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He gets the greater of 2% or gateway. Remember the gateway is reduced by cash balance pay credit. Not dollar for dollar but actuarially. Also remember that the gateway offset can be based on each individual's pay credit or the average. As far as an 11g amendment is concerned some documents have an exception just for gateway and therefore no amendment would be necessary.

I had a sort-of similar case a couple of years ago. We took over a 2-person plan (one doctor and one employee) and found that the statement for the employee's account was labeled as an IRA. The prior TPA said that it was really a plan account, but mislabeled. After several hours on the phone with the investment provider, we determined that it was not a trusteed account, and there would be nothing stopping the employee from taking the money out if she chose. We concluded that if there was no trustee then it could not be part of the plan trust. The good news is we got a VCP approved pretty quickly to move it out of the IRA and into an account titled under the name of the plan. I'm not sure if this helps; in your case it sounds like the trustee probably does have authority over all of the assets if they are in a single checking account, so it's possible it could meet the requirements of a trust. The sponsor probably breached their fiduciary duty of diversification if all the assets are held in a checking account, but that is a separate matter. I agree of course with the other posters who point out that IRA can by definition not contain assets for more than one person - the "I" stands for "individual" after all. Is it possible that the client is confused about the difference between an IRA and a plan? What type of plan did they have before?

Talk to the authors of your plan document. They should tell you how to do the amendment and when people will and won't come in.

I just use Password456! for most things. See, a lot of people use Password123. I changed it up to fool the hackers.

If the account contains money of several employees, it's not an IRA.

He is not a non-resident alien without US income , but on a student visa he most likely is a non-resident alien*. *depending on the student visa type, 1-5 years before he would be considered a resident alien for tax purposes.

Both are allowable.

my 2 cents - agree with Lou S and wouldn't you have the same scenario if a plan switched from an accrued to a cash basis? I realize that would only be for the one year, but it sounds like that's what you have here as well.

The regs address the timing of the determination in: There used to be a look-back rule that determined the vested balance at the time of any prior distribution, but that was eliminated a long time ago. The preamble for the revised regs that eliminated the look-back rule has a discussion of it. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2000/07/19/00-18119/increase-in-cash-out-limit-under-sections-411a7-411a11-and-417e1-for-qualified-retirement-plans

Not that I am aware of. I typically see date of distribution as the determination date, and when I last looked at this I came to the conclusion that distributing an amount that exceeds $5,000 (or such other lower limit under the plan) would violate Section 411(a)(11)(A) (and/or the Plan), even if it was less than the limit on the date employment terminated. I don't read the rules to require that the distribution be tied to termination of employment, so a plan could provide for cash out any time the benefit is reduced below $5,000 -- i.e., once the value dips below $5,000 (e.g., e.g. due loss of market value), it is distributed. For example, if a participant takes a partial distribution 5 years after terminating employment and leaves $3,000 in the plan account, the plan can now distribute this amount without the participant's consent. On the other hand I have seen plans that require the benefit be less than $5,000 at termination, so if an amount exceed that at termination but later decreases to below the limit, it is not distributed (and also would not be distributed if the benefit increases after termination but before distribution).

I assume you've previously provided the document to the client so you could just direct him there. If the client doesn't have it you can charge reasonable fees for providing another copy. That said what comes around goes around and it's a pretty small industry. In days when it's pretty easy to just e-mail a copy of the Plan Document I typically just do so unless there are outstanding fees unpaid fees I'm trying to collect from the old client.