Leaderboard

The trustee has a fiduciary duty to determine the FMV. I doubt the county's appraisal meets that standard. They need to come up with a method that can be defended from a fiduciary's duties perspective. I would add getting this right is a more important issue if this is more then an owner plan. If there are employees in the company that aren't owners of the company and part of the value of their benefit is this land. Obviously when they get paid a distribution the right FMV is important. The last thing you want to see is at some point in the future after the rank and file have been paid the land is sold for 2x or 3x of what it had been recorded at and the owner of the company gets 100% of the wind fall. I once saw a version of that in a doctor plan.

my brief look at the "Readers Digest condensed version" would seem to imply that much of the info pertains to group health plans, which means much of the large version of 777 pages is not applicable, at least to what I do. the biggest highlight I found was the following pertaining to small plans that can't file a 5500-sf: elimination of Sched I forcing you to use sched H Under the proposal, such plans instead would be required to complete Schedule H and the Line 4i Schedules of Assets However: such plans would still be eligible for a waiver of the annual examination and report of an IQPA under 29 CFR 2520.104-46, and the number count required to determine eligibility would be changed from the number of participants at the beginning of the plan year to the number of participants with account balances at the beginning of the plan year. if that rule applies across the board to all plans, that would eliminate audits for a number of plans that have a lot of 4101k plans with non-participants.

A fair market appraisal of the the property should be used.

Noting that the IRS has had difficulty promptly adjusting their records to recognize that a Form 5558 has been filed, there should be no problem to solve. Timely filing a Form 5558 to extend the filing deadline for the 5500 and the 8955-SSA is all it takes. IRS approval is not required. If the Form 5558 is completed properly and submitted on time, the IRS has ceded all authority to reject such a filing. I'm guessing you haven't had the IRS send a letter to some of your clients claiming a Form 5500 was filed late and a penalty will apply because the IRS did not process the 5558 timely. We had one client receive two of those letters in a four year period. After getting a power of attorney signed and wasting time on hold, the matter was quickly resolved once I was able to speak to a live person at the IRS. I don't enjoy extra non-billable work and having clients think we missed a deadline that we did not miss just because the IRS waited until November to process some extensions filed in July after they sent out late filing notices in October.

Under what fiduciary process did they decide to invest plan assets in a mountain? Ick. Is this some random mountain with no significant economic potential or is it a mountain with an established hiking or skiing business? So I can sleep better, someone please tell me that the mountain was not purchased to further the economic interests of a party in interest!

Oh. My. God. You have to guess how many pages it is before you actually open It. It will be more fun that way! https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2016-14893.pdf

Dead lord do you want crashes from folks falling asleep at the wheel?

There's another good proposed change on page 133. The IRS wants to have an electronic version of Form 5558 that would be processed through EFAST2. Hopefully, that will end the 3+ months processing time we've had in prior years for the 2.5 month extensions.

Unfortunately, I would probably corrupt it into a parody based on the old alka-seltzer ad Oh What a relief it is

I nominate Tom! Sell it on Audible!

Could one of y'all read this out loud and create a book on CD so I could listen in the car?

I have to say Tom, once they let that cat out of the bag it would seem to me there would be a clamoring to get that effective 1/1/2017. OF all the changes, this seems to be the one that would be limited to changing 5 or 6 words in the instructions. No new technology, no revisions whatever to the form itself. Instant relief. I hope ASPPA pounces on this!!

These revisions, which are being proposed in conjunction with a recompete of the ERISA Filing and Acceptance System (EFAST2) contract, if adopted, generally would apply for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2019." of course the reason for the delay is so people can make comments like "But I like having to gat an audit for a plan with over 100 people and only 37 have balances" personally I would hope someone with power could get them to at least get this one provision to apply effective "yesterday". I don't think I ever used the word 'recompete', at least not like how it is used here, but I guess this particular change would be far superior than to what we have. and Austin, I think you are understating the impact!

there it is page 62 of the 777 page document - The Agencies are also proposing to change the rules for determining when a plan is exempt from the requirement to include an IQPA report with its filing. In that regard, the Agencies are proposing to add to the Form 5500 a new question, for defined contribution pension plans only, asking for the number of participants with account balances at the beginning of the plan year. Defined contribution pension plans would determine whether they have to file as a large plan and whether they have to attach an IQPA report based on the number of participants with account balances as of the beginning of the plan year, as reported on the face of the Form 5500 or Form 5500-SF. Currently, the IQPA requirement is based on the total number of participants (including those eligible but not participating in a Code section 401(k) or 403(b) plan) at the beginning of the plan year. With the changes in the reporting requirements for small plans (for example, the elimination of the Schedule I), this would minimize burden, but would still provide a picture of the types of investments and fees of small plans (plans with fewer than 100 participants that have an account balance) without requiring them to cover the cost of an audit. For first plan year filings, the plan would have to have fewer than 100 participants with account balances both at the beginning of the plan year and the end of the plan year. "and there was much rejoicing!"

I don't think this is accurate for a Roth account. Interest payments are made after tax, of course, but the earnings on a Roth account wouldn't be taxed when distributed.

A little tricky to answer without having details. So, let me see if I understand this correctly: 1. Employees were in fact allowed to defer immediately upon hire, and this can be proven via a zero election form. 2. They "may not" have been notified they were eligible for match immediately? 3. Presumably, they were given an SPD as new participants. Does this SPD correctly show that eligibility for the match includes credit for service with prior employer? If so, then I'd say the employer is on firm ground, and does not need to provide a "missed match." If not, I'd still incline toward that conclusion, but recommend SPD be updated IMMEDIATELY to correctly reflect any prior service that is credited toward eligibility for the match.