{"id":55456,"date":"2018-08-22t05:00:40","date_gmt":"2018-08-22t09:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/48e130086c.nxcli.net\/?p=55456"},"modified":"2018-09-13t03:13:09","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13t07:13:09","slug":"mandatory-retirement-pros-and-cons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2018\/08\/22\/mandatory-retirement-pros-and-cons\/","title":{"rendered":"mandatory retirement: pros and cons (and is it legal?)"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>it depends.<\/strong><\/p>\n by <\/i>marc rosenberg<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n of all the issues involved in cpa firm governance, mandatory retirement is one of the most hotly contested and debatable provisions in a partner agreement.<\/p>\n more:<\/b> partner duties, prohibitions and grounds for expulsion<\/a> | quick tip: partners investing in clients<\/a> | why you might want an executive committee<\/a> | buyout when a partner dies<\/a> | why and how new partners buy in<\/a> | a crash course in partner retirement\/buyout plans<\/a> first, let\u2019s clarify what we mean by \u201cmandatory retirement.\u201d whereas at top 50 firms, retiring cold turkey is often the rule rather than the exception, over 90 percent of partners at local<\/strong> firms do\u00a0not<\/strong>\u00a0leave the firm and stop working. instead, local firms\u2019 definition of retirement is to announce<\/strong> their \u201cretirement,\u201d revert to a non-equity status and work for three to 10 more years, usually full time for a while and then part time. further, during their full-time years, they usually want to continue controlling their clients.<\/p>\n two-thirds of partner agreements include a mandatory retirement provision. this provision usually requires partners to give up their equity but allows them to continue working in some fashion. a common stipulation is that if a “retired\u201d partner wishes to continue working, either full or part time, this must be approved annually<\/strong> by the other partners.<\/p>\n the main reason that firms do not<\/strong> have mandatory retirement provisions is quite simple: the partners don\u2019t ever<\/strong> want to be told how long they can work and what they can work on. the vast majority see retiring at 65 or 66 as retiring “young.”<\/p>\n at first glance, this may seem quite reasonable because, after all, it\u2019s their firm<\/strong>. but this unlimited freedom for partners comes at a substantial cost to the firm.<\/p>\n the danger of not having a mandatory retirement policy:<\/strong> lesson learned<\/strong><\/p>\n i was working on a practice management review with a six-partner firm. part of my work involved confidential interviews with all the partners and a few key staff.<\/p>\n one of the partners, fred, was 69; all the others were 35 to 55. the results of my interviews revealed this about fred:<\/p>\n his typical workday went something like this: arrive at 9:30 and distribute the mail. do some client work. around lunch time, go to the gym followed by lunch at home with his wife. return to the office about 2:30. do some more client work. take a nap at his desk. do some more work and go home at 4:00 p.m. all the other partners wanted fred to retire. but fred was a nice, sweet man. he had been a partner for 35 years, and a great one at that. he’d hired several of the current partners. because of all this, the partners could not confront fred about retiring with dignity.<\/p>\n so the partners asked me to tell fred it was time to retire. i immediately refused, telling them this was their job. but i could feel their pain. so, reluctantly, i agreed.<\/p>\n i met privately with fred and told him. to my surprise, he responded: \u201ci\u2019ve been waiting for them to tell me to retire for years. i\u2019ll be happy to retire.\u201d<\/p>\n anti-mandatory retirement.<\/strong>\u00a0a group of partners in their late fifties and sixties, still vibrant and sharp, run a firm. they make good money, have great clients and love what they do. assuming they continue to enjoy good health and have no idea what they would do if they retired, why on earth would they agree to be forced to retire from their own firm upon reaching a certain age, say 65 or 66?<\/p>\n sure, at some point, they would love to turn the firm over to younger partners who write the partners\u2019 retirement checks, but the partners want to do this on their own timeline, not the firm\u2019s. they reason that by working well past a traditional retirement age, they continue to earn huge paychecks while doing a job they love, and when they are ready, they can always merge into a larger firm if there are no younger people to buy them out.<\/p>\n rosenberg\u2019s sober warning:<\/strong> buyers are getting pickier. they are less willing to merge in firms with aging partners lacking bench strength. further, when a firm with aging partners is able to find a buyer, the deal terms are likely to be less attractive than they would have been five years ago.<\/p>\n pro-mandatory retirement.