Leaderboard

For the strongly correlate with good administrators: You have to be insane (and by the way, insanity is inherited - you inherit it from your children). You have to enjoy the taste of crow, since it will become your principal food source. You must not be easily distressed by chronic foot-in-mouth disease. You must accept Dante's inscription, "Abandon all hope, Ye who enter here." An appreciation for perverse/bizarre humor is strongly advisable. You must be prepared to jettison ANY vestige of an ego. For contraindications: A sincere belief that employers generally have the best interests of their employees at heart. A strong belief that any major political party will improve the qualified plan landscape and working conditions. A conviction that you are always right.

The characterization of the remaining amounts as "trailers" is irrelevant. The money belongs to the beneficiary, either by designation or default per the plan document. Period; end of story. If the beneficiary is the estate, well that's unfortunate.

I think you are confusing 415 limits with employer deduction limits. 415 limit is the lesser of the maximum dollar amount (53,000 for 2016, 54,000 for 2017) or 100% of compensation. P.S. - I purposely didn't get into any of the possible quirks - catch-ups, compensation, etc. - just the basic.

Can a fee for QDRO review be paid with plan assets? YES Can the fee be paid as general expense (all Ps share)? YES However, any fees paid using plan assets have to be reasonable and necessary. I would have a very hard time justifying a flat $700 fee for a TPA to do a QDRO review. Others may disagree.

IAW Belgrath. The participant's 415 limit is $53,000, of which $18,000 has been used as deferrals. He can get another $35,000 in other contributions.

1) Yes, technically it is a transfer. I know there is no 1099s. I never mentioned a 1099 for this action. My terminology was imprecise, but it is clear what I was referring to. 2) What I believe the OP was suggesting was a no cost one-participant plan marketed directly to end users. For example, Vanguard Individual 401k, Fidelity Self-Employed 401k, TD Ameritrade Solo 401k, etc... None of these providers offer low cost after-tax options for small businesses let alone one-participant plans. For example, Vanguard does not offer 401k plans with their own record keeping for plans < eight (8) figures. They partner with Acensus and the minimum administrative expenses are ~$4K/year. The same is true for Fidelity and the others. If you want a one-participant/small business plan with after-tax contributions you are going to need a TPA. You are not going to be able to use their no cost marketed plan. That is my point. 3) To take maximum advantage of Notice 2014-54 in a plan with after-tax contributions and in-service withdrawals prior to 59 1/2, the participant is going to want to make at least one rollover of contributions and earnings/year. This will require one or two Form 1099-R(s) in any year you do a rollover. Let us not get lost in the weeds. My points to the OP were: There was a fairly straight forward process to change providers to a no-cost one-participant plan at major financial institutions or to a lower cost TPA. I was speculating that the administrative fees charged might be less for a plan with just a single participant owner. As far as I last knew, the mainstream providers do not offer after-tax contributions in one-participant plans they market. If someone has factual information that this has changed, I'm all ears. Short of that, the bottom line is, the OP can have free or after-tax, but not both. I admit I was imprecise in the details, but could we be constructive/helpful and direct the OP to a moderate cost option.

What you described would not be a problem. It is very common for cash balance plans to have different formulas for different people.

Even in the old days (and continuing today) it was/is never correct to file a 5500 and Schedule I or H for the FSA part of a cafeteria plan unless someway/somehow the employer was silly enough to set up a Trust and segregate "plan" assets from the employer's general assets. What the agencies realized was it was pretty silly to require cafeteria plans (whether or not they included a FSA) to file a 5500 and Schedule F (I think it was). So I wouldn't amend or resurrect any prior year filings.

Always issues in offering individual coverage. First 125 plan has to provide for it. Second the dental would have to be an excepted benefit under HIPAA/ACA (probably is). If it was not then you may have employer payment plan issues. See e.g. Notice 2015-87, ACA FAQs Part XXII. Third offering it through a 125 plan arguably takes it out of voluntary benefits exemption form ERISA so there could be ERISA issues (plan document SPD). Finally also a question of whether this is now part of group coverage and covered by COBRA. (How do you offer COBRA for an individual policy?)

Back when I owned a TPA firm, we used several tests. Over the years we got better at understanding the results ourselves, but we always went over them with our consultant. He was an expert in these and made sure that our use of them was legal, and helped interpret, especially when he also interviewed the person (generally by phone). We felt the benefit to us was worth it, especially for the more key positions in the firm. There are some key traits that strongly correlate with good administrators, and there are a couple that are contraindications for this work.

I don't practice in the 401(k) area, but wouldn't collecting salary reduction amounts and finding suitable investment vehicles for those amounts essentially be two, independent, functions? I don't see why not being able to invest the funds with the specific investment house should get in the way of having people sign up for salary reductions (let alone making it impossible for people to defer) and implementing those elections. Are there no banks in the area that could hold those funds temporarily?