Mayleen Santiago-Garcés

Mayleen Santiago focuses her practice on the qualification, amendment, administration, and termination of Puerto Rico-qualified retirement plans. She advises employers and plan sponsors on retirement plan qualification matters before the Puerto Rico Department of the Treasury, as well as compliance with the Puerto Rico Internal Revenue Code, ERISA, and related regulatory requirements. A significant portion of her practice involves preparing and coordinating retirement plan qualification filings and advising clients on legislative and regulatory developments affecting retirement plans in Puerto Rico.

Mayleen advises multinational, U.S.-based, and local employers on a variety of retirement plan matters, including plan qualification, operational compliance, amendments, mergers, spin-offs, freezes, and plan terminations. She also assists clients with the adoption and maintenance of pre-approved and master/prototype retirement plans and advises on the Puerto Rico tax treatment of retirement plan distributions and other retirement plan matters affecting Puerto Rico resident employees.

Prior to joining McConnell Valdés, Mayleen served as a Retirement Plan Specialist and later as In-House Counsel for the Fiduciary Services Division of Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, where she advised on retirement plan administration and compliance matters and participated in the maintenance, amendment, restatement, and qualification of the Popular Master Plan documents before the Puerto Rico Department of the Treasury. She authors employee benefits and tax alerts and is regularly invited to conduct seminars on Puerto Rico-qualified retirement plans, retirement plan compliance, and legislative and regulatory developments affecting retirement plans in Puerto Rico.