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for NPPG (Remote / Shrewsbury NJ)View the full text of this job opportunity

There has been some discussion on that before in this forum. The consensus seemed to be that this is definitely a gray area and that the amendment and document language matters - meaning either interpretation is possible. You could likely amend to unfreeze if needed to accomplish your objective, if not for the entire benefit formula at least for average compensation.

125 contributions are pre-tax and not subject to FICA/Medicare as you note. Typically, a W2 compensation definition will specifically say, somewhere and somehow, that 125 and all sorts of other pre-tax deferrals are included (or excluded). Are you looking at an IDP? If pre-approved, look at the BPD, and you may need to bounce around for definitions within definitions. There are also some plans that intentionally use W2 taxable wages, although not common.

Hi, Thank you as always for all the insights. Can a Hard Frozen DB Plan, (that is owner only), take into account salaries that were taken during the current frozen years. Not to increase the benefits of course, as the plan is hard frozen. Rather, to increase the salary average. The owner is past retirement age and is receiving each year an actuarial increase on his A/B, since he is not taking benefits yet (although plan allows for in service distributions after NRA). However, the AB cannot be increased beyond 100% of average compensation. Therefore, if the salary average is allowed to be increased based on current salaries (even though plan is frozen), then the annual increase on the AB can keep going up until the new higher salary average. Thank you

All of that needs to be sorted with a family law/ divorce lawyer first. If the divorce lawyer needs help from an ERISA attorney should know that they don't know enough and suggest additional counsel. Once an agreed upon DRO is written - that conforms to whatever the property agreement (original or updated etc) has in it - if there are issues getting the money out of the account for Person B - THEN the plan gets involved. Is the split in the property settlement agreement appropriate given all the new information? - not a question for these boards or the plan Does the DRO reflect the 401(k) award amount/value in the property settlement agreement ? - not a question for these boards or the plan, get an attorney or accountant who specialize in that to review Is the DRO accepted as qualified by the Plan? - that's a question for the Plan Administrator. If Person B doesn't like the answer, or isn't getting a response, they need to request a copy of the QDRO policy If person B wants to contact EBSA - they certainly could. None of the background information matters to EBSA. They would need to tell EBSA the date they presented the DRO to the plan, or the date the plan was notified there might be a QDRO, the date they requested a copy of the plan's QDRO policy in writing, and then any communication they received from the plan in response either saying no, we aren't giving you a copy, or you aren't entitled to it etc. If a participant/beneficiary is entitled to a plan disclosure, document, SPD etc, and they requested it and haven't received it, then I've seen good success when EBSA contacts the sponsor / plan admin to get it. and then EBSA forwards it on to that person. The QDRO procedure isn't going to tell person B if the stuff in the DRO is correct in regards to the dates, values, etc. Its going to say what the plan will do, notices, etc if a DRO is presented for the plan to accept as qualified or deny it as not. If the property settlement awarded half the 401(k) to person B, as of that date, then the DRO might be fine. Sounds like Person B might have wanted marital assets split differently if they knew the full picture, include a different portion of the 401(k). All that needs to be ironed out first.

Can W-2 Compensation ever include Section 125 pre tax medical/cafeteria contributions? If I understand correctly, Sec125 Comp is exempt from Fed/FICA taxes so is not reported at all in Box 1, 3, 5. However, a plan doc I'm looking at says in the definition of Total Comp that Total Comp = W-2 Comp, which includes elective deferrals and Sec 125 pretax contributions. Mid day confusion here.

