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I wonder if there is an actual entity that all have an interest in? Somehow this seems to be stretching the boundaries of separate entities and shared employees. Unfortunately I've never wrapped my head around even the basics of ASGs but this just doesn't sound quite right to me.

It all depends on what you really mean. So many words have different meaning depending on who hears them and how they are used. To me, "deconversion" is something a recordkeeper does, not a third party administrator. Of course sometimes that is one and the same. For us as a TPA firm, if someone needs documents or whatever that is already on file and easy to send; no problem and no fee. But if it is a pooled account and they want allocations as of some mid-year date, then that's essentially a valuation requiring a fee.

Just wondering if the financial institution has also confirmed that, by deciding, on their own authority, whether or not to put benefits into pay status, they have, without any doubt whatsoever, legally taken on the role of plan fiduciary? And that if there are any adverse consequences, they can be held financially responsible for their fiduciary acts?

FWIW, the 409A prohibition on extensions for NSOs and disqualifying amendment rules for ISOs would seem to me to make this a nonstarter. Seems to me the option has expired / terminated based on the clear terms of the grant notice as described above. From that description, it sounds like there was good reason / clear intent for including the earlier expiration date. I'm guessing the date just snuck up on the optionee? If that is not the case and there is some support or basis for thinking the original terms were intended to have the option expire 12/31 in all cases instead of the earlier date and you can show some clear support (e.g., board resolutions / minutes, etc.), then maybe you have an argument that this was a scriveners' error / typo and the option is still exercisable? That seems a difficult and thus aggressive argument to make though. Was this an ISO such that there would be no taxes triggered on the exercise? If so, hard to replicate that treatment but if this was an NSO (and/or the company wanted to try to provide some similar benefit to the optionee) then maybe you provide them with a restricted stock award now (fully vested) with the right to purchase the same number of shares for a purchase price equal to the option exercise price through December 31st. That should put the optionee in the same general position as exercising an NSO. Company could grant the optionee more shares and/or lower the purchase price and/or provide a bonus, etc. to the optionee to help offset immediate taxes if it was an ISO and company feels responsible or sympathetic, etc.. (Without knowing the facts though seems the onus should be on the optionee to know the terms of the award and its expiration date.)

they have revised the 2016 avg wage down from 48664.73 to 48642.15 This also changes the TWB from 128,700 to 128,400 so for the worksheet to be correct the numbers need to be adjusted

If it is a simple TPA change, there is generally not much of a charge, if one at all. If there is a recordkeeping change, then that is another question entirely.

I think you're getting at is whether or not modifying the true-up provision counts as a modification of the matching formula; in other words, whether or nor this change would fall under one of the prohibited changes outlined in Notice 2016-16, a mid-year change to modify a formula used to determine matching contributions. The "at least 3 months prior to the end of the plan year" exception would not apply in this case, given that the year is almost over (I'm assuming plan year = calendar year). To me, it does. While you could argue this is a modification of a procedure rather than of the formula per se, the result is potentially higher matching contributions to some participants as a result of a mid-year change. I don't know that the argument "well, the matching percentage specified in item X.Y of the AA hasn't changed" will hold up when the end result is additional contributions being made that were not provided for in the original document. I'm mostly concerned about who's benefiting as a result of the change. Is this mostly intended to help out HCEs who just realized they're losing out on match by contributing the 402(g) max right at the end of the plan year? Of course other people could benefit from the true-up as well, but it seems like this would raise eyebrows. The extremely limited amount of time remaining in the plan year after the notice is given further limits how much benefit NHCEs could get from the change. Maybe I'm being overly cautious, but I'd wait until 1/1/18.

We tell the Client that they need to submit an itemized written request of items missing from their files. There is no charge for providing documents at this time, but we will charge a "file retrieval fee" for requests made after a specified date. This fee is applied after we transfer the file to storage, and reflects time needed to retrieve the file. (We want ex-clients to address file items at the time service is discontinued.) Items that are saved to pdf are provided without charge, as those remain on the server in archive. We do include a section in our service agreement on this topic.

but see examples 22 and 23 of Appendix B. no mention is made that "since deferrals were deposited before the nonelective they can't come out first" Appendix B refers back to Appendix A.08 last sentence reads For limitationm years beginning on or after 1/1/2009, the failure to limit annual additions allocated to participants in a dc plan as required in section 415 is corrected in accordance with section 6.06(2) and (3) [which would be the retun of deferrals first] so unless the plan is specific and says the 'nonelective' will be capped... this was possible under the old regs 1.415-1(d)(2)