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The IRS issued a "Notice of proposed rulemaking and notice of public hearing". The effective date of the guidance will be as of the first plan year at least 6 months after publication of the final rule. Given the process for accepting comments, holding hearings and finalizing guidance, the rules likely will not be effective for calendar year plans until 2027. In the meantime, plans are expected to comply with "a reasonable, good faith interpretation" of the new rules. That being said, there should be no need to go through the election process all over again. It sounds as if the plan received affirmative elections from employees. If an employee did not make an affirmative election, then the AE default elections should have been applied. This is somewhat of a simplification of what is in the new guidance, but it should suffice as having made a reasonable, good faith interpretation. Here is a link that will provide more detail about the contents of the guidance, and can help you track the potential issues as the guidance moves through the process of being finalized. https://ferenczylaw.com/flashpoint-and-not-a-moment-too-soon-in-fact-a-little-late-mandatory-automatic-enrollment-guidance/ There's a lot to absorb, so keep informed as this all unfolds.

The following article talks about the IRS tax-related issues in the event of escheatment of a benefit. https://www.groom.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/IRS-Version-of-Missing-Participant-Guidance.pdf The IRS presented how the escheated benefit would be reported for tax purposes, which adds another layer of complexity to this approach. It is hard to assess the value of the DOL's temporary enforcement policy. Sometimes it feels like we would all be better off if the agencies would stop coming up with creative ideas on how to "help".

I don't think one year is a hard fast rule. More like facts and circumstances but if you are inside the 1 year window the IRS is fine with it. But if you are concerned, it couldn't hurt to have a new resolution re-terminating the plan or affirming the plan termination. You might also want to check if the delay requires them to adopt any additional conforming amendments. As long as your "freeze" amendment isn't rescinded because you are deeming the termination no longer in effect it shouldn't have any material impact that I can think of but you may now need a Valuation and Schedule SB for 2024 that you weren't planning on which if the plan is underfunded could give rise to a required contribution.

I do one of two things, I put the plan into the recordkeeping system, create a "managed account" investment and track the sources in the system. Manual entry of contributions and time-weight the contributions for the earnings allocation. Or I create an excel spreadsheet to manually maintain the sources and prorate the earnings. I generally use excel if it is a solo plan. I am not as precise as a recordkeeping system allocating gain / loss when I use excel. I advise the broker / client that a second brokerage account must be set-up when Roth contributions are involved. I do want those segregated into their own brokerage account. Next year when catch-up contributions must be Roth for many owners with W-2 compensation, there may be a lot of new brokerage accounts opening. I do charge additional for brokerage account reconciliation.

What is most important are what the employer payroll and accounting records show are deferrals and employer contributions, and what the employee's tax records (including W-2, K-1, ...) show. That will be the documentation support the proper source of the deposit. Mislabeling the deposit in the brokerage is poor records management and a potential source of confusion, but by itself should not be fatal. It is possible for a single brokerage account to hold salary deferrals and employer contributions as long as there is a separate accounting maintained between the contribution sources. The separate accounting could be done by a TPA and does not have to be done by the brokerage house. From the time 401(k) came into existence, if any contribution sources were co-mingled with salary deferrals and not accounted for separately, then everything in that account was subject to the 401(k) rules (including vesting, in-service withdrawals, ...) Encourage the client to practice good hygiene and make separate deposits into the brokerage accounts for each contribution source to create a clear audit trail. If you need to provide a sub-accounting by within the brokerage account by source, be sure to charge an appropriate fee for the extra effort.

Thanks Paul. Yeah, we dump this back on the client, to determine (hopefully) with their tax counsel. Then they tell us. This gets way into the realm of individual tax/legal advice, which my designations don't permit. I will say that generally, in my limited experience with this specific question, rightly or wrong the answer is "no, this isn't a fringe benefit." I have my doubts that the client has in fact asked tax counsel, but that's not my problem.

You seem to have a good grip on the matter. You are far too generous to the Department, of Labor in its abject failure to provide meaningful post-death QDRO regulations, as it was directed to do. The DoL gets a C- in QDRO class generally. As described, the crux seems to be the intent of the original decree. If that decree is “corrected” to reflect original intent and some sort of clerical mistake in naming the plan, I think the QDRO fiduciary could be more demanding of the state court action in persuading the plan that, in fact, it is a correction of a mistake at the time, and not an opportunistic grab at benefits that were not on the table in the first place. Normally, the fiduciary does not question the domestic relations proceeding, but this is not normal. Under normal circumstances, the domestic relations proceeding is adversarial. If revisiting the original divorce decree is adversarial, perhaps because the subsequent spouse is a party to the action to argue against naming a new plan, the plan fiduciary can be more accepting of the outcome.

If she legally adopted you then I think she is. If she's "just married to your dad" then no double attribution.