Leaderboard

But the gist of this thread is that if participants actually rolled the money over, having been offered all options and waiving the annuity benefit, then it lost the MP flavor and is not subject to J&S. If the money was transferred and they didn't have to waive the annuity benefits (and get spousal waiver if applicable), then it was something other than a rollover. We generally did these as mergers.

Who is "us" in this scenario? Plan administrator? TPA? Recordkeeper? Was the DRO accepted as qualified before the death of the alternate payee? Does the DRO itself address what happens if the alternate payee dies before the distribution date?

I found what I need by the way. If you are good with Crystal what you can do is: 1) Copy the DOLLifetimeIncome.rpt from the R drive (if you use ASP) to your custom reoprts folder 2) Edit the report to be whatever you need including just an export of the Lifetime Income amounts, and all other figures (interest rates, etc). 3) You have to add the custom report to the same Participant Certificate folder where the Relius standard Lifetime Income report is saved. It will not run under the normal Custom report window. With that you can pretty much do anything you want, including sorting it alphabetically and suppressing those with no balances.

Not necessarily. They could use those funds to pay fees. So, there is a reduction in cost to the ER. Or the ER can use the funds to supplement the contribution, thus getting a higher allocation with the same deductible contribution.

I don't see why you would need to test ACP. The discretionary match is 1) not matching on deferrals greater than 6%, nor is the match 2) greater than 4% of pay.

Exactly. All Qs raised should be addressed in the QDRO procedure, which I believe is a requirement (to have a QDRO procedure).

I agree with Lou S. If it says "rollover" of either type, then you should be able to take that at face value and not worry about the sources. If it was MP money voluntarily rolled over, I'd like to think we would ID it as such and not call it rollover. Having said that, I believe we have a situation or two where we do call transferred money "rollover" because it is easier - but only if it doesn't really matter based on money type.

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.

The big difference being one is employer initiated where the employee does not have control over the transfer of assets from one plan of the employer to another such as in a Plan Merger, as opposed to the employee making an affirmative election to roll their funds from one plan of the employer to another such as upon Plan termination of the first plan.

Under CSRS and FERS the Former Spouse's payments begin within a month or two after the Employee goes into pay status no matter what the written Agreement of the parties, and no matter what the provisions of the Judgment of Divorce, and no matter what it says in the COAP. In cases where there is a large disparity in age, the parties will often agree that the younger party will not receive a share of the older party's annuity until a certain date in the future. OPM simply ignores this. But in the attached FAQ document put out by DoL you will find: "When can the alternate payee get the benefits assigned under a QDRO? A QDRO that provides for shared payments must specify the date on which the alternate payee will begin to share the participant's payments. Such a date, however, cannot be earlier than the date on which the plan receives the order. With respect to a separate interest, an order may either specify the time (after the order is received by the plan) at which the alternate payee will receive the separate interest or assign to the alternate payee the same right the participant would have had under the plan with regard to the timing of payment. In either case, a QDRO cannot provide that an alternate payee will receive a benefit earlier than the date on which the participant reaches his or her “earliest retirement age”, unless the plan permits payments at an earlier date. This “earliest retirement age” is often a date earlier than the earliest date on which the participant would be entitled to receive his or her retirement benefit. "The plan itself may contain provisions permitting alternate payees to receive separate interests awarded under a QDRO at an earlier time or under different circumstances than the participant could receive the benefit. For example, a plan may provide that alternate payees may elect to receive a lump sum payment of a separate interest at any time. As discussed earlier, section 401(a)(9) of the Code may affect when benefits must be paid under tax-qualified retirement plans. "Reference: ERISA §§ 206(d)(3)(C), 206(d)(3)(D), 206(d)(3)(E); IRC §§ 401(a)(9), 414(p)(2), 414(p)(3), 414(p)(4)" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> And see Q. 3-9 of the more recent DoL publication - attached. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> And, last but not least, 26 USC 414(p)(2)(C) provides: "(2)Order must clearly specify certain facts A domestic relations order meets the requirements of this paragraph only if such order clearly specifies— (A)the name and the last known mailing address (if any) of the participant and the name and mailing address of each alternate payee covered by the order, (B)the amount or percentage of the participant’s benefits to be paid by the plan to each such alternate payee, or the manner in which such amount or percentage is to be determined, (C)the number of payments or period to which such order applies, and" So I think you are in good shape if you can determine the period to which the QDRO will apply. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BUT...you used the term "separation from service", and that leads me to believe that you may be talking about a Military retirement. In the future it would help is you identified the applicable plan. If it is a Military Plan the answer is likely to be found in the attached DoD-FMR, and it will be controlled by whether or not the separation of service was prior to or after December 23, 2016 and fell under the old rules or the "frozen benefits" law that became effective on December 23, 2016. David Goldberg DoL FAQs.pdf ++++QDROs Booklet from DOL.pdf 1364486998_DoDFMR7Basof08-13-2021.pdf

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.

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)

This happens all the time (<0.5% accrual) in CBPs, especially those with a relatively low interest crediting rate. The "worth" is in the large contributions attainable for the business owner(s).