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Others might suggest a conference. For a book, whether print or electronic, that covers needed information (without wasting your attention on stuff you’re unlikely to need), Brian Pinheiro’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan Answer Book (Wolters Kluwer) is useful.

Thanks Paul. Day of the month, so the "person" is contending due date was May 10th, not May 31...

Janice was great, I worked with her on a bunch of ASPPA/ARA projects over the years, and she was always super generous with her time. I used the 2014 edition of the book until my rep gave me a new edition last year, and a lot of the commentary still held up after all these years.

I still use some of the things from Janice Wegesin and as long as its not something where the rule changed, they still hold up so well. I loved her webinars and publications, always so helpful and technical and practical for people who actually do the work!

You might look into materials/conferences/webinars available from: National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) Beyster Institute ESOP Association

The National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) at nceo.org has a lot of resources available to members (and a fair amount available for free). There is a wide range of information available from the what and why of ESOPs to some of the more technical aspects of leveraged ESOPs. Membership is relatively modest. If you want to dive into the deep end, there is a national forum in Philadelphia next week https://forum.nceo.org/

Similar to the 5500 preparer manual that Janice Wegesin used to do?

OK - all the usual pitfalls with insurance. Got it. Thanks. Well, the plan came from a low-cost, "do it yourself" kind of platform, so I'm sure that everything was properly reviewed and tested. *eyeroll*

I meant only that a recordkeeper might not have performed its services on amounts that didn’t pass through the recordkeeper’s processing. If so, the recordkeeper might not have cross-checked what was or wasn’t done by another service provider. And reading into your description of the situation, I imagined that the plan’s sponsor/administrator might not have skillfully or completely controlled the services the plan needs. If the sponsor/administrator had a mistaken assumption about tax-reporting life insurance, what else might they have missed? Who tested whether the life insurance met the incidental limits? Did anyone test whether prohibited-transaction exemptions were met? Might a predecessor service provider have been less capable than AlbanyConsultant? If a third-party administrator or the plan’s administrator provides the services needed but not done by the recordkeeper, that might meet the plan’s needs.

Agreed, due date is absolutely last day of the 7th month following PYE (later if extended), but as @Paul I pointed out, if you put an earlier date on the 5558, that is your due date unless you file an updated 5558. Say what you will about IRS rules, but they do not create 365 potential due dates.

@Belgarath thanks for the feedback. I have seen this issue come up several times with respect to short plan years, particularly when the short plan year is a result of a plan termination. The problem usually surfaces when the plan files a 5558 to extend the date and enters on the form a date that is 9 1/2 months from the end of the short plan year. That pretty much locks in the due date that is earlier than the latest permissible due date.

You read and applied the instructions correctly. Out of curiosity, what is the pushback you are getting (too soon, too late, day of the month...)?

I don't see any problem especially if it was the employer who was in error on starting the payments.

If you prepare or assemble more than a few Form 5500 reports consider A. Paul Protos’s 5500 Preparer’s Manual.

Peter is on point. Usually, the insurance carrier prepares the PS 58 reports and forwards them to the employer. The employer then prepares the 1099-Rs. However, if the PS58 is not reported, taxes paid, the entire death benefit is taxable to the survivor. There is also no basis recovery.

All -- As Elmer Fudd would say "Be vewy vewy careful ..." First, it is common that so-called solo 401(k) plans are documented to include everyone immediately (since the presumption is that there is no one else). So, it is possible that each of the five plans, by their terms, include all employees. If that is the case, then you might have a tougher nut to crack, because the folks ARE eligible for stuff in those plans. Second, be sure that the plans have common provisions that permit aggregation for coverage and nondiscrimination. For example, you can't aggregate SH plans with non-SH or, I believe, different types of SH plans. Finally, the coverage and nondiscrimination concerns related to the salary deferrals when no plan existed for these guys at the time could be a real issue. It might be worth a VCP filing to ensure that the IRS agrees with what gets done, but it may be possible to design the employee plan (assuming that the stuff I noted above all aligns properly) to have a QNEC equal to the MDO that would have applied had the employees been covered by the 5 guys' plans. So, they are getting what they would have gotten had the correction been made in the individual "solo (k)" plans. However, if you do file VCPs, you might need one for each plan so that each of the plans is protected (or, alternatively, you could take the IRS's approved correction on one VCP and extend it in theory to a self-correction in the others, which would be relying on the idea that one VCP's approval can be considered agreement in principle to the other plans). Remember, however, that the IRS is strained both by a lack of personnel and a lack of expertise of the personnel that is still there, so this all may be hard to achieve.

When Lou was talking about reducing the hypothetical account for amounts paid it would have been clearer if he said you reduce the hypothetical account to zero to reflect the fact that a benefit has been started.