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Have they ever worked 1000 hours in a year? If not could you test coverage on the basis of disaggregating otherwise excludable employees?

I am not a lawyer, I'm a TPA. From my perspective, you need a lawyer. If the amount of money is substantial, then you REALLY need a lawyer. Don't mess around. Now, others here may have a more informed opinion.

FWIW, I have heard some actuaries argue that if you are bringing someone in early that has not met the age/service requirements for 401a26 purposes, you need to expand the number in your 401a26 count to include those similarly situated ees you are not bringing in. Also, if top heavy you would want to bring them into both plans unless you want to give the TH Minimum in the DB, which is probably not want you would want to do.

I'd suggest looking up the pension organizations that give us all the fancy letters after our names, and explore their education offerings. (ASPPA/NIPA to name two to start with)

If it was a merger they are in TH testing like any other type of plan being merged into another plan. Also, don't forget a merger will mean protected benefits. These assets are in a type of pension plan and for these payments a person has to be offered J&S annuities of various types as a form of payment. They can opt for a lump sum, and most people will do so, but this is the big hassle of these plans if it is a merger. These assets still have just about all the restrictions on them as if they are in an MPP still. Do your homework.

We're still straightening out the details as both the prior TPA and the client are... well, not the most informed on how things work, and aren't getting us all the information. That said, this is the first plan we've ever seen money purchase pension assets in and it's for many people, so we're fairly certain it was merged.

Were they rolled over or merged into the plan?

Not familiar with Disney or Fidelity procedures, but it is common to submit a draft DRO to the plan administrator (perhaps that is Fidelity in this case?) to make sure it does not ask the plan to do something the plan cannot do. This draft has (very likely) not been seen by the court. It's done by the parties/attorneys. Then, if necessary, it gets tweaked, sent to the court, then sent to the PA. Only the PA can determine if a DRO meets the requirments to become a QDRO. Plus, what Belgarath said.

You may want to point them to this law suit where the Department of Labor stepped in to recover the Davis-Bacon contributions: https://www.planadviser.com/government-contractor-accused-of-missing-401k-payments/ If anyone were to bring your client's situation to the attention of the DOL, the DOL very likely would intervene. (Note that the suit later was dropped by the DOL after the past due contributions plus earnings were paid.)

For sole proprietorships and partnerships, the owners are allowed to make deferrals against any draw they take from the business. All of the income from self-employment and deferrals are considered to be determined as of year. S-corp shareholders typically get W-2 income and S-corp dividends. The S-corp dividends are not considered compensation for purposes of the plan. Conceivably, the IRS could say that if payments made during the year that were not from amounts subject to taxation when paid, then salary deferrals cannot be taken from those payments. I haven't seen this situation, so this is just my thoughts.

I am not the biggest expert on pension plans but given what I know and am reading here is there someone higher up in the Pensions Department you can talk to? It sound like it possible there is a misunderstanding at the level you are currently speaking to. Also, you mention it is important you live in NJ. Do you work for a government body? That can make a big difference and can be an important fact for the experts around here to know. Public pensions have very different rules than a private pension plan as a general rule.

The goal of a QDRO in a defined benefit plan is to provide an Alternate Payee (AP) a portion of participant's benefit for AP's life. In a case of a Shared Interest QDRO, an Alternate Payee is assigned a portion of participant's benefit over participant's life. To ensure that the Alternate Payee will actually be receiving some benefits until he/she dies, the Shared Interest QDRO is forcing a participant to elect a J&S benefit, so upon participant's death, the shared portion payable to AP will stop, and J&S portion will start. However, this requirement applies only, and I am using words from your QDRO, "to the extent of the calculated interest". Here is a simple example: The total benefit is $1,000 per month under 50% J&S. Marital portion of this benefit is $600 per month. AP is assigned 50% of the marital portion under the shared interest QDRO. Essentially it means that you are "receiving" $600 and "sharing" it with your ex 50/50 (each receives $300). When you die, you stopped receiving $600 and there is nothing to share anymore. The 50% J&S provision kicks in where AP receives 50% of the total benefit of $600, i.e. AP continues to receive the same $300, she was receiving before you died. Furthermore, the remaining $400 are not part of the marital portion, and you should be able to elect any other beneficiary for this benefit. However, if your marital portion is 100% of your total benefits, I think there is nothing you can do to change it, unless you will be able to completely nullify the existent Shared Interest QDRO and create new Separate Interest QDRO. Your pension department should split your total benefit to "marital" benefit and "non-marital" benefit in regard to your ex and treat these separately. The "marital" benefit will be subject to the QDRO, and "non-marital" benefit will be subject to your election.

Luke, if you perform a diligent search and are unable to determine the beneficiary of a decedent by the time you file the Form MP you would list the benefit under the deceased participant's information. (For example, let's say you find out the participant died years ago when processing the plan termination, you have no beneficiary designation form on file, and you either can't determine who the participant's survivors were based on the default beneficiary hierarchy in the plan document, or you can't find an individual administering his estate if the benefit is payable to the participant's estate), The preamble to the 2017 PBGC missing participant regulations under section 4050 stated the following: "PBGC expects that there will be instances where a DC plan knows a participant is deceased but has little or no information about a beneficiary. Where an unknown beneficiary of a deceased participant is missing, as defined in the final regulation, the account balance of the deceased participant may be transferred into the missing participants program. PBGC will take into account the fact that there is no known person to search for in evaluating the plan’s fulfillment of the diligent search requirement for any such distributee. Plan fiduciaries and QTAs would file in accordance with the forms and instructions for DC plans what information they have about the participant and beneficiary."

bito'money, I have not worked through the PBGC's forms/instructions/guidance on this line-by-line, but I think that in order to do that you would have to list the participant as the missing participant/beneficiary, even though he or she is dead. I think if the participant is already dead you are supposed to identify the beneficiaries. But the PBGC obviously does take amounts for living missing participants who eventually die before they are located, so in theory as long as there is no direct question on the form on which you have to represent that your "missing participant" is still alive (and I did not find any), it might work. Note the PBGC does what you to attach documentation regarding default beneficiary provisions of plan and any participant designation, foreseeing the possibility that the participant may be dead before they find him or her. But technically, I think that they anticipate that the participant is alive when you identify him or her. Could be wrong. Maybe others have reviewed this more closely.