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I look at this one step at a time. When uncle dies, plan assets go either per a beneficiary designation *or* if none, per the terms of the plan. I would guess that the spouse (aunt) is the bene under the terms of the plan - so those assets go to her - whether she exercise control over them or not. Uncles will is irrelevant. Only a valid beneficiary designation or the terms of the plan govern. So, when aunt died, assets go per her bene designation (if any) or per the terms of the plan - and uncle, uncle's estate, and uncles trust have no bearing on aunt's distribution of her interest in the plan. Aunt's representative (estate) or others would be entitled to those benefits - absent some fact not disclosed. The court has NO JURISDICTION over the plan assets until paid, and cannot direct those assets to be paid to the trust, and whether it is a pass-through is really irrelevant..

I think the misunderstanding that many people have is that if the participant did not fill out a beneficiary form/designation, then the account is subject to the terms of a will, or if no will, then intestate rules. It isn't. 401(k) plans have default beneficiaries written into the governing plan documents, so that in the event a participant passes without a affirmative beneficiary designation, there is a default beneficiary. Typically that is something like spouse, children, estate, but it varies. Read the plan's document carefully. Even if the estate is where the benefits are to go - they go there because of the beneficiary rules in the plan document, not because of the application of a will or intestate laws. So If everyone else pre-deceases the participant (not what we have in this post) the estate is the named default beneficiary under the terms of the plan, and gets the $$ because of that.

Is it fair to assume that you have determined that the benefits you would have earned in the defined contribution plan somehow are more valuable that the benefits you earned in the cash balance plan? If not, what is your motivation for asking the question? Moving on, let's assume that you do not have any documentation of your choice and your employer is unable to find any documentation of your choice. You should expect that your employer will point to all of the benefit statements and plan disclosures that they have sent to you over the past couple of decades explaining your cash balance benefits to you as evidence that you chose the cash balance option roughly 20 years ago. If you are going to pursue this, you should start by follow the claims procedure in the SPD for the defined contribution plan. You should be prepared to provide information about the basis for your claim. If the claim is rejected, you can appeal. If you lose the appeal, you can take it to court. If you are going to go down that path, you are going to invest a lot of time and expense for something you admit you have no documented reason for making the claim. Do not be surprised if your efforts are unrewarded.

I agree with @ratherbereading and @Bill Presson. This is way beyond what can be addressed on a message board, OP needs to engage an attorney ASAP.

Agree with the above. You also should have had an attorney and CPA involved either the initial agreement and the acquisition agreement. Seems like those were big misses.

Someone else can chime in but this is beyond the scope of this board (at least mine) - sounds like you need a good attorney to address this. Bankruptcy isn't the end of the world; you can recover from that. Best of luck.

If it is your 401(k) including auto enroll and escalation, you should absolutely be able to opt out of those some how. Usually by overriding the auto amount with an affirmative 0% election. If it is a pure employer contribution they may not accept your waiver as is it is possible that could cause the Plan to fail discrimination with no recourse for them to be able to fix it and that would affect other employees. Have you spoken to an employment attorney who might be able to help you?That might be your best course of action.

No. That is not OK. Those beneficiary accounts must be kept separately- particularly because the RMD calculations are different, and because that is the regulatory requirement. His wife should have two IRAs. (1) A beneficiary IRA for the one he inherited from his father. Registered in her name and her husband's name. (2) An IRA with the amount she inherited from her husband's own IRA. She can move this to her own IRA, or to a beneficiary registered in her name and her husband's name.-her advisor should advise which of the two is more suitable for her. His niece should also have two IRAs. (1) A beneficiary IRA for the one he inherited from his father. Registered in her name and her uncle's name. (2) A beneficiary IRA for the amount he had in his own IRA- that too should be registered in her name and her uncle's name. They should contact the IRA custodian and have them fix these errors.

That’s a good start. ASPPA has several worthwhile designations to consider and pursue.

@jsample - I believe the OP mentioned seasonal employee, and most people would agree that seasonal is a service exclusion. But you are correct, you can exclude classes of employees. The one that I have heard debated is Interns - is that a service exclusion or class exclusion? I could go either way in my arguments.

I think the latest required restatement will be in 2076.

This might be back pay within the meaning of 1.415(c)-2(g)(8). If so, it's considered compensation for the year to which the back pay relates, so 2022 or 2023 in your case. Does the document address back pay at all?

You're right. They are included for coverage testing for both 403(b) and 401(a) plans. Mostly, we don't worry about the effect of this on nonprofits too much though, because the number of people treated as independent contractors is small enough that counting them for coverage purposes (even if all of them were recharacterized) would not throw off coverage testing. There aren't a lot of nonprofits that have Microsoft's situation. The bigger issue is the universal availability rule. That's a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. If you include someone who really is an independent contractor, you have violated the rule that a 403(b) plan can cover only employees. If you fail to include someone later recharacterized as an employee, you have violated the universal availability rule. So there is no "safe" option other than avoiding having independent contractors at all.