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Congratulations, Mike Preston, for receiving the Edward E. Burrows Distinguished Achievement Award from the ASPPA College of Pension Actuaries (ACOPA)! From the ASPPA web site: "The Edward E. Burrows Distinguished Achievement Award is presented annually to a pension actuary who has gone above and beyond in forwarding ethics, education, beneficial legislation or regulations that enhance the private pension system or the professionalism of enrolled actuaries within the private pension system." Here's more: http://www.asppa.org/News/Article/ArticleID/8969 Mike is an active and long-time user of the BenefitsLink message boards since 2001, having posted over 4,800 messages! His participation here on BenefitsLink has helped so many people in our industry. On behalf of them, THANKS, Mike!

That would be more of an employment agreement issue. It is common for physicians in a group to be charged with all expenses related to their benefits package. I've had the same concern that this may in fact make an otherwise employer contribution into a CODA with the inherent problems that flow from that, but I think if the employment agreement is appropriately written (BY AN ATTORNEY WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING), the employee/physicians "compensation" can be defined to be x minus y, where y is the costs associated with the benefits attributable to them. When too much "choice" is given to the physician is when you run into trouble (i.e. if the physician can "decline" a profit sharing contribution - then to me it looks like a CODA, smells like a CODA, and walks like a CODA ...).

Congratulations to Mike Preston for willing the ASPPA/ACOPA Distinguished Achievement Award. And many thanks for your years of contributions to these boards. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- August 23, 2017 -- The ASPPA College of Pension Actuaries (ACOPA) honored Michael B. Preston, FSPA, EA, MAAA with the 2017 Edward E. Burrows Distinguished Achievement Award at the ACOPA Actuarial Symposium held in Chicago Aug. 18-19. The Edward E. Burrows Distinguished Achievement Award is presented annually to a pension actuary who has gone above and beyond in forwarding ethics, education, beneficial legislation or regulations that enhance the private pension system or the professionalism of enrolled actuaries within the private pension system. “Mike Preston’s history of service to the actuarial profession made him an obvious choice to receive the Ed Burrows Award.” said Joe Nichols, former president of ACOPA and chair of the Ed Burrows Award Committee. Mike is currently President and Chief Actuary of Preston Actuarial Services, Inc. Mike has been an Enrolled Actuary for over three decades, and an ASPPA member since 1988. During this time, Mike has served in many volunteer capacities, including as a member of the ASPPA Board of Directors, editor of the Pension Actuary, and member of the Actuarial Standards Board Pension Committee. Mike served as President of the College of Pension Actuaries at the time the combination with ASPPA occurred, and became the first President of ACOPA. Mike is a frequent speaker at ASPPA, ACOPA and other actuarial conferences, and is the founder of ACOPA’s member-only listserve — an invaluable resource for hundreds of enrolled actuaries.

Thanks, everybody. As I mentioned in the other forum, it has been a hectic few days. Appreciate all the kind words.

Congratulations, Mike!!

Way to go, Mike!

Why does the match have to be determined so late? Timing of determination (calculation?) vs. timing of deposit (and deduction) are two different things. Auditors are correct in wanting to book as an accrual on 2016 F/S because it's based on 2016 deferral activity. If the plan sponsor is not determining - i.e., deciding on if and how much the match for 2016 will be until November 2017, then I think there is an issue with it being a 2016 contribution (based on 2016 deferrals) at all. I think the discretionary match must at least be declared well before then.

Congrats Mike - and thank you for always being very helpful!

Agree to disagree. Some of my most enlightened and caring clients realize that their plan is probably the only savings their employees will have in addition to SS, so they limit withdrawals to death, disability, and termination of employment.

Congrats Mike!

Congrats MP, always glean something useful from your posts.

Congrats Mike, well deserved.

Wow, that is an impressive award. Congratulations and thanks for your advice over many years, going back to PIX days. Ed Snyder

I agree with MoJo that it is a very tight line. Employer Contributions are paid directly from the company. So are employee salaries. So, you're basically saying that the employer is making a decision to pay more in employer contributions and less in salary to the participant. The key is the elimination of "choice" by the participant; which is exactly what MoJo said. Good Luck!

Congratulations!!! And thanks for all your wise advice over the years!

Ditto, and congrats!

Here's just one picture that he got....DSLR attached to his telescope, but not his laptop (so he calls it manual..usually he sets up a timing sequence through laptop software but his laptop died morning of)

Well that;s not necessarily a fair question. I have a pooled plan with $500,000, but $475,000 is the owners... And just the owner is on the investmetn committee. My historical experience is that most employees have very little interest in that sort of thing.

Another overzealous Auditor, not too surprising but there's no failure. No way it's worth the expense of a VCP filing.

However culpable the enrolled actuary may have been (an argument more to be made to the jury in a malpractice suit than to the DOL), the enrolled actuary is not a plan fiduciary and the actions that were required but not taken are the responsibility of the plan administrator. Don't expect much sympathy from the DOL if the appropriate actions were not taken as required because the plan administrator was negligent and ignorant. The DOL is not going to treat ignorance as an acceptable excuse for egregious failures. And the failures here sound egregious.