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I didn't see one single CORRECT answer. A retirement plan uses a trust to hold the assets. The trust is required to have it's own tax ID. PERIOD. Yes, of course you can ignore it and continue to hope that the IRS will never match income to tax IDs, but that doesn't change the answer. Ray, continue to do it the right way, regardless of what others have said.

You can exclude Company B because they are all HCEs. You can always exclude HCEs without failing coverage. Again, make sure the document reads correctly. In some documents, you have to choose to exclude compensation from a related employer whether or not it has adopted the plan as a participating employer. Now if Company B had a plan and was trying to exclude Company A, THEN you would fail the coverage test.

I think that ship might have already sailed.

Any time not sure, the best course is to refer to them to legal counsel.

If you are in black out, they may not have loaded your loan on to the new providers platform yet. Check the day after you come out of blackout. If doesn't show up, talk to the person in your company who handles the 401(k) and tell them they need to straighten this out or you'll contact the DOL.

Hi there, congrats. Your finance will need to use the marriage event to drop the general purpose health FSA to preserve your HSA eligibility going forward after the marriage. There will likely be a run-out period to submit claims incurred prior to dropping the health FSA. The company can provide the details, but it's typically in the neighborhood of 90 days. If she switches to your HDHP, you'll be able to contribute the prorated family limit for the remainder of the year.

Thanks, Bill! That makes sense.

Actually there is old IRS guidance allowing the use of the EIN, but being three years retired now, I no longer remember the cite. I think it dates back to the 80s, so it’s probably obsolete given all the identification laws and rules that have come since then. That said, it’s far better to get a separate TIN. Not only is it technically correct since the trust is a separate entity from the employer, but using the EIN can have disastrous consequences if the employer gets into hot water with the IRS over things like unpaid payroll taxes. The IRS can levy (seize) employer accounts for unpaid taxes AND they identify accounts to levy by the ID number on the account. Imagine trying to unwind the mess created if the IRS were to hoover up plan assets for unpaid payroll taxes. This actually happened to the client of a TPA I knew way back in the day. Over the years I had a handful of clients get in arrears on tax payments, (stuff happens) but they managed to avoid IRS levy action. Jim Norman P.S. Hi Larry!

Very likely, the Plan will consider this as two separate events (who wouldn't?). In such case, the marriage event causes an automatic change of beneficiary to the spouse. The divorce might (check the plan document) automatically invalidate the beneficiary designation, but such provision is not required. Do two things: (1) read the document, and (2) get the participant to submit a new beneficiary form. Don't look for ways to cut corners, esp when the solution is so simple.

The only thing I might caution is since there is only one NHCE and they are not deferring I think I would caution the client to keep good records that the safe harbor notice was in fact distributed and would encourage them to have an "opt out or 0% election" signed by that NHCE just in case the IRS might question it.