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1. It shocks me that Relius doesn't have it available because FTW does and I thought most of the document providers would. 2. I wasn't aware that speaking English was required to work. /sarcasm off 3. There are requirements for appropriate notices in a language if the plan covers a large enough group that is literate only in that language.

I'm not sure if you have just misunderstood the question here or if there is more to it on your end. If you think that not speaking or understanding english is going to prevent people from finding employment, you need to seriously reconsider. As Bill points out above, the plan is required to post notices in other languages if there are enough employees who need it in order to understand the notice. You cant just say "sorry, you need to learn english!" Maybe it's a product of where you live and work. I'm in the Southeast, and non-English speaking employees are just not uncommon here. In my immediate practice are, we have large communities of Spanish, Creole, and Tagalog speakers. Also consider the employees who are studying to learn English but still only have limited understanding of the language. It may be your clients responsibility to put things in a language that they do understand.

The hardship wasn't two years ago, it is still ongoing. Under safe harbor rules, its expenses for or necessary to obtain medial care. The expense still exists. 5 or so years ago, we took this a step further and asked a IRS panel the following: If a participant financed the medical care via credit card or medical loan service, is there still an eligible hardship (since they were able pay for it through other means)? Panel said yes, it was the expense of the medical care that triggered the hardship. Taking a hardship distribution to pay a credit card used to pay for medical care was still a hardship within the safe harbor rules.

I’d welcome BenefitsLink commenters’ thoughts about these questions: If a plan limits a hardship to an expense incurred no earlier than the past six (or other number of) months, is such a limit a provision a summary plan description must describe? If not, is it a restriction on a benefit that an SPD must describe? How practical would it be to do this disclosure if the plan’s administrator uses a summary plan description computer-generated by the recordkeeper’s plan-documents software?

Thought you were dealing with calendar year 2021 failure, only. With 2020 thrown in, yes, SCP. And in answer to your question: no need for VCP. HOWEVER, I'm not convinced the documenation is inconsistent with plan operation. Clearly there was some legal document signed before 1/1/2020 establishing the conjoining of A and B. Such a resolution that includes reference to a surviving match provision may be all you need.

But what if was a large bill that had say a 5 year payment plan. At the beginning of the payments he was not eligible for hardship because he has savings. Over the next two years he exhausts his savings paying off the first 2 years medical debt. Now he has no savings and is living paycheck to paycheck but still has the medical debt payments and no savings left to cover it. Or is married, with the spouse's income they can make the payments but spouse loses job and they can no longer afford the medical debt payment. Under both scenarios the participant now has an "Immediate and Heavy Financial Need"

We have used a local high school Spanish teacher for translation services for many things. We use the built in translator in word for a bulk of the translation and then have the Spanish teacher clean it up from there. We contract the service by the hour. You could contact a local high school, college or a tutor and probably find someone who would be willing to freelance and do translations. Relius does provide their website, app and VRU in Spanish, but we have not seen it with their plan document software.

Here is a similar discussion.

Both deferrals were Roth. Recordkeepers are taking the position that at this point, April 20, there is no distributable event (as noted above). No mechanism in place to "separately track". Appears that participant will likely suffer no negative consequence and ultimately receive tax-free earnings on 2 deferrals for 2020, UNLESS something results from the filing of the 1040.

