Ever wonder who picks up the fees on your 401k employer plan?  

Your company generally has a financial company which provides the record keeping, administration and investment options inside the plan and sometimes its difficult to understand the cost of these plans.  They are not very "transparent".  These fees can have a major impact on the performance of your account and lawsuits are common as employees try to understand all the costs.   Your company may be paying the fees or the plan participants may be picking up the tab.

Congress will address this problem next year.   Here's a look at 401k fees.

Current retirement savings law, passed in 1974, does not explicitly require 401(k) plan sponsors to disclose comprehensive information on fees, the Government Accountability Office said. "Yet even small fees can significantly affect retirement savings over the course of a career."

The GAO gave as an example a 45-year-old person who leaves $20,000 in a 401(k) account until retirement. If the average net return is 6.5 percent _ a 7 percent investment return minus a 0.5 percent charge for fees _ the account will grow to $70,500 at retirement. But if the fee is 1.5 percent, the person will have only $58,400 when he retires.