SEND AN E-MAIL TO THIS FELLOWWilliam M. Evans
Washington, DC
Since 2007, William M. (Bill) Evans has been an attorney-advisor in the Benefits Tax Counsel’s Office, Office of Tax Policy, U.S. Department of the Treasury. His responsibilities have included: developing, drafting, and explaining IRS and Treasury Department guidance with respect to retirement-related tax rules; developing and implementing Treasury Department legislative and administrative initiatives to enhance Americans’ retirement security; and coordinating Treasury Department policy regarding retirement security and retirement-related tax rules with other government stakeholders, including the U.S. Congress, the DOL, the PBGC, and the Government Accountability Office. His guidance projects have included: simplifying benefit rollover procedures and waivers for late rollovers; facilitating development of hybrid plan designs; broadening retirement system coverage by facilitating automatic enrollment; facilitating plan designs that address longevity risk by providing lifetime income; simplifying plan administration by facilitating mid-year amendments to safe harbor 401(k) plans; updating IRS correction program rules to expand self-correction eligibility and provide safe harbor corrections taking into account funding status and ongoing contributions; developing the myRA program, a starter Roth IRA program intended to expand retirement system coverage; addressing missing participant issues; permitting remote witnessing of spousal consents; and providing relief from the unified plan rule for multiple employer plans. Bill has been a frequent presenter and lecturer at ABA tax section, JCEB, DC Bar Association, and other employee benefits association conferences and events.
Before joining the Treasury Department, Bill worked for 15 years as an associate and principal employee-benefits attorney for the Groom Law Group, a Washington, DC law firm specializing in employee benefits. His work included providing advice regarding the impact of corporate acquisitions and dispositions on defined benefit and defined contribution qualified plans, conducting compliance reviews and filing and negotiating proposed corrections with the IRS under the EPCRS program, and implementing cash balance defined benefit formula designs. Previously, he worked as an employee benefits, litigation, and corporate attorney at Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson, a Charlotte, NC law firm.
From 2005 through 2015, Bill also served as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. There, he co-taught the Retirement Plan Design & Taxation course, a required course for the Law Center’s Employee Benefits Law Certificate. Areas covered included qualified plan distribution timing rules, taxation of annuity and non-annuity distributions, eligible rollover distributions, participant and spousal consent, cash-out distributions, plan loans and hardships, required minimum distributions, tax withholding, IRAs, and SIMPLE plans.
Bill earned his juris doctorate degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, his bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University (Economics major, English minor; summa cum laude; Presidential Scholar), and his associate’s degree from Ricks College (Business Management major; highest honors; National Merit Scholarship finalist). His outside-of-work interests include keeping tabs on his five children and growing numbers of grandchildren, road biking, playing guitar, singing choral music, writing poetry, cartooning, gardening, Indonesian culture, youth sports, and teaching and ministering in his congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Bill is grateful for the opportunity to have rubbed shoulders with and learned from many of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel active and former Fellows. He hopes to use ACEBC relationships and programs as a springboard to continue developing and pursuing public awareness and understanding of the law of employee benefits.
