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My experience of almost 40 years is that the check date is most often used. Otherwise, the administrative work is a mess.

Don't SH contributions typically get 12 months to be made? If so, then your real issues might be 2023 deductibility and annual additions tracking, since they certainly are late to be 2022 additions, but not late to meet the safe harbor.

Purchase an annuity with a J&S benefit? I don't think the other options are acceptable for a DB plan unless you'd like to be on the hook for a claim from the spouse.

I agree with Bill and Paul. Most plans (at least that I've seen) do, however, contain some sort of clause that deferrals will begin as soon as "administratively feasible" - so there is some reasonable latitude, but consistency is important.

This is a classic question where payroll periods and plan entry dates are not synchronized. In my experience, most plans have used the first payroll paid after the entry date, but I have worked with plans that start with the end of the payroll period that starts on or after the entry date. What is unsaid in these discussions often deals with other payroll practices like payrolls that pay in arrears, or one or two weeks in arrears, or pay in advance. The bottom line is for the plan administrator to decide how the rules will apply and then stick to that decision consistently.

Where an employee or dependent loses eligibility for a benefit, I don't see there being a Section 125 irrevocable election issue caused by the retro disenrollment of the ineligible individual. That's common for any situation (other than prohibited rescissions for medical under the ACA, as you noted) where the employer discovers late that an individual has lost eligibility for any health and welfare benefit for which employees pay on a pre-tax basis. The agencies also came out with an FAQ a while back stating that the ACA prohibition of rescission rules do not apply in this situation-- https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/EBSA/about-ebsa/our-activities/resource-center/faqs/aca-part-ii.pdf Similarly, if a plan does not cover ex-spouses (subject to the COBRA continuation coverage provisions) and the plan is not notified of a divorce and the full COBRA premium is not paid by the employee or ex-spouse for coverage, the Departments do not consider a plan’s termination of coverage retroactive to the divorce to be a rescission of coverage. (Of course, in such situations COBRA may require coverage to be offered for up to 36 months if the COBRA applicable premium is paid by the qualified beneficiary.) One important note is that this was one of the items that was addressed by the Outbreak Period extensions. So for multiple years the former spouse's COBRA rights would be preserved even by providing very late notice. That relief is over, so the employee or spouse is going to need to notify the plan within 60 days of the divorce/legal separation to preserve the former spouse's COBRA rights. There are also open questions as to whether it makes more sense to terminate coverage prospectively or retroactively in this type of situation, and whether disciplinary action against the employee might be appropriate for covering the ineligible individual for some expended period. Here's some more details I've posted on this common issue: https://www.newfront.com/blog/event-divorce-terminate-ex-spouse-2 Slide summary: 2023 Newfront ERISA for Employers Guide

Corrective contributions are required to be made with respect to a current or former participant, without regard to the amount of the corrective contributions. See Rev. Proc. 2021-30 Page 33 of 140.

I agree that this should be checked, but it really shouldn't be possible that the p/r provider could screw this up. I get that it was a mid-year change in providers, but unless something is really whacky, I doubt their system could exclude excess deferrals from taxable income on the W-2. And even if they did, I'm pretty sure it would (should) be picked up at the time of filing the 1040, so there really shouldn't be a need to file an amended return(s)...unless there were multiple screw-ups by multiple parties, which I guess is possible. There's a lesson in here about changing p/r providers mid-year. And there's the issue of this coming to light...now?

Technically, this is a 401(a)(30) violation and is corrected using EPCRS Appendix Section .04 which calls for a refund of the excess and double taxation. It also is a late deposit since the deductions were taken in 2022 but not submitted to the recordkeeper until 2023. The employer was late in segregating those deposits to be beyond the control of the employer and the employer had use of those funds until they were submitted in 2023. This is a different violation which seems to be the focus of the accountants. The correction for late deposits would call for calculation of lost earnings and potentially paying an excise tax. The employer should check what was reported on the employees' W-2s to see if the excess deferrals were included in the reported deferrals and excluded from taxable income. If so, then each employee should be notified that they should file an amended return for 2022 to recognize the taxation in the year of deferral. They also should be notified that the excess will be taxed again in the year of distribution. The employer also should check to see what deferrals were used in the 2022 ADP test (if applicable). If an employee was an NHCE, the excess would not be included, and if an employee was an HCE, the excess would be included. Per EPCRS Appendix Section .04, if the excess deferrals were Roth deferrals, the excess deferrals are still treated as taxable both in the year of inclusion and the year of distribution. This seems to based on the notion in 1.402(g)- 1(e)(1)(ii) that excess deferrals are treated as employer contributions.

I agree with Peter on the involuntary distribution part, although Lou S. you may well be right that the involuntary rollover isn't practically available. I've never seen this actually happen because neither the plan nor the participant is typically this stubborn, but if the participant has separated and is past NRA, the plan could just send the participant a check and withhold 20%, if the participant refused to submit distribution paperwork, assuming that's what the plan document provided.

HCE, this IRS web page https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/401k-plan-fix-it-guide-eligible-employees-werent-given-the-opportunity-to-make-an-elective-deferral-election-excluding-eligible-employees summarizes the permissible corrections. The only time you don't have to create an account and allocate a make-up contribution is when the error is corrected within 3 months: "If the period of failure is less than three months, no corrective QNEC for the missed deferral opportunity is required. The excluded employee must begin to participate and if the plan provided for auto-enrollment, the commencement of deferrals occurs within the three-month period beginning from the start of the failure and the issuance of the special notice occurs within the 45-day timeframe." There are some other details and nuances, so make sure to have a professional involved in figuring out what is appropriate for your plan.

These rules are completely insane. What are others using as a practical tool for sorting this all out? There must 15 to 20 pages in the EOB. Has anyone created a user friendly guide to answer the million possibilities?? I'll spend 45 minutes sometimes trying to figure all of this out for a particular scenario. To me there should be a website where you ask: How old was the Participant? How old was the beneficiary? Was the beneficiary the spouse? And on an with all of the other variables (RMD before death, after death) and tell you what the rules are. Has anyone done this yet??

OMG it is screaming out for a flowchart.

The establishment of a nominal Roth IRA in anticipation of rolling over a Roth account later was also done to be able to get the Roth money out of the qualified plan before it got caught up in required distributions. The change in law that allows Roth accounts to be excluded from the required distribution calculation obviated the need for the technique.