Leaderboard

Is the existing database in Microsoft Access? If so, you can probably find someone to help, such as build a user-friendly interface. Maybe engage an outside IT firm for a one-time upgrade and/or an ongoing maintenance contract (even if not in Access)?

If the only employer contributions are qualified under safe harbor rules, including the discretionary match, top heaviness does not apply.

Wonder if I have a copy of Foxbase sitting around? Have you upgraded to the 3.5 inch diskettes? I think there’s 23 of them. 😇

But consider reminding your client that there might be internal records of the company’s resolutions, consents, and other acts. Those records might document which humans have which responsibilities in acting for the company. The company, or an individual, might prefer that those records state accurately who’s responsible for what. And if someone thinks it’s merely a tedious housekeeping chore, consider that these company records might affect the company’s indemnity obligations and an individual’s indemnity rights.

The PA is generally listed in the SPD. But it's usually listed as the employer. As long as it's just somebody different within the same company who also has legal authority to sign on behalf of the company as PA, there should be nothing further to update in the plan/SPD.

https://stwserve.com/new-irs-regulations-on-year-of-death-rmds/ The IRS just released final regulations on this issue. Above is the article that addresses it. One individual could take the full required RMD for the original IRA owner. There are some issues, what if the individual who was supposed to take the full required RMD doesn't take their RMD? What if the children don't talk to each other? In my opinion, it would be safe for each IRA beneficiary to take their share or portion of the RMD. There's no penalty for taking amounts above and beyond the RMD for a beneficiary.

And has no allocation conditions (no last day or minimum hours requirements). Runs concurrently. So a deferral of 6% of pay gets both matches in full.

When you say "disaggregate method," you're referring to the permissive disaggregation of otherwise excludable employees - correct? You can elect to use this option or not on a year-to-year basis; it is not required to be specified in the plan document. If you disaggregated otherwise excludables last year, but you don't want to this year, then you will need to re-calculate last year's NHCE ADP on a non-disaggregated basis to use in the current year's test.

Perhaps after March 14, a furloughed EBSA employee won't ask anything.

My go to phrase: "We are a nondiscretionary, directed, ministerial service provider. Go find a fiduciary."

I had something similar a couple of years ago. DOL contacted me for a client that we stopped working on ~20 years ago. The plan sponsor gave them my number, saying that we were their "plan administrator". And since that was what the DOL had us as in their records now, they were very very very reluctant to accept that we had nothing to do with anything for the past two decades. They finally left me alone when I was able to dig up an allocation report from 2002 (!) and swore on a stack of 410b tests that was the most recent information I had from right before they fired us, but it was several calls over several months with "Find anything else yet? You know you are the Plan Administrator..." Um, no, and goodbye.

I would still consider that to be a contribution structure that doesn't comply with the uniform election rule component of the Section 125 nondiscrimination rules. The EE-only tier isn't providing a uniform election with respect to employer contributions for the non-HCPs, and therefore it's discriminatory in favor of HCPs in that tier. I'm assuming it's the same underlying medical plan option(s) at issue for both groups. Your argument that the salaried employees with the 100% ER contribution effectively aren't part of the cafeteria plan at that EE-only tier because they have no contribution is a creative one (kudos), but my feeling is the IRS would consider it too clever by half. That would be my position here. No real way to answer this definitively since guidance is limited (and enforcement experience is essentially nil), but for what it's worth I would advise the client to change that structure. The workaround I'd suggest is that there is never any issue with providing a greater taxable salary/wage to employees. If the salaried EEs were paid a greater amount intended to cover the increased cost of coverage, the salaried EEs could then make an election to apply that extra amount on a pre-tax basis to the employee-share of the premium. That would put both parties in largely the same position as if they had received the larger employer contribution. I put out a couple of posts diving into this topic that might be interesting/helpful: https://www.newfront.com/blog/designing-health-plans-with-different-strategies https://www.newfront.com/blog/nondiscrimination-rules-for-different-health-plan-contribution-structures-2 Here's the relevant cites: Prop. Treas. Reg. §1.125-7(c)(2): (2) Benefit availability and benefit election. A cafeteria plan does not discriminate with respect to contributions and benefits if either qualified benefits and total benefits, or employer contributions allocable to statutory nontaxable benefits and employer contributions allocable to total benefits, do not discriminate in favor of highly compensated participants. A cafeteria plan must satisfy this paragraph (c) with respect to both benefit availability and benefit utilization. Thus, a plan must give each similarly situated participant a uniform opportunity to elect qualified benefits, and the actual election of qualified benefits through the plan must not be disproportionate by highly compensated participants (while other participants elect permitted taxable benefits)…A plan must also give each similarly situated participant a uniform election with respect to employer contributions, and the actual election with respect to employer contributions for qualified benefits through the plan must not be disproportionate by highly compensated participants (while other participants elect to receive employer contributions as permitted taxable benefits). Prop. Treas. Reg. §1.125-7(e)(2): (2) Similarly situated. In determining which participants are similarly situated, reasonable differences in plan benefits may be taken into account (for example, variations in plan benefits offered to employees working in different geographical locations or to employees with family coverage versus employee-only coverage).