I had a question come up from a staff member in essentially the same situation a few years back. FWIW, here was my take on the situation: Code § 402(g)(1)-(2) and Reg. Sec. 1.402(g)-1(e)(2) clarify that, unless timely distributed, excess deferrals are (1) included in participant’s taxable income for the year contributed, and (2) taxed a second time when the deferrals are ultimately distributed from the plan. The excessive deferrals involved in the error were not timely corrected because the April 15 deadline has already passed. Accordingly, the excessive deferrals must be taxed for the 2017 year (i.e. the year contributed) and again when the excessive deferral is distributed from the plan. If a corrective distribution is not made within the correction period discussed above, then excess deferral cannot be distributed until either (1) the distribution is otherwise permissible under the terms of the plan, or the distribution is necessary to avoid plan disqualification under Code § 401(a)(30) (note: there is not a plan disqualification issue under Code § 401(a)(30) because the error involves excessive deferrals between two unrelated plans and employers). To elaborate on this point, under Code § 401(a)(30), if the excess deferrals aren't withdrawn by April 15, each affected plan of the employer is subject to disqualification and would need to go through EPCRS. However, in the situation involving the error under discussion, the excess deferral amounts involve two unrelated plans with two separate employers. The IRS has stated on its website that “excess deferrals by a participant will not disqualify a plan if the excess is due to the aggregation of the participant’s deferrals to a plan maintained by an unrelated employer.” Accordingly, the fact that the error involves excessive deferrals among two unrelated plans/employers means that neither plan has experienced a disqualifying event because of the excess deferral. Reg. Sec. 1.402(g)-1(e)(8)(iii) allows for distributions of excess deferrals after the correction period to be distributed from 401(k) plan only when permitted under Code § 401(k)(2)(B). As discussed above, plan disqualification is not an issue; accordingly, the excessive deferral can only be distributed if permitted under the terms of the plan (i.e. termination, age 59 1/2, or other Code § 401(k)(2)(B) permissible times). Is the excess a Roth deferral? (Please say no.) If Roth, it would somehow have to be separately “tracked” so that if ultimately distributed after 5 years/59-1/2 , the excess deferral plus earnings would NOT be a qualified distribution, and would be fully taxable. I’m not sure the IRS ever fully contemplated this foolishness properly. I’m not sure I can blame them – it is a pretty wacky scenario.

Deadline not extended, 2 unrelated plans, too late to remove the funds. There is no provision in the plans to remove the funds after the deadline since they are unrelated employers. What IRS will see is that $39,000 was contributed on the W-2's. But they see similar situations often and the remedy is that the amount over $19,500 is taxed with the 1040 return. But the Roth was already taxed, so no tax implication on the 1040. I'm thinking that the best course of action is to do nothing and wait to see what IRS says when the 1040 is filed. And I'd really like to see the regulation that addresses this situation. So far, I haven't been able to find anything.

1. No, that deadline was not extended. 2. The IRS will notice the excess deferral and when it is distributed after the deadline, my understanding is that it will be treated as taxable, including its earnings, and not rollover eligible, regardless of having been deferred as Roth. So, double taxation is still the “penalty”.

As to #1 I don't think there is any time frame in the code. I believe it just says "Medical expenses (described in IRC §213) incurred by my spouse, dependents or me" of something similar. If the debt that's being paid off over time is medical in nature I don't see why that might not create a hardship down the road when the pariticpant may no longer be able to make the payments for one reason or another. As to #2, the Plan can have reasonable administrative procedures to determine which hardships they will approve and which they won't including a reasonable time frame on when expenses were occurred as long as the procedures are consistent and non-descriminatory.

I think it should be pointed out that it is a little more involved than just filling out the form. You need to put procedures in place to prevent it from happening again. It is entirely voluntary to correct using VFCP. Just be aware that they will probably start an investigation if you do not. When an earlier round of these letters came out 4-5 years ago (maybe more), ASPPA GAC protested the threatening tone of this "invitation to voluntarily participate". I believe the DOLs answer was that it would change some of the wording, but the message was that they were aware of a possible PT and an investigation may follow. @Stash026 would you be comfortable sharing some more detail? Like date of the letter and what regional office it came from?

They may or may not send more letters in the future. They may or may not also decide to audit the plan. I am not aware of anything that would allow a multiemployer plan to be exempt from the fiduciary rules that apply to plan assets, but multiemployer plans are outside my area of expertise.

Did they report late contributions on the 5500? These letters are usually sent in response to that. It's just the DOL saying, "Hey, we noticed you had some late contributions, you might want to correct the fiduciary failure under VFCP." You don't have to - the "V" stands for "voluntary," after all - but if the client wants to dot every i and cross every t they could. The fix under VFCP is basically to make up the lost earnings and pay the excise tax under IRC 4975. Hopefully the plan sponsor already did that. Then they would just need to file the VFCP form.