Tampa Bay Times requests waiver from pension payment in 2012

The Tampa Bay Times is asking the IRS to waive the newspaper’s 2012 payment into the pension fund, which currently has enough money to pay benefits for 11 years. The request to suspend pension contributions is “very common,” says Poynter media business analyst Rick Edmonds, and not just in the newspaper industry. The Poynter-owned paper has a better-funded plan than most, Edmonds also said. If the IRS grants the waiver, it would save the company from paying $11 million into the fund this year. “Coming up with that money would require measures harmful to the company and its employees,” Times CEO and Chairman Paul Tash said in a letter to members of the Times Publishing pension plan.