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Only match money can be used to refund a match test failure, definitely don't swap sources. But hey, just count the amounts to refund out of his prior distribution.

Very best wishes Carol and good luck with your new "venture" which is like now giving back. You've joined Fred Reish's list of now 4 people who truly retired. Sal Tripodi, Sheldon Smith and (last but not least) Karen Jordan. Again have a wonderful life and thank you.

I have a plan where an HCE took an in-service distribution of most of his account and now needs to get an ADP/ACP refund. A little money was left in his deferral source, but it is not enough to cover the excess contribution refund amount. There is plenty of money in his match source to cover both the excess contribution and the excess aggregate contribution. He is fully vested in both sources. Does anybody know of any reason I can't just take the excess deferral correction amount from the match source?

Happy retirement! I know I have a printoff of yours at least 20 years and four jobs ago detailing which Code sections don't apply to government plans, it's been a fantastic resource to have!

They should pop up if you slowly type the start of a user's name here in the comment space. @fmsinc Yours came up first on the list after I typed the @ and the f - I was given a pop-up menu of several BL users to choose from.

Thanks! And you're right--a big reason I waited this long to retire was that I didn't want to do so until I had something satisfying to do on the other side.

can they not log in to a custodian or plan website and see balances?

Okay. How do you make those nice blue stickers with, for example, @artie m? Thanks, David

Congrats! Enjoy those new challenges - I think it is important to retire TO something rather than FROM something. Good luck!

Non-elective, yes, but for nondiscrimination I think you have a problem if the amendment benefited only or primarily HCEs.

The employer wanted a list of their own active and former participants with balances

for The Finway Group (Remote)View the full text of this job opportunity

ESOP Guy, your information aids my thinking; thank you. I advise plans, typically with tens of thousands of participants, for which a plan’s administrator does almost no work beyond instructing and overseeing the recordkeeper’s services. Because a recordkeeper wants no discretion, everything has to be specified as rules-based procedures, often so a computer-system record can apply the procedure, or at least signal beginning the procedure.

We do help our clients look for lost people who need an RMD as no one likes an uncashed check hanging on the books. We don't do it until very close to the RMD date or if the check really does go uncashed.

Thank you! And I'd love to have BenefitsLink take over that page. I've e-mailed you with information. Thanks, Bill! This is definitely bittersweet for me. I've been practicing employee benefits law for 46 years now, and maintaining my site for 28, and it's hard to walk away from all that. But I am 72, and it's time for a new chapter in my life. I've been accepted as a volunteer EMT trainee with a local fire department. That will be about a year of classes, practical training, and helping out the EMTs, after which I'll be certified as an EMT myself. Some questions have been raised as to whether I actually understand the meaning of "retire," which I hear is supposed to mean relaxing and playing golf or something. But I'm excited about the new challenges.

for DWC - The 401(k) Experts (Remote)View the full text of this job opportunity

Well, this would be a wonderful thing!

Hi Carol -- We'd love to have the database and create a page on BenefitsLink, with credit to you. Let me know how I can get it and make it easy for you. What is this retirement thing of which you speak? I thought it was only mythology 🙂 CONGRATULATIONS!

Thanks Peter, I have an earlier edition of that, and also Shulman's handbook, both of which are helpful but neither of which provide much insight on this issue. I also haven't had any luck with searching similar cases on Fastcase or even Google scholar. I think that of PA's who want to insist on particular benefit division formats, most of which are reasonable, they do not get much pushback precisely because they are reasonable, and if one makes the point that under some circumstance or another that accommodation needs to made, most are reasonably accommodating. It is only in this case among the thousands of others I have come across that the PA's position is unsupportable. As none of our neighbors here have identified any authority that might support the PA's position either, I think what happens next is, if the plan's counsel wants to back the PA's decision, a judge will qualify the order, which will then be served, prequalified, on the plan. The plan will then either do the calculation or continue to refuse, prompting a formal claim for benefits, which the PA may also refuse, at which point the remaining option is federal court. My experience with federal courts is that they tend to read the federal statutes strictly, though of course past experience doesn't guarantee future results. A strict reading of § 206(d)(3)(C)'s subsection (ii), with its multiple "or"s, and a lack of published legal interpretation supporting the PA's refusal, could be helpful, but hopefully it won't get that far if the PA wants to avoid litigation. Sigh. Thank you all for your input and insights, and if you think of anything else, I'll be grateful to hear it, even if critical.