Hi QDROphile and justanotheradmin, thank you, I will do my best to answer all the questions you have asked in your latest responses. Background information as to why Person B is asking for legal help. The company that Person A works for and owns changed during the divorce from a S corp to a C corp and then back again after the divorced finalized Person A filed, during the divorce and while still LEGALLY married and against the judges order, a tax return as a SINGLE filer After years of filings and back and forth, Person B finally received this illegal tax filing in the end of summer 2025 The tax filing uncovered that Person A, not only hid assets but sold marital stocks and other things during the divorce and hid them Person A has not updated their income with the State of Wisconsin since May 2021 (you are required to do so every time your income changes) Given, the new information acquired Person A lied about hundred of thousands of dollars in assets both during and after the divorce along with underreporting their income by tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Person B has not, nor anyone representing them signed off on the QDRO that was filed in 2022, they have not received any money from the account The filed QDRO was for 50% of Person A’s 401k account as of May 2021 The value of the account as of the valuation date was ~$360,000 The Plan 401k assets are held with Ascensus Person B had been in contact with their financial advisor in Summer of 2025, who instructed them on getting plan documents and account statements from Person A before signing off on any QDRO and as of writing this has not received them all still In Short, Person B can’t be sure that any information in regards to the filed QDRO is correct, they are missing the key piece of information (QDRO procedure document), as has been pointed out. As QDROphile suggested in his second response, Person B has been already been looking and meeting with lawyers to hire, in order to file and reopen the case to get a new judgement. In doing that, Person B is wondering if they should also hire a QDRO or ERISA lawyer on top of the divorce lawyer. Thank you.

Does it already allow for elective deferrals or is it just PS at this time?

you haven't said what the actual issue is - has Person B received money and they disagree with the amount? They don't like how the DRO was drafted? Are you saying the DRO was never signed or reviewed by Person B or their legal representative? If they have a copy of the DRO - and it is doesn't agree with their property settlement agreement - that needs to be addressed. The plan doesn't get involved with that, and the plan's QDRO procedures don't matter for that part. Bottom line - if there is an issue with the language in the DRO - specifically the asset value award - that probably has nothing to do with the plan's QDRO policy. You haven't said where the money is held either. If it is someplace like American Funds, or Hancock, etc when the distribution / segregation of accounts form is submitted they will often do the calculation for the plan administrator. You ask what legal action can be taken - What issue is it that Person B would want a remedy that the PLAN has anything to do with? Failure to receive a copy of the QDRO procedure? Failure of the Plan Administrator to correctly apply the asset valuation / award that was specified in the DRO? - then that's a math problem. See my earlier reply for suggested steps. If the issue is the DRO has the wrong amount(date) in the order, that's not a Plan problem, that's something they need to take up with whoever is helping them with the assets in the divorce. Either what you are wanting help on - has nothing to do with the plan - and is out of scope of these message boards - or, you haven't given the information needed to make it clear to the folks reading that there is an issue with the plan.

I'd be using Excel's "text to columns" feature to be able to generate a CSV file from the original TXT, but that's because I prefer delimiters to fixed-width.

Might the pastor's choices be expressed in the form of a salary-reduction agreement that states a proper elective deferral?

