The Senate approved the Pension Protection Act of 2006 on Aug. 3, 2006 and the President is expected to sign it.
Major highlights of this act are:
Pension funding by companies. More than half of the bill is talking about the defined pension plans. There are
new rules that require the pension plans to become fully funded over a 7 year period. For airlines it is 10 years
(Delta and Northwest airlines got 17 years) to fully fund their plan.
Many retirement savings provisions that are about to sunset in 2010 and the Saver’s Credit that would have ended
after December 31, 2006 are made permanent.
Automatic Enrollment in 401K plan. The new law makes it easier for employers to automatically enroll new
employees into their 401(k) plan with a default contribution amount or percentage. Employees can opt-out,
if they don't want to participate.
The taxpayers will have the option of depositing their tax refund directly into an IRA account.
Expanded the provision for hardship withdrawal from 401(k) accounts.
Rollovers to Roth IRA is made easy and direct rollover from a qualified retirement plan to Roth IRA is allowed
Many changes for charitable contribution deductions for donations of clothing, household items and more
stricter recordkeeping requirements for money contributions were introduced.
You can view a Compilation of Links Pertaining to the Pension Protection Act of 2006 at
http://www.benefitscounsel.com/archives/001783.html 
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