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Eligibility is not a protected benefit. So if they wanted to amend the Plan to exclude all cashiers going forward past/present/future you can do that. It doesn't change the distribution rules for for the employee. They are still subject to the plan terms, they continue to accrue vesting service, they just don't get future contributions. Two caveats, 1st you can't cut back a benefit they have already earned a right to, so if you are trying to exclude a current cashier who has already satisfied the allocation condition for 2025, you couldn't make it effective for them until 2026. 2nd those folks still go into your nondiscrimination tests, they are just no considered "not benefiting" so if you exclude too many NHCEs you can run into testing problems.

Of course, if compliance with SECURE 2.0 is the only thing upon audit that the IRS can find wrong with a plan, then they’re not looking hard enough.

We have a client that would like to provide “concierge medical benefits” to all of its employees that have elected any level of medical plan coverage, which is provided under a fully-insured high deductible plan. There are no actual medical benefits being provided via the concierge program. Instead, the client has contracted with two geographically convenient general practitioners that will give “high” or “immediate” scheduling priority to participants, as well as much quicker response to requests for refills, etc. Actual medical expenses associated with the services will be run through the group medical plan as usual (e.g., cost of the visit, medical tests, etc.). From the client’s description, it seems like the concierge service is merely a program to provide priority scheduling and refills. The projected cost for each employee is $2,000/year. I am not sure if there is a different cost if the employee has elected family coverage, but in any event, it will all be employer paid. Our practice is primarily focused on qualified and nonqualified plans, so this is out of the box for us. At first blush, this program does not seem to be a welfare benefit plan, and I am thinking that the cost would be includable in the employee’s income. Hoping someone has some experience with this type of program and can point us in the right direction.

It was stock - board control in the tax exempt world. So buyer treated as the new owner - not an asset purchase. I agree with what you are saying above and appreciate the tips etc. I will pass on to the sponsor. Thank you!

@Bill Presson is asking about the type of acquisition since, in a stock acquisition, the employees of the acquired company became employees of the employer/plan sponsor and the plan would recognize any work history of an employee that worked for the prior company. Similarly, it the acquisition was an asset acquisition, the employees of the prior company were considered terminated from employment by the prior company and then hired as new employees by the employer/plan sponsor, so the work history in the prior company is not recognized. Regardless of the type of acquisition, if the current plan document recognizes the service with the acquired company, then that service with the prior company will count. Look for provisions in the plan document regarding predecessor service. The provisions may be in one place in the plan document and indicate if the predecessor service is recognized for eligibility, vesting or allocations, or the provisions may appear separately in the section for each of the types of service. Assuming that the circumstances of the acquisition or the provisions of the plan document require consideration of the employee's prior service, the employer/plan sponsor cannot disregard the employee's assertion that the employee worked for the prior company because it would be an inconvenience to try to find it. The employer/plan sponsor would be best served by working with the employee to find the documentation. For example, the employee could provide details about when they worked, in what location where they worked, who they worked with/for and what was their title/job description. This information could reinforce the employee's case and also help locate documentation. If the employee has kept old tax returns, they may have W-2s issued from the prior employer. If the employee does not, the employee can ask the IRS for copies of their past W-2s (or at least a transcript of their tax information) by follow the steps on the IRS website: https://www.irs.gov/faqs/irs-procedures/copies-transcripts/transcript-or-copy-of-form-w-2 If the employee had participated in a prior employer's plan, the prior employer's plan service provider may have retained information about the employee. If the employer/plan sponsor has copies of compliance tests that were performed for the prior employer's plan, the employee's information likely is available in the details of those tests. What the employer/plan sponsor should want to avoid is the employee filing a claim for benefits that is rejected and then having the employee involve the DOL.

When drafting plan provisions related to changes to exclusion by classification, be sure to address what happens in situations such as: a participant is hired into a covered classification and then at a future point in time the participant starts working in an excluded classification. a participant is hired into an excluded classification and then at a future point in time the participant starts working in a covered classification. if a participant worked in a classification that was covered, and the plan grandfathers participants who worked in that classification before the effective date of the new provisions excluding that classification, and the participant terminated employment prior to the effective date of the new provisions, and the participant is rehired after the effective of the new provisions, will this participant be grandfathered or excluded. consider the impact of the change should these situations occur during the time period between when the an employee meets the eligibility requirements for a type of contribution and an employee's entry date which may be months later. if the plan uses rules of parity for eligibility, consider how these rules can complicate these situations particularly if the plan requires a one year wait to re-enter the plan. When considering situations like this, be sure to consider how the plan will apply to each of the three types of contribution sources: elective deferrals, match, and nonelective employer contributions, particularly when applying any allocation conditions for the match and NEC. The most important consideration that @Lou S. pointed out above is that the plan will need to consider employees in the coverage testing for each of the three contribution sources who met the plan's eligibility requirements but are excluded by classification.

I think you can still exclude John Doe moving forward because you're not excluding him based on his service (instead his job category). Even if you want to keep him in, and exclude only future cashiers, generally we'd write the exclusion as something like "All cashiers hired on or after xx/xx/xxxx."

Even though Code Section 401(a) applies to several types of qualified plans, usually when someone refers to a "401(a) plan" they are talking about a governmental defined contribution plan. The 401(a) plan usually holds the governmental employer's match based on employee deferrals to a 457(b) plan, but can also hold employer non-elective contributions and employee after-tax deferrals.

I was in undergrad when that movie came out. A friend of mine got a student job in the computer operations room. He had access to the system that was more than maybe you should give to a student. All the workers came to work one morning and the first message they got on their work terminal was: Do you want to play a game? How about Thermal Nuclear War?

If you have SSN information, we suggest Life Status 360 for an affordable option for address searches. They have an address search, SSN death records search and obituary search options. We like them for our DB plans as we upload a file to them once a year and we receive daily reports of anyone that shows up in a state death report or an obituary. The records are then run through the Social Security Death Index and several other death index databases whenever they are updated. We oftentimes find out that someone is deceased before a family member contacts us. It really helps to keep our DB records up to date. We also use CLEAR from Thompson Reuters, but that is a more expensive option, but allows you to do next of kin searches. However, you don't necessarily need a SSN to search there, but it does help, especially if you have a common name.

I suggest working with a selection service providers to balance cost and effort to finding missing participants. For example, EmployeeLocator.com has a very high success rate at a very low cost if you have and are willing to provide the SSN. (Check you PII policies.) At the other end of the spectrum are private investigators which often charge an hourly rate. They tend to be more successful working within the likely geographic area of the last know whereabouts of the participant, and are much more expensive. I have found using a combination of search sources - BeenVerified, TruthFinder, Google... - helps build a dossier which then can lead to a more focused search. For example, one participant died in a car accident. Having found an individual with a very similar name and with the same birth date lead to a news article about the accident which then lead to finding next of kin. Typically, if you can find the county in which a death occurred, the coroner will readily work with a plan but is less likely to work with an individual seeking information. In another example, it turned out that a former co-worker of the participant was named as a beneficiary on an insurance policy. The company had enough information about the former co-worker and when contacted, the co-worker provided enough information to be able to find the participant. The stories that emerge from some of the searches are amazing!