Leaderboard

Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world... The Kinks, 1970

Oh, Lola

Generally, I would say an electronic-only requirement would not be onerous for the vast majority of practitioners. Most already use EFTPS for transmitting taxes and Pay.Gov for other types of payments.

A very large portion of business-to-business transactions are electronic payments. This differs from plan participants we serve. The FDIC provides a survey of unbanked or underbanked households https://www.fdic.gov/household-survey which has some surprising numbers. For example, in Mississippi 9.4% of households are unbanked. It can be challenging to make payments to this segment of the population. Many within this segment use non-bank money orders, check cashing services or non-bank money transfer services. As an industry, we need to be mindful of the needs of the populations we serve.

While @Peter Gulia reasonably posits/considers that maintaining/collecting any gender information for a DC plan database may be superficial and/or unnecessary, I suggest it may be explained by inertia: the gender data element is merely one of many items that were collected from the beginning of time. It is important to collect gender ID is a defined benefit plan database if that database is used for actuarial valuations and/or determining actuarial equivalency in optional forms of annuity benefit. Consider a payroll/HR data collection: is it important for an employer to have a gender ID? From a payroll perspective, maybe not; but that data collection was (and is) often used for other purposes, including passing data to providers of medical or life or disability insurance. Hence, it is just one of many data elements of what many consider a "complete" database. I have also seen such data be one of many clues when there is question about someone's identity. Also, before the days of same-sex marriage, it might be a "flag" to question whether data supplied by a vendor (or plan sponsor) contains errors. For example, suppose the data supplied contains a gender code of M for everyone, but is for a hospital known to have about 60%-80% female population; that anomaly should make you question not only the legitimacy of that data element but also ask about other data validity. Don't laugh, I've seen it.

Are you asking if the Employer chooses to have a discretionary match, then is the Employer able to specify the definition of Plan Compensation each year when instructing the discretionary match? If this is your question, and the plan is using a pre-approved plan document, the very likely the answer is no. Most pre-approved plans have a set of provisions applicable to the definition of Plan Compensation depending upon the type of contribution (elective deferrals, match, nonelective employer...). These provisions will control what compensation is considered in the calculation of the match, the time period for determining the compensation, if pre-participation compensation is included, and any other provisions related compensation.

david rigby’s observation seems about sorting work between a pension plan’s ERISA-defined administrator and a service provider. About which person bears responsibility for a Form 5500 report as a plan’s ERISA-defined plan administrator or otherwise in that role: For a chapter 11 bankruptcy, the debtor continues to operate its business, subject to bankruptcy constraints. Often, an employee-benefit plan’s debtor-appointed administrator—often, the bankruptcy debtor itself—continues to serve. For a chapter 7 bankruptcy, “if, at the time of the commencement of the case, the debtor (or any entity designated by the debtor) served as the administrator (as defined in section 3 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) of an employee benefit plan, [the chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee shall] continue to perform the obligations required of the administrator[.]” 11 U.S.C. § 704(a)(11) http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:11 section:704 edition:prelim) OR (granuleid:USC-prelim-title11-section704)&f=treesort&edition=prelim&num=0&jumpTo=true. This is not advice to anyone.

From the standpoint of what a recordkeeper needs to know about a participant's gender for the recordkeeper to provide plan accounting services, they do not need to know. From the standpoint of interacting with the participant in delivering notices, sending out plan-related correspondence, emailing or having conversations with a participant, acknowledging the participant's gender identity helps build a rapport with the participant. Gender identity goes beyond the use of pronouns and includes things like Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms. or Mx. as titles or honorifics typically intended to show respect for the individual.

The responsibility to file might depend on any service agreement between the plan/PA and the vendor/actuary.

Of the employer’s bankruptcy, is it a liquidation bankruptcy or a reorganization bankruptcy?

Yes. Since you were >5% owner in 2023, the lookback year for 2024 HCE status, then through ownership attribution your daughter is an HCE for 2024. In 2025, you are still an HCE through attribution from your son but your daughter is no longer considered a >5% owner as there is no sibling attribution nor double attribution (e.g., from son to you and then you to daughter). Assuming your daughter is not an HCE by compensation then she is not an HCE come 2025.

Was she attributed more than 5% ownership at any time during the 2 years ending 12/31/2024? That’s your answer. In 2025 that changes, and now you look at her wages in 2024 and the document for its TPG election, and if TPG applies, you look at all the census data from 2024 to determine if she’s an HCE in 2025.