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We have a few clients that refuse to give us SSNs unless we are doing distribution work. They however all agreed to give us an Employee ID number that was unique to just that person with each census across time. They were responsible to assign the number and make sure it is only used for one person. We loaded it to the SSN field in the software. In the end the reason you want SSN is you need a unique and consistent number to match up data over time for and from the client. As long as they can give you a number that does that I am not sure why you should keep objecting.

yes We haven't filed for many, many years. If you have a pre-approved document, and keep it up to date, then there should be no problem with the language. And getting an FDL does not protect you from being audited on the plan's operation. IMO, they have raised the fees to a point where they are essentially saying "don't bother us."

They were an employee for those month, so if they met the eligibility conditions they would be in the test. Compensation would be defined in the plan document but I'm guessing that yes the W-2 wages would be used. And they would probably be treated as terminated as an employee since they are now an IC but you can confirm that with the client.

These people do not (as of now) have an account balance, so there won't be any 1099-R. If they do decide to defer, they would have to provide the SSN to the investment company to set up an account. They won't get an option at that point. So that solves the 1099-R issue. I certainly understand the plan sponsor's desire to try and keep private information private. But you can't let the inmates run the asylum. The employer has to be able to make certain decisions without input from the employees. Should they make the decision to share PII carefully? Of course - if seeing our security protocols would ease their minds, I have no problem sharing those. For the ~15 employees they have (though I don't know about turnover), it doesn't seem like it would be impossible to agree on a separate identification number and apply that. I like the idea of suggesting it as an additional manual task that requires a small charge. Thanks. All this is reasonable. And I'm not trying to be unreasonable about it. So, ultimately, there is no need for SSN to be used as a unique identifier as long as there is a different unique identifier and its only purpose is in our system. It has just become a convenience (as described in this humorous explanatory video here).

Although it is not a rule or regulation, the bulletin is republished in the electronic and print editions of the Code of Federal Regulations. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-XXV/subchapter-A/part-2509/section-2509.95-1

That's not really how it's supposed to work because the employee was actually eligible for the FSA. It's only the HSA for which the employee was ineligible. I suppose you could try to argue that there was a systems error with the general purpose health FSA enrollment, thereby making any FSA payments improper. I'd consider that aggressive but not crazy. If you took that approach, here's an overview of how it would be handled: https://www.newfront.com/blog/correcting-improper-health-fsa-payments

I have never seen a state court order control an ERISA plan. Often times judges order divisions which cannot be enforced...so I'm the lucky one to say the parties must return to the negotiating table because the plan will reject the attempted QDRO. Also, unlike fmsinc above, I have drafted 100s of DROs on unfunded deferred compensation plans and feel like more times than not the company will permit the DRO. Some companies have changed their tune on permitting DROs such as EY, Chevron, etc. The biggest surprise I feel with divorcing clients and their family law attorneys is their expectation that the AP can rollover their NQ benefit to an IRA or qualified account..which of course cannot happen if coming from an unfunded non-qualified DCP via DRO. Going back to Peter's original question, I think it's a matter of the company permitting (or not) a DRO on the NQ unfunded benefit, not that they have removed any QDRO provisions as those do not exist in a NQ plan. Another wrinkle in all of this is how companies like EY and Deloitte have NQ plans that shift the company liability from the NQ to a qualified plan over time (such as a cash balance pension with an accrual rate much higher than normal to provide more funding of the overall benefit from a qualified source vs the nonqualified benefit).

If a worker has no elective deferral, no matching contribution, no account balance, and otherwise could not be the distributee of a distribution to be tax-reported, there might be no current need for her taxpayer identification number (whether SSN or ITIN). Not only in retirement plan services but also in many aspects of commerce, we should want to lessen overuse of Social Security Numbers. But many of us have little or no power to make, or even influence, those business choices. AlbanyConsultant, while the response might be disappointing to you and frustrating to your new client and its workers, it’s fair for a service provider to set terms under which it is willing or unwilling to provide its services. Even for a billion-dollar plan, sometimes a service provider has no better explanation than “that’s just the only way we do the service.” If your or the recordkeeper’s service includes a feature for an eligible employee to submit her “enrollment” and elective-deferral instruction electronically to the service provider (rather than to the employer), consider explaining, if truthful, that not having a taxpayer identification number already on record could deprive an employee of her opportunity to use the electronic-enrollment feature. A participant who has no elective deferral today might want one tomorrow. And some employers and employees prefer an electronic enrollment over a paper enrollment.

Look at the plan document to ascertain whether there is any distributable event. As implied in above responses (and in original post), it seems unlikely; thus, the recommendation to do a spinoff.

I'd make sure nobody's match amount exceeded the amount a annual formula would have come up with, too. If it's 50 on 4 every week, how did this one guy end up with 2.05% for the whole year - that kind of thing...

I agree with @ratherbereading. If it is payroll period basis, I only look to make sure the amount has not violated the annual compensation limit. Other, we disclose that we are not responsible for the payroll period Match calculation.

We don't check it unless the documents says it should be done on plan year comp and they are doing it each payroll.

It's a loan. What do you propose calling it that would not lead to discussions like this? I'm not exactly sure what is wrong with "this sort of discussion thread."

Never underestimate the value of employee relations and participants' perception of the integrity of the company or the plan's service providers. We work with more than a dozen recordkeepers and none of them would push back on posting an expense reimbursement if it is available under the plan document. Trying to fix this with a few extra buck in a bonus just pushes the hassles on to payroll (not to mention the hassles when payroll does not report the bonus correctly when reporting plan compensation). On the other hand, tell a participant that their account was dinked $100 for an expense that was due to a setting that was missed during a change in the investment platform would not be received well. The participant likely will respond that the $100 less in their account will translate into $2,000 (or more) less money that will be available to them when they retire. (Yes, some participants read the communication material they get bombarded with.) Another participant just as likely will say $100 would get them dinner and see a movie. Own it, clean it up and let participants know the company is a responsible steward of the participants' money in the retirement plan.