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Getting stiffed for providing professional services in good faith almost always ends with a feeling of regret including what you shoulda, woulda, coulda have done differently to have avoided the situation. Your question in particular asks what would be ethical ways to proceed. As an EA, you are subject to the Joint Board for the Enrollment of Actuaries and its Standards of performance of actuarial services which includes guidance on what is considered "records of the client". You also should be aware of the ethical standards of any professional organization to which you belong such as ASEA, SOA, ASPPA, AAA... Generally, while there are differences between each organization's code of ethics, if you delivered work product prior to receiving payment for those services, you cannot withdraw or invalidate a client's reliance on that work product. Generally you do have a right, absent any formal contractual obligation, not to perform future services. You appear to have a direct relationship with the plan sponsors since you have filing authorizations and also because you personally sign the Schedule SB. If ultimately you decide not to perform future services for the client, you should notify them in time for them to find another actuary, but you may find in some of the applicable codes of ethics that you should not disclose the reason is the TPA did not pay your fees. If this is the case, consider offering to continue working directly with the client as a change in your business model. Keep in mind that it is the TPA that is not paying for your services, but it is the plan sponsors who are using and relying on your services. The ways to proceed you listed have an element of vengeance or punishment which commonly is driven more by emotion, and it is the plan sponsors (not the TPA) who would suffer by attempts to remove the SB. Temper the emotion, seek legal counsel about how to proceed about getting paid for services delivered, and get some guidance on the cost of exploring legal paths forward in terms your time and expense against the known cost of writing off uncollected fees. Do take some time to implement, maintain and follow the terms service agreements and engagement letters with the TPAs and clients.

Consider that whether a person is a fiduciary because the person might have provided investment advice is a mixed question of law and fact a court decides. A court need not consider any Labor or Treasury department interpretation of the statute. Yet, a court may consider any source, governmental or secondary. A court may consider anything an agency published, including a rule or other interpretation no longer in effect. A court must not defer to any agency interpretation; rather, the court interprets the statute.

$12,000 is what seems logical, but... The plain language of 414(v)(2)(E)(i)(II) says 150% of the amount in effect for 2024, which would be $11,250.

Beyond law, listen, carefully, to Paul I’s observations about civility and practical sense. And about an ethics code that results from membership in a voluntary association, here’s one bit: “. . . . The Actuary shall not refuse to consult or cooperate with the prospective new or additional actuary based upon unresolved compensation issues with the Principal unless such refusal is in accordance with a pre-existing agreement with the Principal. . . . .” American Academy of Actuaries, Code of Professional Conduct, Precept 10, Annotation 10-5 https://actuary.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/code_of_conduct.8_1.pdf.

Interesting question, thanks for sharing. I just have thoughts for discussion and no direct answer that I can back up. The plan document will need to be amended to say contributions will be deemed from pre-tax to Roth. Therefore, if the terms of the document are not followed, then I would assume an operational failure occurs. In this case, the employee was not told pre-tax elections would be deemed. So my thoughts are either (1) the terms of the document are followed meaning deeming happens now and the participant agrees to the deeming since they not told timely or (2) the plan administrator returns their ineligible catch-up if the employee opts out of deeming now. There is no missed deferral opportunity because the employee reached 402(g) with only pre-tax dollars. So even if they were given a notice about deeming, the only choice they had is to opt out of deeming. They could not have increased their deferral rate to receive more pre-tax dollars. I don't see where a QNEC would be owed in this case because there is no missed opportunity.

A form of this question was posed in the ASPPA 2002 Annual Conference - IRS Questions and Answers question 5: 5. If a 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan uses an individual funding vehicle with a $2,000 threshold and the business owners are able to immediately move into this funding vehicle that had multiple investment options, but non-owners with smaller 401(k) contributions are in a pooled money market until they reach the $2000 threshold, is this discriminatory? What if the threshold is $10,000? $25,000? $100,000? This is a benefits, rights and features issue and, depending on the facts, could either pass or fail. Also note that SDBAs got a lot of attention in EBSA's Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2012-02R, not about a dollar threshold, but about all of the disclosures that must be provided to all plan participants about SBDAs as an investment option.

Despite the list of authorized providers we just filed a 5330 electronically using FT Williams (although I guess it could have been via the government's system) a couple of weeks ago. I just made sure I liked the numbers and passed it on to someone here who knew how to do it but I am sure it was electronic. I believe it was agreed we could have done paper but we did file electronically. It was for a PYE 2024 ESOP.

Your description of the facts suggests you might lack a written engagement with a pension plan’s sponsor or administrator, and further might lack a written engagement with the plans’ service provider. Recognizing those and other complexities, lawyer-up. About those of the pension plans that are ERISA-governed, consider Standards of performance of actuarial services, 20 C.F.R. § 901.20 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-20/section-901.20. Get your lawyer’s advice about whether the State law that applies to each engagement provides your retaining lien on (i) your certificates and reports not yet paid for, and (ii) those of a client’s records in your possession. If State law provides you some retaining lien, consider the extent to which Federal law supersedes State law, restraining your rights by a duty to return a client’s records. For example, 20 C.F.R. § 901.20(j)(1). Consider distinctions between a client’s records and the actuary’s work product. This is not advice to anyone. BenefitsLink neighbors, what do you think about withdrawing a Schedule SB because it was not paid for?

There is no answer. One concern is whether the auto enrollment feature is too much employer involvement. You could argue there isn't employer involvement because it's required by law. It would have been nice if the law (unlike prior bills) didn't leave any discretion in designing the auto enrollment feature. But there is some discretion in setting the default % and escalation. Is that too much involvement? A bigger concern is that the plan must have a QDIA. If the plan isn't subject to ERISA, then there is no fiduciary standard in selecting the investment. The DOL is aware of the issue. No telling if we'll get guidance. Unless they provide some sort of QDIA safe harbor (possible but unlikely), I suspect they will say the plan is subject to ERISA. They prefer that participants be protected by ERISA.

The 1-rollover-per-year rule only applies to distributions from IRAs, which are rolled over to another IRA. They can roll over as many distributions from plans as they like. They could also roll over multiple IRA distributions to plans without violating the rule.