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I think you are dreaming. As I understand it, the SECURE 2.0 fix is to disregard community property ownership for attribution between spouses, which would have the effect of allowing them to use the spousal noninvolvement clause. In your situation, each spouse works for the other's business, so the spousal noninvolvement clause would not be available. There's also a change to the attribution through a minor child to the other spouse. This isn't a complete "technical" explanation... P.S. - see SECURE Act Section 315.

from what've seen - most of the RK platforms offer flexibibility on old money/new money/combined totals and even by source. There can be a variety of reasons why a participant chooses certain options; some may be tied to various investments - like a guaranteed fund or competing money market funds....

Impossible. That would mean that Lorena filed with Marty's super secret pin...

The problem with having two elections as it completely defeats the purpose of automatic rebalancing. The moment the next contribution comes in - and with each and every "new money" in transaction, you destroy the value of the rebalancing. And then, when the next rebalance occurs, you destroy the value of your new money election. As far as I know (and i have personal experience with Fido and Schwab), no one does automatic rebalancing with dual elections. If someone really wants to do that - do a manual rebalance (fund to fund investment transfers) without changing your new money investment elections. Not sure why anyone would want to do that, but that's really the only way to do it.

In this case it's all the same as the participant is 73 in 2023, is a non 5% owner, and has separated service in 2023. Under original age 70 1/2 rule, Secure 1.0 - 72 rule or Secure 2.0 - 73 rule, I believe you would get the same result in this particular fact pattern.

Yes, there are many possible ways, and even many widely used ways, to state an instruction for investment allocations. And yes, it’s not unusual for a regime to align instructions for accumulated balances with instructions for ongoing contributions. From context, I’m guessing your query is about a participant’s investment direction expressed as a standing instruction—one that regularly and periodically continues, rather than an instruction that’s one-time or episodic. While it might be useful to consider recordkeepers’ methods, a more immediate question is whether the allocations the particular recordkeeper’s operations produce follow the text of the form the directing participant signed. If the allocations a recordkeeper produces vary from those that would result by following the standing-instruction form, it’s time to rewrite the form to communicate accurately and fairly what the recordkeeper really does. Or if the allocations follow the standing-instruction form but are not what a directing participant expected, it’s time to rewrite the form to communicate helpfully to a reasonable reader. (We know either effort will partially fail because of some participants’ aliteracy. But that doesn’t excuse trying to write a text a reasonable reader could comprehend.) If the clients you mention are employers that serve as plans’ administrators, you might be on to something to suggest a fiduciary attend to this. In my experiences, what recordkeepers do often makes good sense, but sometimes is communicated less skillfully than one might like.

Double check the safe harbor notice rules. You don't need a safe harbor notice if the plan uses the SHNEC as as ADP test safe harbor. If the plan uses the SHNEC for both as as ADP test safe harbor and as an ACP safe harbor, then you need to provide a safe harbor notice. See 1.401(m)(3)(a). This is an easily overlooked requirement. The match formula can be fixed or discretionary as long as the formula used to calculate the match does not exceed 4% of safe harbor compensation and based on deferrals not greater than 6% of safe harbor compensation. See 1.401(m)(3)(d)(3).

If you use this, you'll be good with most situations. There will be some changes in 2024. https://www.lfg.com/wcs-static/pdf/Attribution of Ownership in Retirement Plans - PDF.pdf