact of relevant court decisions on their plans. His expertise includes plan qualification requirements and the funding and deduction rules. He is also often engaged as an expert witness in pension disputes.
Before joining Cheiron, he was the Assistant Director, Employee Plans Rulings and Agreements at the Internal Revenue Service, and was effectively the chief pension actuary for most of his career. Among other responsibilities, he helped develop regulatory and legal guidance for pension and welfare plans, and worked with officials at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the Department of Labor.
He speaks frequently about regulatory, legislative, and legal developments affecting pension and welfare plans at professional meetings and conferences. He has written numerous articles on pension and welfare plans and also authors and oversees the firm’s pension and health and welfare alerts. He received the Edward E. Burrows Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Society of Enrolled Actuaries in 2012.
His prodigious memory and history and knowledge of IRS rules and regulations and case law about benefits topics is helpful to consultants and clients.
He joined Cheiron in January 2010 as the firm’s first chief research actuary.
He is an Associate of the Society of Actuaries, an Enrolled Actuary under ERISA, a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries, a Fellow of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries, and a Fellow of the American Society of Enrolled Actuaries.