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If you want TMI, get your favorite beverage and read FAB 2008-04 (18 pages). If you want to see what an EBSA investigator will look at when reviewing a plan's ERISA bond, peruse the Bonding checklist (3 pages). I believe anyone going through the checklist will think of at least one client that likely has a bond that is not compliant. 2008-04.pdf Bonding checklist - EBSA Fiduciary Investigations Program.pdf

You answer "no" (I have seen many people answer yes even without retro coverage, but it would be technically incorrect) Fixed at the beginning of the plan year (ERISA 412(a)) Technically, it should be "no" if you at any point during the year had a plan official handle or deemed to handle funds or property of the plan without adequate coverage*. That said, I have had both IRS and DOL tell plan sponsors to get a current bond if none existed, without requiring retroactive coverage. You report the amount of coverage. This could mean the face amount of the bond, or another amount if the bond has a rider that applies 10% at the time of the claim. So, you could have a face amount of $20k, but with a rider to cover 10%, in which case you would enter the greater of $20k or 10% of BOY assets. Yes. Its one or the other, and you cant file electronically if you answer yes but do not enter a bond amount. * edited for context.

I don't think that would be allowed. Sec. 603 notwithstanding, part of the definition of a Roth contribution is that it has to be made at the employee's election. If you force certain contributions to be Roth then they're not valid Roth contributions. Likewise, catch-up contributions have a requirement that if any employee is allowed to make a catch-up, then every employee has to be able to make a catch-up. So you couldn't take away somebody's ability to make a catch-up merely because they didn't make a Roth election.

Time for the fiduciaries to negotiate a reduction in the revenue sharing.

I'd think there had better be a compelling alternative reason not to follow the plan's terms. I suppose "may" buys you some leeway, but as to how much.....and more importantly, why? They obviously signed a document presuming folks would come with rollovers ahead of their plan participation, so why don't they like the idea now?

I'd prefer a separate paper trail, especially since one $4M transaction will "look" to be over the 415 limit. But I don't think you need two transactions, especially if you have her completed elections for both her benefit and her husband's as his beneficiary and can account for the two even if they are sent in 1 wire/check. Though you will need separate 1099-Rs.

The plan should consider identifying what the plan will not accept as a rollover and apply that to all rollover requests including those of employees who have not yet met the plan's participation requirements. This may include requiring all rollovers to be in cash (or identifying unacceptable assets like LPs, real estate...), not accepting loans, not accepting Roth or after-tax, not accepting life insurance, and other similar restrictions designed to keep the plan investments clean. The plan should avoid exercising discretion over whether an individual is allowed to make a rollover contribution into the plan.

Agreed - and thank you both. No other admin expenses, apparently. Allocating as a credit seems like the most viable solution to me. And then either a renegotiation of revenue sharing, or the plan should be amended to ditch the term'd participant fee, or a combination of both.

The biggest concern is the use of the expense charge as a forfeiture against the match. That needs to stop ASAP and the plan should consider making a match contribution equal to the sum of any prior offsets. Aside from the TPA fee, does the plan have administrative expenses for other service providers that can be charged to the plan? If yes, and they exceed the revenue sharing amount, this could help clean up the issue. If the revenue sharing is so large that it covers all expenses, then consider allocating the excess to participants as a credit. This could be done on account balance or per capita, and would include the accounts of the terminated participants. Personally, I agree with Bill that a simple approach is to negotiate a reduction in revenue sharing. It will be less work to administer the plan and less likely to attract a suit for having overpriced investments.

Agreed, I think Roth conversion changes the current and future taxability features of the converted amounts but does not change the money type and characteristics.

On both a 5500 and an SF, the opening wording to question 4 or 10 (and their a through i or n subsections) says, "During the plan year:" So I don't think you're properly answering the question if you obtain it after the year-end but still suggest it was covered (unless retroactive). And as for the "part of the year" scenario - I think it's reasonable to say that "the plan year" does not specify the entire plan year. Meaning, if you got your coverage on December 31, then the answer of "yes" is a true answer because during the year it was indeed covered. Heck, I'd suggest you get to leave "yes" as your answer if your policy expired on December 30. (Recall on the SF, you're asked if the plan had loans, even if the they're all paid down to zero by 12/31, so you still admit there were loans, even if it wasn't all year long.) As for the dollar amount, I'd use the largest amount of policy in effect during the year. Or if the plan just uses an inflation guard, I'd use the 10% BOY amount.

That certainly sounds like a practical solution to avoid having multiple single-purpose forms with associated instructions. A challenge for each plan is to present to the participant only the choices available under the plan document. There number of these choices has grown which means the number of combinations of permissible withdrawals has increased significantly. If a plan permits a lot of these options and the plan's recordkeeper administers the collection of the participant's elections, it also will be a challenge to present the choices to the participant. One drawback to online elections is screen real estate, and mobile apps are even more restrictive. It is doable, but challenging.

I believe you can make any source eligible for ROTH conversion, though I think it does have to be 100% vested to convert. However, you do have to preserve the pre-ROTH characteristics (such as distribution timing) of the funds being converted so you'll likely need to track a separate ROTH source for each source of funds that is converted to ROTH.