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W4-P is for periodic payments. W4-R is for nonperiodic payments. And it's very difficult to not spell "periodic" as "idiotic" most of the time.

Yes, to all that. Pay close attention to QDROphile's last sentence. Just a bit more clarification: First, you should ask for a copy of the plan's written QDRO procedures. If you don't have an attorney who is very familiar with QDRO rules, keep looking. Usually, the best procedure is to have a draft DRO (typically created by the parties and/or their legal counsel) sent to the Plan sponsor (or some person/organization they designate for administrative purposes). Review of that draft (perhaps more than one) frequently enables small (sometimes large) errors to be corrected, and then a final (court issued) DRO is produced and sent to the plan and/or administrator. It becomes a QDRO only when the plan and/or administrator approves and accepts it. If the plan is sponsored by a governmental agency, such as a state/local government, they will have different (but likely similar) rules. If "your retirement" includes other accounts, such as one or more IRAs, any division will be handled outside of the QDRO process.

Really? I'll have to read the doc. I guess I assumed there was an IRS limit. After I posted I though... "give them the 3% and then sweeten the pot with a PS NEC if they want. That way they are not locked in". Appreciate the response. Always good to know in any event.

As high as the employer wants to go, unless you have a document with a hard-coded cap. But realistically, you have to consider deduction and 415 limits, for example.

Unfortunately, they're going to have an uphill battle. If they go back to their former employer, the employer is going to say that the plan is terminated, and the benefits were transferred to the insurance company, so it's not their problem. The insurance company is going to say that the benefit isn't payable until age 65, and whatever information was provided previously is wrong, or not binding on them since it was provided by someone else, and again not their problem. Hopefully you have a copy of the Summary Plan Description. It will describe the early retirement benefit. That might be enough to convince the insurance company to take it seriously, but then again it might not. The insurance company should have an appeal process for denied claims, which you will probably have to use. And yes, you are correct that PBGC protection ended when the benefit was transferred to the insurance company. Good luck.

Are you sure about this? Please go and read the document carefully. I have a feeling it actually says that it excludes non-resident aliens with no US-source income. If they are working in the US then they are not excludable under this definition regardless of their immigration or residency status.

The IRS has all your answers here: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/pensions-and-annuity-withholding

Plans get terminated all the time, for a variety of reasons, and it isn't necessarily an indication of financial difficulty. Sure, it COULD be, but very well may not be. If the plan is subject to PBGC, the participants should generally be ok anyway, up to the PBGC maximum. (Caveat - I'm not a DB person, so the actuarial wizards here may give you a different take on this. I stand in awe of folks who don't have to count on their fingers.)

@Lou S. is correct, but don't overlook the possibility of a mistake in the original statement quoted in the first post above. It happens.

The EOB has a fair amount of discussion about a mistake of fact that includes some tenuous references to sources. The discussion most on point with this thread says: "1.b. Tentative contribution for employee who fails to accrue benefit for plan year is not subject to return under mistake of fact. The Joint Committee on Employee Benefits of the American Bar Association posed this question to the IRS in an informal technical session conducted in 2001. Suppose an employer, for budgetary reasons, deposits monthly to the accounts of participants in a 401(k) profit sharing plan. It is determined after the close of the plan year that some participants don’t qualify for the contribution because they fail to satisfy the plan’s last day employment requirement. May the funds revert to the employer? The IRS’s response was that the funds could not revert to the employer because the IRS doesn’t view estimates as a mistake of fact." Looking collectively at the various sources that dealt with mistake of fact situations, it seems the IRS says "we will recognize it when we see it, and we will let you know if we see it."

Nope.

This thread is discussing OEEs. Employees under age 21/1YOS can be tested separately from everyone else. When they are, the OEEs usually have no HCEs or they all have a uniform allocation, and if so, the benefits given to the OEEs won’t need cross-testing to pass testing so no gateway applies to them, period. But, if the OEEs are needed to help the non-OEEs (over age 21/1YOS group) to pass testing, then any minimums that apply to those over 21/1 also apply to those under 21/1, such as a gateway. Component plan testing is different in that it is an option that can be applied to the plan in a way that is not cut off at age 21/1YOS to delineate the components. If any component is cross-tested, then the gateway applies to all the components. If none of those components needed to use anyone under 21/1 to pass, the OEEs, then those OEEs are still not required to get the gateway unless the OEE group itself was cross-tested (super rare).

As Luke Bailey suggests, I imagine the situation you describe involves an IRS-preapproved documents set and the IRS’s opinion letter on it. While we haven’t seen the plan documents, service agreement, and other facts of your situation, here’s another point that could become relevant in some situations. Even if both old and new TPAs are licensees of the same plan-documents publisher, don’t assume a document would be constant. A publisher (ASC, Datair, FIS Relius, ftwilliam, McKay Hochman, etc.), working from the same “chassis” for a kind of plan document, might make many different versions. Even with nonexclusive licenses, different TPAs might have licensed different versions. Further, a recordkeeper or third-party administrator (perhaps a “bundled vendor”) might get a publisher to make a custom version. For that version, the TPA might get the whole copyright, share the copyright, or get rights to enforce the publisher’s copyright. Either way, some versions omit choices a service provider doesn’t want its user to select. Some versions add provisions a service provider insists its user include. Many have customizations—beyond names and identifying information—that relate to the service provider’s business. You might be surprised by some of the plan provisions a service provider seeks to influence. To be confident that what you hope to accomplish is feasible, you’d need to look into the exact details. Or if you or your client has any doubt, might it be simpler to start over? Whatever someone might assert about lacking reliance on an IRS opinion letter when a user no longer gets a service from that document’s sponsor or licensee, one doubts another provider’s service agreement would preclude your client from relying on an IRS opinion letter issued to you (or the publisher you license from) when your client adopts a plan-documents version you licensed. Nothing I post here is tax or legal advice. TPApril, you should ask your firm’s lawyer.