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Again, because they won't correspond with you, it's possible they don't have (or haven't approved) the draft DRO as being a valid QDRO (does NOT matter if the court signed it, since the company must review it for compliance with the plan itself). Now, you state there has been a change of corporate structure/merger, etc. This is another reason for you to be skeptical that the company has the information. Send it again, with a polite cover letter that the original may never have been received/filed/approved. Keep copies of what you sent. Date everything. Important: if the draft is approved or not, they will tell you. If you have never received any confirmation, you should be very skeptical that the process has been completed.

Not many people recall that the actor Fredric March was into apiculture. He kept several hives of bees and produced honey for many of his friends. Fredric's friend, Sid Caesar went to visit him in his apiary one spring day but was unable to locate the bee colonies. He did, however, encounter one of the busy little insects gathering pollen on a nearby flower so Caesar stopped and asked, "Bee, where're the hives of March? .......... It's a little known fact that Julius Caesar did NOT die from stab wounds, but rather he died from envy. Caesar and Brutus were master harpists and were often seen in fierce competition. However, Brutus was more skilled as a composer, giving him an advantage. Caesar began to lose the battle against the brilliance of Brutus. Caesar could surpass Brutus only in arpeggios. However, to Caesar's dismay he saw that Brutus had produced a masterful practice composition designed to improve his own arpeggios. That was the straw that broke Caesar's spirit. He died shortly thereafter, saying to Brutus with his dying breath, "Etude, Brutus?"

Classroom blunders: History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlics in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

the question needs to be rephrased. a plan fails the test, so $x due to deferrals needs to be returned. can't change that fact. but what you are really asking is "when calculating the amount of gains, due you treat the $x of deferrals as being first in or first out?" 1.401(k)-2(b)(2)(iv)(B) says "A plan may use any reasonable method for computing the income allocable to excess contributions... 1.401(k)-2(b)(2)(iv)© provides the safe harbor method for calculating gains, e.g. numerator = excess amt, denominator = (beg balance + total contributions) I think, at least the software I am familiar with, an adjustment is made for other things like possible distributions taken during the year, which falls within the "any reasonable method" would it be reasonable to say "It is only the last defer that caused the plan fail so it should only be gains on that paycheck", but that really isn't quite true as the plan is tested over the whole year. so you have 2 HCEs, one deferred 10,000 on Jan 1 and the other deferred 10,000 on Dec 31. plan fails and refund is required, arguably it is not the first one HCE that caused the plan to fail only the second HCE and that at the moment he deferred, not before then - then how would you calculate gains on the first HCE.

Back when refunds were taxable in the year deferred and not the year received and you had non-calendar year plan issues they were done on a FIFO basis. I'm not sure it matters anymore since for gain/(loss) calculation you just apportion a percentage of the gain/(loss) for the year to the refund. At least that's the way we do it.

What you're missing is that there are humans involved.