If you want to look for courts’ decisions that might help support or attack an interpretation, consider: Mark W. Dundee, Qualified Domestic Relations Answer Book https://law-store.wolterskluwer.com/s/product/qualified-domestic-relations-order-qdro-answer-bk-pen-3-mo-subvitallaw-3r/01t0f00000J3FByAAN?srsltid=AfmBOoqOrI9sEYDQdNBQKGeaMsNfmf1vqBytfIqS2U9Ir2r27Y6QV2bE. There are not many appeals opinions. A Federal district court’s opinion is not a binding precedent anywhere, not even in the same district or even with the same judge. E.g., Camreta v. Greene, 563 U.S. 692, 709 n. 7 (2011) (“A decision of a federal district court judge is not binding precedent in either a different judicial district, the same judicial district, or even upon the same judge in a different case.”, quoting Moore’s Federal Practice § 134.02[1][d] (3d ed. 2011). See also Bryan A. Garner et al., The Law of Judicial Precedent § 3 (Horizontal Precedents) at page 40 (2016) (collecting citations and quotations).

Ms Carol, I don’t blame you but this makes me very sad. That page has been saved as a shortcut on my iPhone for years. I’ve referenced it countless times. Many, many thanks for doing this and saving me a small amount of brain space to use on other issues. I hope retirement is wonderful and lasts a very long time.

Pam Shoup, yesterday’s notice of proposed rulemaking does not answer, at least not clearly, your question. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-02-25/pdf/2026-03723.pdf ERISA’s § 105(a)(2)(E) is susceptible to several possible interpretations. That might be specially so at least until the rules and other guidance Congress directs in SECURE 2022 § 338 are published, effective, and applicable. About looking to an employer for an individual’s postal address if the individual still is the employer’s employee, many employers have records that are no more complete and no more accurate than the retirement plan’s recorkeeper’s records. Some employers’ records might be more outdated, and some might have false records. ESOP Guy, for a plan that has no small-balance cash-out and has an involuntary distribution only to the extent of a § 401(a)(9)-required distribution, what do you think about a plan-administration regime that doesn’t begin its extra efforts to refresh a no-longer-employed participant’s postal address until three years before one’s applicable age—thus, for someone born in 1960 or later, don’t search until the participant reaches age 72?

You would be right @Artie M that amending a QDRO would be easier, assuming the numbers are available to an alternate payee with which to do the math. The problem arises when the denominator is not available to an alternate payee. The numbers for a benefit in pay status are always available to a PA though, in this case one who refuses to cite any authority for rejecting a coverture fraction, making writing a QDRO that carries out a garden-variety property division impossible for such an alternate payee. Do you know of any authority permitting an ERISA plan administrator to reject DB orders using such a fraction, without citing any justification other than they just won't do it?

The rule for QDROs and RMDs is odd. See https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-26/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-1/subject-group-ECFR6f8c3724b50e44d/section-1.401(a)(9)-8#p-1.401(a)(9)-8(d)(2). YOu would think that once in a separate account it would be treated as the alternative payee's, but for RMD purposes it isn't. don't know why but that is what the Reg says. The alternate payee should consider @fmsinc's suggestion and roll the account balance into an IRA or she may be subject to this same RMD treatment next year, etc. That said, probably won't help with this year as the amount that is required to be an RMD this year normally cannot be rolled over. So, there likely would be two 1099-Rs issued, one with the RMD non-eligible rollover amount and one with the remaining eligible rollover amount.

I have now retired, and will no longer be updating my site. So for all of you who have been relying on my maximum benefits and contributions page for historical limits, it is unlikely I will be updating it and I may take it down at some point. However, I do have the database with all the limits back to 1996. If anyone wants it so that they can develop their own page, let me know.