DSG, here’s what I see on a quick surface reading. (I’ve never had the United States as my client, and so have never advised anyone about any Federal governmental plan.) A part 838 section states: “Claimants are responsible for—(a) Filing a certified copy of court orders and all other required supporting information with OPM[.]” 5 C.F.R. § 838.123(a), https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-5/part-838/section-838.123#p-838.123(a) (emphasis added). Some might interpret that sentence to grant OPM some discretionary authority to say what “supporting information” OPM reasonably, or at least not capriciously, “require[s]”. One might imagine OPM could require a settlement agreement if the order an applicant seeks to get treated as a COAP merges in or “incorporates by reference” the settlement agreement. And one might imagine OPM could require a settlement agreement if the order an applicant seeks to get treated as a COAP refers to the settlement agreement and the court’s order would or might be incomplete without the settlement agreement. A CSRS/FERS Application for Court-Ordered Benefits for Former Spouse [https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf3119.pdf] suggests OPM’s reviews of domestic-relations orders might be based on such an interpretation: “Supporting documentation must be submitted with this application. . . . . Additionally, all documents referenced in the court orders must be included as well as . . . divorce decrees[.] Divorce decrees include . . . the Property/Marital Settlement Agreement[.] . . . .” (emphasis added). Beyond that, one might imagine OPM uses some beyond-the-rule practices. To help you consider whether OPM properly can require a settlement agreement not needed to make the State court’s order complete, ask yourself this: What documents would an applicant furnish had the divorcing litigants never agreed on a settlement and instead the State court decided the allocations of property between the former spouses? If your client is the former spouse, strongly prefers not to furnish the settlement agreement, and you believe OPM ought not to need the settlement agreement to decide that the State court’s order is a COAP (particularly if the order does not refer to the settlement agreement): Evaluate whether you as your client’s representative might submit an application that includes the State court’s order but omits the settlement agreement. If OPM finds the order is acceptable, your client will have a welcome answer. If OPM finds the order not acceptable, OPM must “provide the specific reason(s) for disapproving the application.” That might help you learn why OPM thinks a settlement agreement is needed. Or, if OPM’s finding (after all layers of within-the-agency review are exhausted) is capricious, that might set the stage for your client’s action for a Federal court to vacate OPM’s decision. This is not advice to anyone.

Employer establishes a church plan and doesn’t elect ERISA. Pastor is paid $100,000 a year; with a 10 percent employer contribution to a 403(b) plan. Pastor is expected to be paid this amount for each of five years. In year one, past says, don’t pay me $100,000 in year 2; pay me $90,000; and the rest as an employer contribution so as to total $110,000; In a similar manner, in year 3 pay me $80,000 and year 4 $70,000 with the remaining amounts in employer contribution so as to total $110,000. What, if anything, is wrong with this design?

for NPPG (Remote / Shrewsbury NJ)View the full text of this job opportunity

for NPPG (Remote / Shrewsbury NJ)View the full text of this job opportunity

Is there something that Person B thinks is wrong with what the purported QDRO awards to person B? Is there something that Person B thinks wrong with what the divorce decree (or whatever it is called in Wisconsin) awarded to person B? I am having difficulty with understanding what the real problem is (though I grant you that Person A is in a ticklish position and does not seem to be acting beyond reproach). If Person B thinks they are getting the wrong amount, then they either (1) file a claim under the plan's claims procedures (which will force the plan to give an explanation about the plan's position on qualification and interpretation of the order, with reference to plan and QDRO Procedures terms), or (2) go back to divorce court to amend that court's order (which will involve both Person A and Person B), write a new proposed QDRO that implements the now correct award, and submit the new proposed order to the plan for qualification. #1 will require an ERISA lawyer because claims get you into part of ERISA other than section 206(d)(3) and that is possibly the first step to yet another legal proceeding. #2 probably gets you both the divorce lawyer and the QDRO lawyer because it is essentially a do over -- and hopefully will be done right. The valuation date is not something that can be manipulated to screw anyone. A competent QDRO professional should be able to get to the amount (or a reasonable approximation) that the alternate payee is awarded in the divorce no matter how the plan frames valuation dates.

Hi QDROphile and justanotheradmin, thank you for your responses. The issue that Person B is having is that they divorced Person A; Person A is the Plan participant, the plan administrator, the plan trustee and part owner of the company. Person A, submitted the DRO, to themselves as plan administrator and then approved it and filed it with the courts, so there is an QDRO signed by Person A, their lawyer and the judge. They did this without sharing any plan documents with Person B. Person B only saw the three documents I mentioned in my original post almost 4 years later. The SPD provided by Person A to Person B states "Domestic Relations Orders - "You may obtain, without charge, a copy of the Plan's QDRO procedures from the Plan Administrator". However, Person A has never given over that document (if it exists) and claims that Person B has all the information needed. Both of you say this is a must have. Without the plan QDRO procedures document, it sounds like Person B can't be sure Person A is being truthful when the DRO was created in the first place. From my original post, the valuation date of the QDRO is in May 2021, the Adoption Agreement states that the valuation date criteria changed to be "each business day". So did Person A, since they are in charge of the plan/company change the rules of the plan in order to screw over the alternate payee, Person B? Who is to say that prior to the Adoption Agreement the valuation date wasn't "end of year" and it was changed to hurt Person B. Based on my own research, most of the times when the Plan Administrator gets divorces someone else involved with the plan/company would handle it to avoid conflicts of interest, this obviously did not happen and if it did, anyone else that is qualified to do so is a blood relative of the Plan Administrator.

