notEnuf

I’ll play Denny’s advocate. If we demand more company funding of retirement, what form should that take? An increase in DC percentage is the easiest to negotiate. Sorry to those who think they will get a 60% FAE pension. That will never happen. What we can do is try to recover the value our pension once had. If tax sheltering additional company funds provides increased value to the pilots, why wouldn’t you do that too? Negotiators will always have to expend negotiating capital to increase the benefits from the company wether it be pay or retirement money. If we successfully get additional company funded retirement money, why would you want to pay taxes or dues on it?

Crown

that's it?

ERflyer

There is one pot of money and it can be divided anyway we want. But +1% to the DC has been the norm the last few contracts. If it’s more then it’s just less money somewhere else.

Gunfighter

I suspect much of the opposition to the redirected DPSP Cash comes from those of us who are receiving it because of personal contributions into Roth 401k or the 401a plan. I would suggest that we move the DC percentage up to 20% and only redirect DPSP Cash after hitting 275K (or IRS limits) in earnings. This solution would preserve the Roth options for the generally younger/junior crowd who earn less than 275K and still provide a tax sheltering option for the generally older/senior crowd who are earning more than 275K.

The lack of clarity from the R&I Committee regarding funding of the proposed DB plan is concerning. They are stuck on the fact we receive $millions in DPSP Cash, but fail to disclose how much of that is "self inflicted" vs payouts on earnings over 275K. A cynical viewpoint would be that they are seeking to maximize the amount of pilot retirement money under management of outside sources. Redirection of DPSP Cash before reaching the IRS limits does a disservice to the pilot group by reducing the value of our current Roth options.

notEnuf

With the number of retirements upcoming and the desire to add company money to the plan, I’m guessing 20% DC is the minimum.

Denny Crane

There are a lot of companies that do stop it as you say. Did I ever at any time say I don't know what to do with the money? No. Nice try though.

You want to give money back to the company? Are you management?I think I'll stick with the way it is now and just try to negotiate more on top of that.

Now you can try and argue the right or wrong of what my point was instead of trying to divert the discussion.

Denny

PilotJ3

I though you liked stirring the pot, me too

tunes

I’d be on board

Trip7

One should never go into an investment just to save taxes. One should go into an investment because it is a good investment opportunity. A good investment opportunity should sell itself on its own. Saving taxes should be icing on the cake.

This MBCBP investment opportunity is a poor one. I would call it a joke if it were not for the serious amount of cash we are talking about handing over. We've been given extremely brief detail about putting $190 million+ of Excess DPSP Cash in a "low risk" fund aimed at 5% that's completely outside of each individual pilot's control. Other than that we've been force fed SAVING TAXES rhetoric along with extremely misleading graphs and numbers. Would you invest in something like this on your own if the potential tax savings were not considered?

PilotJ3

Someone gets it!!!