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Speculating about the possibility of an agency being unable to detect or enforce an issue can be seen as a violation of a practitioner's professional ethical standards (and possibly of Circular 230 (10.37(a)(2)(vi)).) The current assault on the ability of agencies capabilities to detect or enforce regulations has an element of intentionally disabling enforcement. There exists a relatively small but significant number of individuals who will ignore regulations simply because they do not expect to be held accountable. If their noncompliance is discovered, they often will be more than willing to challenge at least the initial efforts to hold them accountable, knowing that agencies will lack resources on a vigorous pursuit of enforcement. May all generations of retirement plan practitioners embrace honesty and integrity, and not be tempted to counsel clients on the risk of being caught for noncompliance.

The CPI-U for July 2025 was published with a value of 323.048. If inflation is 0% in August and September, based on Tom Poje's spreadsheet, some of the dollar limits for 2026 are projected to be: NOT Official yet, of course: Deferral limit: $24,500 (up from $23,500) Catchup: $8,000 (up from $7,500) Compensation Limit: $360,000 (up from $350,000) Annual Addition Limit: $72,000 (up from $70,000) DB Limit: $290,000 (up from $280,000) HCE: $160,000 (unchanged) Key Employee: $235,000 (up from $230,000)

John- I still am somewhat in awe my spreadsheet still gets a lot of use, quite honored in fact. At least I was able to teach a few useful things! feeling really old now, seeing the deferral limit + catch up is more than back in the day when we waited forever for the annual addition limit to get above 30,000! Haven't looked at that spreadsheet for years, but that was in 2000. nice historical data for anyone who cares! Now for some reason I only update a sheet for Soc Sec! (which uses cpi-W) God bless all of you out there.

Some clients make sincere efforts to administer a retirement plan correctly. Some do right things the right way for no more reason than they feel good about doing so. But some clients ask intelligent questions about how much enforcement an executive agency does. Some intuit that an agency lacks resources even to spot a potential failure. While many lawyers and other advisers don’t volunteer information about nondetection and nonenforcement, when a client asks one must give an honest answer. Even declining to describe how much effort an agency puts on an issue practically reveals the answer—not much, often none. If the tides at EBSA and IRS don’t change soon, the next generation of retirement-plans practitioners will miss experiences that could have been learning opportunities.

Some initial thoughts / questions I'm assuming there are NHCE that would have been eligible to defer as of 1/1/2025 but for some sort of written class exclusion. But those are assumptions, please correct if wrong. I would think SHNEC would need to be retro to 1/1/2025, to cover the entire period deferrals were available to the HCE. yes, there is a coverage/benefits, rights, and features issue - a retro corrective amendment to allow them to defer to correct the missed opportunity to defer along with QNEC if needed. If considering SH Match, I would expect a full missed match correction per EPCRS would be needed back to 1/1/2025 for the NHCE, but I'm not sure I even see SH Match as an allowable option. Why aren't the NHCE part of the HCE plan? Are they specifically excluded as a class? While it possible, its a bit unusual, depending on the industry and document provider. Why start a separate plan for the NHCE? There are valid business reasons to have separate plans for separate classes, but many small employers find it not worth the effort. Is there a top heavy issue?

@Peter Gulia Based on the language of the PPA you cited, we have instructed the client to determine the $250,000 threshold taking into consideration all one person plans in the related employer group. Thanks for digging that up!!

Obviously a larger client with resource. Best way to do it, is as you described... On the other hand, we've actually had "handshake" acquisitions, where with one, when we asked if it was a stock purchase or asset acquisition (after it occurred), was asked back "which way is better." No joke.

Thank you so much for the kind words and the shout-out. It truly means a lot to me (I work at Stax.ai) and the entire Stax.ai team. We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve built, and even more proud of how we built it: side-by-side with multiple TPAs, incorporating their feedback at every stage to ensure the system solves real, everyday challenges. Stax.ai brings CRM, emails, tasks, plan-sponsor communication, and reporting into one clean, unified interface. It provides real-time audit tracking, powerful workflow automation, and full visibility for both the TPA team and the plan sponsor. We know that adopting a new system can be daunting, so we focus heavily on guided onboarding, pre-built templates, and responsive support. Most teams are up and running quickly, but the pace really depends on the breadth of features you decide to roll out. Compared to alternatives like PensionPro, we’ve designed Stax.ai to go beyond project tracking with AI-powered workflow orchestration, automated notice delivery, 5500 management, robust portal analytics, and tools to streamline plan-sponsor communication. Like any comprehensive platform, there’s an initial setup effort, especially with client and plan-sponsor data, but we’ve invested heavily in making that process as smooth as possible. If it would be helpful, I’d be happy to arrange a quick demo or connect you with a TPA currently using Stax.ai (but definitely reach out to BPG916 - not sure who you are, but you seem to have a great handle on how to do things with Stax.ai) so you can hear firsthand how it’s working for them.

Why? As mentioned in a previous thread, if the merger documents are properly defined and executed, the location of the assets is NOT relevant.

It might be useful to note that several sections of ERISA Title 2 (i.e., the portion of ERISA that amends the Internal Revenue Code) contain subsections that describe exemptions. For example, IRC 410 (Minimum Participation Standards) includes subsection (c): (c) Application of participation standards to certain plans (1) The provisions of this section (other than paragraph (2) of this subsection) shall not apply to- (A) a governmental plan (within the meaning of section 414(d)), (B) a church plan (within the meaning of section 414(e)) with respect to which the election provided by subsection (d) of this section has not been made, (C) a plan which has not at any time after September 2, 1974, provided for employer contributions, and (D) a plan established and maintained by a society, order, or association described in section 501(c)(8) or (9) if no part of the contributions to or under such plan are made by employers of participants in such plan. (2) A plan described in paragraph (1) shall be treated as meeting the requirements of this section for purposes of section 401(a), except that in the case of a plan described in subparagraph (B), (C), or (D) of paragraph (1), this paragraph shall apply only if such plan meets the requirements of section 401(a)(3) (as in effect on September 1, 1974). Note: (c)(1)(A) includes a cross-reference to IRC 414 for definition, and (c)(2) above specifies that the exemption in paragraph (1) applies only if the plan meets the legal requirements in effect on the day before ERISA was effective. The plan sponsor should discuss this issue with an ERISA attorney.

An employer wants to have a 3 month eligibility and 520 hours worked within the 3 month period. I was very confident telling the employer that if you want to attach an hourly requirement to a shortened eligibility period, using 1,000 hours for a 12 month period as my base, hours would need to be prorated accordingly, i.e., 250 hours for a 3 month eligibility period. The advisor pushed back, asking for the document provision that does not allow 520 hours worked in a 3 month period. Reviewing the adoption agreement and basic plan document, there actually is nothing in the document that prohibits having this in the adoption agreement. The employer is aware of the LTPT rules and also aware that no matter what the plan's eligibility requirement is, if an employee completes 1,000 hours in a 12 month period, they must be allowed to enter the plan unless they are in an excluded class. Does my alternative arguement to not allow this in the document hold water? While the document allows flexibility, IRS rules under IRC §410(a) still apply: A plan cannot impose eligibility conditions that effectively prevent participants from qualifying within the maximum permissible timeframe. If you reduce the service period to 3 months, the required number of hours must be reasonable for that duration. 520 hours over 3 months (~40 hrs/week) is seen as unduly restrictive by IRS standards. Therefore, even if the document doesn’t prohibit it, adopting a 520-hour rule in a 3-month window could jeopardize plan qualification if audited.