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Are you ASP or installed? If you are ASP, you can go to Utilities / Update Global Tables from the main menu and run the update. (I could never find the two tables they referenced so I just went with the update button and it seemed to work.) You don't need to manually enter any numbers. The first time you run the update, it will update to the currrent month. Afterwards, you MUST run the utility every month. Also, the disclosure reports cannot currently be appended to a crystal report, do print in SSN order and do print for all participants, even those with a zero balance. The last RVUG virtual conference did a review of how to edit the crystal report to at least do them in alpha order and remove the zero balance people. RVUG posted the last webinar on their site and you should be able to access it for free. The third hour of the webinar has a demo of how to update the report. Reiius told us in the webinar that they are placing the rates in the Tables by the 5th of each month.

Why? They are rollovers not plan to plan transfers. I thought it was just Top Heavy that was an issue with respect to Related/Unrelated rollovers whether or not you include the balances.

The IRS Plan Fix-It Guide covers this topic: https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/401k-plan-fix-it-guide-eligible-employees-were-not-given-the-opportunity-to-make-an-elective-deferral-election-excluding-eligible-employees#:~:text=Generally%2C if you didn't,for the missed deferral opportunity.

Glad they are your client and not mine! @Nate Smentions amending the plan to be a 5% safe harbor match, but I believe you had to make that amendment by the last day of the following play year, which would have been December 31, 2021. I think you will run into issues even if you say the extra 1% is a discretionary match. Basically any participant who deferred less than 5% likely did not receive the 1%. Or at least not the full 1% if they deferred between 3% and 5%. Have to also consider if the discretionary match is based on a pay period or plan year. If plan year, you may have catchup contributions to consider as well. Not to mention the headache if a participant has left in the meantime and already rolled their funds out of the plan. May be worth talking to ERISA counsel on this one.

Just to be clear this is a DRO and it was a court that approved it? I ask because I see on a regular basis state departments of family services make claims they are the legal right to get plans to pay child support and they make it look a lot like a DRO. Read very carefully it can be found they are not a DRO and in fact if one thinks about the language used is is actually kind of vague on the actual authority the state is claiming they have. This is always about child support. So any more my radar goes off when I hear child support and dispute.

When a domestic relations order is determined to be qualified, notice is given. That presents an objecting party an opportunity to file a claim for benefits under the plan's claims procedures. One way to frame the claim in this case is that the participant (claimant) asserts that the participant is entitled to the benefits awarded instead to the alternate payee. In this case, because the participant has been making so much noise already, evidently before the determination, the appropriate fiduciary (the "Administrator") could contact the participant in connection with the notice of determination and either 1) advise that the plan will treat the noise as a claim, but invite the participant to follow the claims procedures, at least to the extent of formalizing, clarifying, and supplementing the record as to exactly what the claim is, or 2) acknowledge the noise and advise that the matter should be taken up now under the claims procedure, and provide information about how to prosecute the claim (e.g. where to find or obtain the written the claims procedures). Note that I am not asserting anything about the conduct of the consideration of the claim, such as whether or not the Administrator will look into the bona fides of the court action or simply consider if the formalities of qualification have been satisfied. The claims procedure is the appropriate avenue for challenge/argument and the best way to rein in the participant. Under the claims procedure, the participant is sooner or later entitled to see all the documents relevant to the consideration and decision, so once the participant is channeled, the Administrator should be liberal, which in the end will slam the door tightly shut. Any payments under the QDRO usually should be suspended pending resolution, which should be pursued expeditiously.

That mariemonroe posted a query under a forum about executive compensation and Internal Revenue Code of 1986 § 409A suggests that the issues might be different than those one might consider for a § 401(a) retirement plan.

A few points the plan’s administrator might want its lawyer’s advice on: Read carefully the administrator’s procedure for handling domestic-relations orders. Ordinarily, a path is to follow the procedure (except to the extent that the procedure is contrary to ERISA’s title I, or contrary to the plan). If the administrator does not follow the procedure, it might consider putting in writing (with its lawyer’s help) the administrator’s fiduciary reasoning for not following the procedure. I heard in a recent ASPPA CE course that some administrators’ procedures call for not paying immediately on an order the administrator decided is a QDRO, instead waiting some number of days (for example, 30 or 60 days) selected to make it somewhat likely that the order is final and nonappealable. This is not advice to anyone.

OMG is it possible to like your post 50 times?

Well it's not a QDRO when the plan first gets it. The Plan Administrator has to determine it's Qualified and most plans have a process by which that happens including notifying all parties. I recommend following those procedures.

Who is "we"?

Data entry -> Tables -> Actuarial -> Table Entry When the window comes up, choose "table type" of Mortality, and then scroll through your list of Available Tables. CBZ's spreadsheet still had the 2021 mortality table in there.

Yes, you would need to test ACP; you can test either the 1% excess itself or test the combined match. The safe habor match is excluded from testing up to 6%; if they are intent on doing the 5% match then it can be amended mid-year to increase the basic safe harbor formula to a 5% enhanced safe harbor match.

As BenefitsLink now shows, the IRS extends relief from "physical presence" before a notary or plan representative through December 31, 2022. Employee Benefits: News, Regs, Analysis, Laws, Surveys and Policy (benefitslink.com)

Yeah, I have never found good guidance on how to test this if it was decided it had to be tested. I know way back we basically did a very binary 1/0 test. If the person was getting the better benefit they got a 1. If they got the lessor benefit they got a 0. We averaged the HCEs and the NHCEs and it was within 70%. I know that is the coverage ratio test but we had something that showed the HCEs were well represented in both groups.

How about 80% based on most recent valuation, subject to true-up after the next regular valuation, subject to further discretionary reduction (e.g. 75%) in case of a black swan market. Of course, the plan needs this in writing, such as the investment policy or distribution policy, supported by plan terms that provide for such written policies of the fiduciary, or the plan document itself (but good luck unless you you have a custom document). Probably too late to add for the current transaction at this point. It should have been part of the plan design whenever the pooled fund began. This issue has been around forever. Maybe the plan has some general language built in for fiduciary discretion that can be stretched to fit.

The prior thread with a spreadsheet that computes the amount. I assume you would still need to update the monthly interest rate that is based on one of the US Treasury bill/bonds. We have put numbers in this spreadsheet and what is coming off our software and get the same results.

Check Revenue Procedure 2021-30. I don't think your case falls into on that is specifically addressed but I do think you fall into an Operational Failure than the can be corrected under Self Correction under the Rev Proc if you follow the timing in 9.02 which it seems you have (assuming you've credited lost earnings for the late deposit). Though I'm not an attorney so you should probably run it by ERISA counsel before making a final recommendation to the client.