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If your final 5500 shows assets and a liability for the uncashed check for net assets of zero, you will probably hear from the IRS. We had one like that get selected for their terminated plans project. They initially insisted we amend the final return to not be final and file a final return for the following year. At that point, the following year return would have been late. It worked out ok in the end, but it was a pain. In your situation, I would rather file as not final for 2016 and file a final return for 2017 for several plans than take a chance on having to deal with the IRS again for one plan.

If RIAs could display performance based on current allocations' historical returns then everyone would show the same returns (which would consist of the best performers over the last 1, 3, 5, 10 years).

I think it was distributed. if you don't cash your paycheck it is still taxable. I would file 2016 as the final. I would have no problem explaining what happened after the fact - a check was re-issued.

I think your boss is right. If you are creating the model portfolio, and making decisions about the content of the portfolio, then you should be showing actual results. You appear to be talking about subtle changes, but suppose you had an "aggressive" portfolio that was invested in an S&P 500 fund for a year, and the fund lost 20%. If you then change the portfolio to cash, or a short fund, you'd be able to show no loss or even gains on the model. Not in the least bit accurate; it's like retroactively changing the results for a mutual fund by changing the investments to something that "could have been."

HA! Not for this TPA!

Chip Brown, I agree with your comment, this will typically be the case in a well drafted Plan that participants whose accounts were forfeited (including 0% vested deemed cash-outs) would not have to be vested in a subsequent partial plan termination. The original question dealt with this scenario where the terminated participant had already taken a distribution so I think Chip's comment answers the question.

We have an extensive online listing of upcoming webcasts and conferences: https://benefitslink.com/cgi-bin/events/index.cgi Maybe I should have the sponsors indicate whether the event provides CE credit!

It's now officially okay to add Roth provisions any time during the plan year, even if the plan is a Safe Harbor 401(k) plan. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/a-07-59.pdf You can also amend a Safe Harbor plan's existing hardship provisions during the year and not lose Safe Harbor status. This would be to allow the plan to treat a participant's beneficiary the same way as a participant's spouse or dependent for purposes of being eligible to receive a hardship distribution. This is an optional provision.