Thank you everyone for your input. I understand and use ASC's predefined asset import routines. What I'm specifically referring to is the *.txt account activity files provided to us by ADP and Paychex when we takeover one of their plans. The information cannot be imported into ASC in its current format. I don't have Python or Claude programming skills, nor the time to learn, so I'm probably going to have to outsource this project to someone who can do it for me. I would appreciate any recommendation you have. Thank you.

David Rigby, for many States’ and political subdivisions’ employee-benefit plans, an agency or instrumentality that administers a plan might be permitted or mandated to make plan-administration procedures by making and publishing a rule or regulation under an administrative-procedure act and other law that governs the government’s other executive agencies. So, writings an ERISA-governed plan’s administrator might call a claims procedure or a QDRO (or QCMSO) procedure might, if made for a governmental plan, be compiled in the State or local government’s code for rules and regulations. For some plans for Federal government employees, rules for a “Court order acceptable for processing” are compiled in the Code of Federal Regulations at title 5, chapter I, subchapter B, part 838 (Court Orders Affecting Retirement Benefits)—5 C.F.R. §§ 838.103 to 838.1121.

When a DRO is signed - and the asset valuation date (via date or otherwise) are two different things. The DRO might say the alternate payee gets 65% of the vested benefit as of November 17, 2019, with adjustments for earnings thereafter, but the actual DRO might be signed and recorded with the court years later. And the actual split of the money might be well after that. TL:DR Present the DRO - ask for copies of the QDRO policy and ETA on decision - get decision - get forms to get money out. Person B can perhaps start by giving a copy of the DRO that was filed with the court to the Plan Administrator (this person, can be an entity, business is usually listed in the SPD). If it is the EMPLOYER it is helpful if it is going to someone whose responsibilities include the retirement plan. Person B might want to include a cover letter with the DRO - asking for a copy of the plan's QDRO procedures/policy, and confirmation that the DRO has been received by the Plan Administrator and that it will be reviewed. Ask for an ETA on when the DRO will be accepted as Qualified, or rejected. And include where the written acceptance or rejection should be sent to notify the alternate payee. Keep notes - and dates - and copies of correspondence. When the ETA passes - and no Acceptance or Rejection is received in writing - ask for an update, in writing. If DRO is accepted as Qualified - the Plan Administrator(or perhaps a recordkeeper) calculates how much the current account belongs to the alternate payee, and the segregates or tracks it separately. Then the alternate payee asks for a distribution form, and can do whatever the plan allows with the money, often rolling it out into their own IRA. If the alternate payee disagrees with the amount that was segregated - then they can ask for supporting documentation, such as statements or what formula was used to arrive at the split amount. How much detail they receive will vary a lot based on a variety of factors. You do not mention where the plan's money is held. None of this is legal advice. Just a simplification of what to actually focus if someone wants to get the plan to review a DRO.

CFR? Really? You are stating/suggesting that the (missing) guidance is a regulation? Just a guess, I would expect it to be an administrative procedure. In writing.

Seeing how popular the standard safe-harbor match was in the past and now the QACA, I was shocked when a client told me that Gusto Payroll cannot incorporate a tiered match formula into its system, and that the client (or we, as the TPA) would need to do it manually. Has anyone encountered this limitation with Gusto before? What is common among payroll companies/software?

