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I agree with shERPA, but they might be able to achieve the same, or mostly the same, result if they do it right. You said these people are on payroll during their probationary period, presumably that means they are employees during that period. If that is the case then you absolutely cannot disregard their service during the probationary period when determining eligibility. What you can do, if they are willing to open up to more than semi-annual entry dates, is rely on the actual maximum entry conditions under 410(a), which says that you have to become a participant no later than the earlier of the 1st day of the plan year or 6 months following the date that you meet 1 year of service and age 21. For example, they could write their plan document to say that you enter the plan on the first day of the month coincident with or next following the 1 year anniversary of the end of your probation period, or the beginning of the next plan year, if sooner. An employee hired in June 2020 would complete their probationary period in September 2020 and enter the plan October 1, 2021. That is fine, because it is less than 6 months from the day they actually completed 1 year of service, which was June 2021. However if you have someone who is hired late in the year it doesn't work right. Say you have an employee hired in November 2020, they complete their probationary period in February 2021, so you would want them to enter March 1, 2022, but they have to enter on January 1, 2022 instead, because it's the first day of the plan year.

No.

If the plan is not a 401(k), I believe you can have up to a two year wait, if you vest 100% on entry. I could be wrong.. that's why I retired 😆

Since the contracts can't be moved and the investments can't be changed, the client's only power is to approve or not approve a distribution. I suppose they would have to exercise that power in a prudent manner (i.e., not permitting a distribution that would violate the terms of the plan). But the current fiduciaries wouldn't be liable if the plan was just invested in bad investments, because they would have no power to change that. I do wonder about the potential liability of those who set up those old contracts, though. I'm old enough to remember a time when the way a 403(b) got set up was often that an insurance agent came through town and said, "I've got this great new plan that gives your employees a tax advantage and doesn't cost you anything. Just sign here and send us the money from your employees' paychecks every month." So the employer signed up for a plan that allowed only for investment in that company's annuities, without ever thinking at all about whether there were better products out there. And those annuities often had surrender charges that effectively prevented the employee from moving money out of them. Is the fiduciary from 1980 going to be held liable if someone turns up today and says, "I have a pitiful retirement account, which could have been much larger if you had stopped for one minute to figure out what a good investment would be"?

Once and a while I look. Not much rain, no flooding, no power outage guess like my retirement - no money, no fun. no nothing guess my humor hasn't changed either. Thanks for thinking of me - have a blessed day all

Here’s a link to class Prohibited Transaction Exemption 92-5: https://archives.federalregister.gov/issue_slice/1992/2/11/5018-5021.pdf#page=2 Among the conditions, the plan must pay no more than the insurance contract’s cash surrender value (or, if less, the participant’s accrued benefit under the plan).

In my experience: If an abandoned-plan investigation is open, EBSA people look at all years’ Form 5500 reports to find names of anyone who was described as acting for the plan’s administrator or sponsor, and anyone EBSA might assert had some role as an officer, quasi-officer, or some other control of the administrator or the sponsor. Sometimes, they also search public-records databases, and commercial databases. Sometimes, EBSA can be assertive. Among other abandoned-plans cases I handled, in one EBSA asserted that a former assistant vice-president who had ended all associations with the employer many years before EBSA’s contact (and also years before the employer/administrator’s business failure and abandoning of the plan) was responsible to administer her former employer’s plan. Even after we showed EBSA proof of her resignations from all possible roles with the former employer, EBSA persisted. They guessed (correctly) that their target would learn that the expense of paying me to fight the Labor department would be much more than the expense of paying me to work the final administration. The recordkeeper and the trustee, also motivated to get rid of the abandoned plan, never questioned that my client lacked authority to instruct them. That sad story told, one imagines EBSA is unlikely to open such an investigation if no participant or beneficiary has complained about being unable to get a distribution.

and if no filings are made, what are the ramifications? the plan sponsor no longer exists so there is no responsible party to go after. not filings 5500's does not DQ the plan and taint the distribution paid to last man standing. I would just walk away and let it go.

I agree with Peter. I don't see how it is the service provider's job. I am not of the opinion it is the person with the last balance in the plan's job either.

Without disagreeing with the several observations that the individual described likely is not responsible as the plan’s administrator (and without condoning the service provider’s conduct), it might not follow that the service provider has a responsibility. A service provider’s agreement might provide no obligation to file a Form 5500 report. Further, even if a service provider might volunteer, it might lack authority to file a Form 5500 report. And absent a Federal court proceeding, a service provider might be ineligible to obtain authority to file a Form 5500 report.

Not an expert on this but this sounds like an orphan plan. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-sponsor/fixing-common-plan-mistakes-using-epcrs-to-terminate-an-orphan-plan So I think neither the service provider nor the participant are responsible. I am not sure who goes to court to get someone appointed and what that costs but that seems to be the route to a solution.

It used to be that one could hire Judy Diamond to look up DOL filings. But some people believe that everything should be free.