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FAs can completely freeze accounts so no dividends or interest hits the account. I don’t know how it’s done but I know it can be done. So get them to acknowledge they’ve done it and explain the costs of an additional report, filing, and 1099s have to be done.

Happens to all of us but possibility of reality is there. Sometimes, it is not the financial advisor's fault that unexpected dividends pop-up. Still do not know what needs to be done?

According to Notice 88-118: "As a result of the repeal of the 3-year rule by section 1122(c)(1) of TRA '86, all annuity distributions from qualified plans to distributees with annuity starting dates after July 1, 1986, are taxed under section 72(b) of the Code. Section 72(b) provides that a portion of the annuity payments received in a taxable year may be excluded from gross income as a return of the distributee's investment according to an exclusion ratio determined at the annuity starting date. The numerator of this ratio is the employee's investment in the contract, and the denominator is the expected return."

Read the freaking document

I've run into an issue testing one of the plans that came on with us this year. I don't know who wrote their plan document but they absolutely should be a safe harbor, but they aren't. It's just 5 people , three of which are owners (one of them is the owner's son who didn't actually work at all or make anything though). Anyway, the ADP/ACP is... bad. The two owners deferred 23k and 12k (40% and 23% respectively I believe) and as such the ADP is roughly 17.5% vs 1.06% for the NHCEs. The options are either a QNEC, which would be roughly 7.5k in order to pass, or returning almost all their deferrals to them. So here's our proposed creative solution: The only HCEs who need money returned are both owners of the company who choose their own pay, and as such the line between their money and the business's money is really just up to how they want to receive it. Because it's only the two owners, we want to do a "corrective distribution" on paper so they pass ADP/ACP, then use that money to do a profit sharing contribution to give both the owners that exact amount back (obviously, we'd discuss this with the owners before actually doing it). As the plan is new comp / cross tested and there's only 2 NHCEs, the cost they'd need to give to them would be far less than a QNEC and the owners would still get to keep the money they put in. So, my questions: From a legal standpoint, is this iffy? It seems fine to me as it's no different than distributing that money back and then the employer "deciding" to do a year end profit sharing, except we don't actually buy and sell those assets. Second: One of the two owners is over 50. The IRS page on ADP ACP corrections says that "If the Plan provides for catch-up contributions, the refund may be recharacterized as a catch-up contribution (up to the catch-up limit)". How would this rule factor in / be utilized to solve this? And yes, we're already in the process of writing an amendment to make them a Safe Harbor NE for this year, we just can't retroactively do that.