The Wall Street Journal has given readers, especially ones hoping to retire soon, another cause for anxiety about their financial futures. The paper said Aug. 4, in “Companies Tap Pension Plans to Fund Executive Benefits,” that some big firms, in a “dubious use of tax law,” have moved “millions of dollars of obligations for executive benefits” into the traditional pension plans basically set up for lesser employees, with the aim of getting the tax breaks afforded those plans.

The WSJ explains that when companies move such benefits (thus liabilities for the company) into such plans they can then use the assets — via tax-deductible contributions — to pay for executive pensions, deferred compensation and golden parachutes, even if, as in the case of many traditional pension funds these days, the plan is frozen.

These increased costs may cause the fund to become underfunded, especially in a bear market, such as now, and have to be taken over by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. When this happens, run-of-the-mill employees can stand to lose much of their pensions.

Let us hope that federal regulators start watching all this carefully. Apparently they haven’t so far.