<\/strong> this camp has two long-term goals:<\/p>\n eighty percent of first-generation firms never make it to the second generation.<\/strong> one of several reasons is lack of a mandatory retirement policy.<\/p>\n laura b. friedel and russell i. shapiro are partners in the chicago-based law firm of levenfeld pearlstein, llc. they wrote an outstanding article in\u00a0cpa practice management forumin 2011, summarizing the legal aspects of mandatory retirement perfectly. they have told me that despite the age of this article, nothing had changed through the end of 2017. the following are excerpts from their article.<\/p>\n “the federal age discrimination in employment act (adea) protects employees aged 40 and over from adverse action relating to their employment. many have believed that partners of professional service firms were exempt from this act because they were ’employers.’ in 2003, the supreme court ruled that the key to determining if people are employees is the extent that they supervise the performance of others and participate in the firm\u2019s profit distribution, among other criteria. the mere fact that someone is a partner should not necessarily determine whether that person is an employee or an employer.<\/p>\n “the eeoc has established several factors that determine if a partner is an employee or an employer. they include the extent that a partner (1) can be fired by the firm, (2) is supervised by superiors, (3) influences the firm (voting) and (4) shares in the profits and liabilities in the firm.<\/p>\n “recent cases have also looked to the structure of the firm and the role partners have in running the firm. the more control over the firm that is vested in partners as opposed to an executive or management committee, the more likely the partners will be considered owners rather than employees.<\/p>\n “in recent years, the eeoc has investigated pwc and deloitte. in the case of deloitte, the eeoc demanded that the firm eliminate its mandatory retirement age requirement and offer compensation and reinstatement to retired partners.\u00a0 deloitte appealed. the aicpa says these eeoc initiatives were either dropped or settled.<\/p>\n “it should be noted that non-equity partners are considered employees because they don\u2019t share in profits, have no vote and usually report to equity partners.\u201d<\/p>\n the aicpa chimes in<\/strong><\/p>\n in october 2014, barry melancon, president of the aicpa, wrote the eeoc on this matter, asserting that the eeoc\u2019s initiatives \u201cwould be detrimental and disruptive to the accounting profession and thus, to the public at large.” he went on to state that \u201cpartners agree to mandatory retirement terms when signing their firms\u2019 partnership agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n melancon further wrote that \u201cfirms have adopted these mandatory retirement policies for sound business reasons. this business model has thrived and prospered for decades while also serving the public interest. in particular, retirement policy provisions allow for the\u00a0predictable progression<\/strong>\u00a0of lesser tenured and often more diverse individuals into the partnership, and facilitate the orderly transition of a firm\u2019s clients from senior partners to those who will succeed them.\u201d<\/p>\n as firms grow, involving every partner in every decision becomes impractical. however, by the eeoc\u2019s criteria, virtually all partners in cpa firms except<\/strong> the top 25 to 50 cpa firms qualify as employer\/owners, not employees, because they have a vote, work fairly independently from others, participate in profits and share in the firm\u2019s liabilities. at this point, the eeoc seems primarily focused on the huge national and regional firms. firms below the top 25-50 don\u2019t have much to worry about on the mandatory retirement issue.<\/p>\n but friedel and shapiro warn: \u201cdon\u2019t be surprised if you have trouble determining where your partners fall on the spectrum; the combination of somewhat vague legal standards and personal involvement often makes these determinations a daunting task.\u201d<\/p>\n sample language for your partner agreement<\/strong><\/p>\n is it legal? it depends.<\/strong>
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\ncpa firms have changed webster\u2019s definition of retirement. if you want to know when partners will be out of the firm, don\u2019t ask them when they plan to retire.<\/p>\nwhat mandatory retirement really means at most firms<\/h3>\n
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two opposing views on mandatory retirement<\/h3>\n
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is mandatory retirement legal?<\/h3>\n
what does this mean for cpa firms?<\/h3>\n
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\nby marc rosenberg<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1339,"featured_media":52068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3120,2266],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pro-member-exclusive","category-partner"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n