First, an overview observation, and then an attempt to give a helpful answer. As someone that you might refer to as a QDRO lawyer, I see a lot of information and query that I think is very unlikely to matter in terms of determining whether or not the domestic relations order is a QDRO, including different vintages of plan document. A 401(k) account is a relatively easy thing to divide from a qualification perspective, assuming conventional liquid assets. Plan terms usually have no substantial effect. Because of the excess of text that appears to be irrelevant, it seems that there is a lot of confusion. The confusion also appears involve identification of the relevant “fiduciary” or fiduciaries who will be responsible for cutting through all of the noise and making decisions about the domestic relations order as qualified or not. The usual circumstances relating to a QDRO involve two pieces: (1) what part of the 401(k) account will the alternate payee get? This has everything to do with the divorce settlement and not necessarily anything to do with the terms of the 401(k) plan (except maybe vesting). The plan is totally agnostic about what the alternate payee should receive, except that the alternate payee cannot receive an amount or type of benefit that the plan does not provide for (which is a qualification matter and almost never an issue with a 401(k) plan). For determining the amount that the alternate payee should receive in the greater scheme of things, the parties need domestic relations lawyers to come up with a domestic relations order that I will refer to as the “divorce decree” which may or may not be the domestic relations order that is submitted to the plan to end up with a QDRO (probably not; see the explanation below about the role of the QDRO lawyer). (2) A domestic relations order (DRO) must be submitted to the plan in order to tell the plan what the divorce decree specifies to be the interest in the plan awarded to the alternate payee. The DRO must set forth the information that the relevant statutes require, which neatly corresponds to the information that the plan administrator (or other QDRO fiduciary) actually needs to administer the DRO and give the alternate payee what the divorce decree has determined that the alternate payee should get. Unfortunately, a QDRO lawyer (or other competent professional) may be required to make sure that the formal qualification requirements are satisfied. A QDRO lawyer will be concerned with plan terms, but, as mentioned before, plan terms usually have little effect. An experienced QDRO lawyer can probably put together a perfectly good domestic relations order while being almost blind to plan terms — not that they actually would. A QDRO lawyer is indifferent to the settlement terms that relate to what the alternate payee “should” receive from a 401(k) plan as long as the “what” is expressed in the divorce decree as a dollar amount or a percentage of the account balance as of a particular date. Valuation dates may be a matter affected by plan terms, which gets us to: (3) A common arrangement is for the domestic relations lawyer to have an association of sorts with a QDRO lawyer (or other professional) to make sure that the divorce decree defines the alternate payee’s interest in the plan in a way that can be implemented by the plan, such as by specifying a valuation date that is workable for the plan. The QDRO lawyer then drafts a domestic relations order that meet the qualification requirements to become a QDRO. So, the answer to your question is: both, especially since there seems to be so much confusion about what matters or not, and people seem to be enmeshed in a probably unnecessary push/pull. I am not unmindful of the misfortune that something that is conceptually quite simple ends up needing the assistance of expensive professionals to make things “right” whether or not anyone is made happy. Important addendum: No mention has been made of an extremely important document that plans are required to have: written procedures on qualified domestic relations orders (QDRO Procedures). If I were to have only one document from the plan, that is the one that I would request. However, while that document should be the most important and informative of all plan documents, that document often sucks and will disappoint. The QDRO Procedures may be incorporated into an SPD.

for Compass (Remote / Stratham NH / Hybrid)View the full text of this job opportunity

Greetings All! This is my first post, but I've been using Benefitslink since 2001--and I love it! I’ve worked in the retirement industry for over 25 years with 401(k) providers and a TPA firm that was later acquired by a recordkeeper. My experience includes onboarding, client account management, reconciling plan records, and handling 5500s and compliance testing. I understand the business from sales through servicing. I’m interested in starting a TPA at some point, and I want to know the actual steps to get started. For those who’ve done it, what does the beginning really look like and where should someone start? Thank you,