Received a call from an Advisor.  He has a prospect with 2 Partners, no employees.  It is an LLC taxed as an S Corp and the 2 partners receive W-2 income.  The Advisor and CPA want to set up the plan for 2025 and have the partners make the maximum deferrals before year end from a bonus check.  The plan can be set up for 2025 but can they make the employee deferral contributions at this late date for the 2025 year?  I question it because they take W-2 comp and not Schedule C or K-1.

Hi - I usually can keep all the SEP & SIMPLE rules straight but this one is flummoxing me for some reason.

Our client started a SEP in 2023 with one year of service as an eligibility rule. Employee was hired October 2024. In May of 2025 they updated the SEP to 3 years of service before eligible for the plan.

If they do a SEP contribution for tax year 2025 is the employee required to receive a SEP contribution because they were hired under the 1 year eligibility? or does the employee fall under the 3 year eligibility?

As we all try to navigate the year-end craziness and balance life with family and friends, I just wanted to wish everyone a safe, relaxing and enjoyable holiday season!

Friday afternoon, no brain activity as usual.

Combo CB/DC. CG with ABC corp and XYZ corp

ABC sponsors both plans and XYZ is an adopting employer for DC plan only

DC is 401k with SH match

CB excludes all XYZ employees. All ABC employees participate in both plans and get PS allocation as well.

None of the XYZ employees defer and none get any PS allocation either (401k/SH has 3 months and PS has 12 months+1000 hours). None of the XYZ employees work 1000 hours but all eligible for deferral+SH and since no one defers, no one get SH thus T/H is satisfied.

ABC eligible compensation is 500k and XYZ eligible compensation is 100k

Need to use 31% rule for deduction.

Do I use 500k or 600k?

Thanks

I'm looking for perspective on the issue of the Top-25 restricted payment rule in DB plans, or specifically in this Cash Balance Plan. We have a participant who is among the Top-25 highest paid employees and would be restricted from taking a lump sum under these rules under normal circumstances. The relevant facts are as follows:

• Individually designed DB Plan effective July 1, 2009, restated July 1, 2021.
• Plan has only ever covered HCEs (NHCEs have never been covered; professional medical group).
• There are approximately 60 participants, but about 70 employees total.
• Currently less than 100% funded, but still above 80% threshold.
• Benefits include interest credits tied to actual market returns, subject to anti-cutback rules (participants effectively "fund" their own benefit).
• Plan Document includes legacy restricted payment language referencing:
  • Top-25 highest paid HCEs
  • Current liabilities
  • Escrow arrangements
  • An explicit exception stating the restriction does not apply if the plan never benefited any NHCEs.

Here are my two specific questions:

1. From a technical standpoint, is it correct that the legacy top-25 restricted payment rule does not apply in an HCE-only plan, consistent with the "never benefited NHCEs" carve-out found in older individually designed documents? 

2. Setting aside funding level thresholds which are not currently triggered, how would you view the risk of allowing distributions in a less than fully funded HCE only DB plan, where early distributions could materially shift funding risk to remaining participants due to anti-cutback provisions? Particularly when the participant seeking the distribution is among the Top-25 highest paid?

More generally, is this just a known but acceptable feature? Is it still legally required to not allow a top 25 paid employee to take his full lump sum? Is this a fiduciary concern requiring discretionary limits? Or if this is not a legal issue, is this something that should be voluntarily adopted to prevent funding issues?

I appreciate any insight you can provide.

Hi all, it's been over a year or more since I've in. I'm retired but trying to help someone out...

a 403(b) participant passed away and TIAA/CREF is saying that he named his widow for a portion of his account/certificate, but did not name a bene for another portion, and that portion is to go to his spouse 50% and his estate 50%. If in fact there was no bene des that checks out with the SPD (confirming my long-held belief that 403(b)s are a different world).

I'm familiar with the idea of a see-through trust, but is there any such thing as a see-through estate? She is the only beneficiary of his estate so she is ultimately entitled to all of the benefits, and of course would prefer to roll them over rather than open an estate and have the estate treated as the direct beneficiary.

I don't think so but thought I would take a shot. 

An employer wants to amend their plan to adopt QACA.  Can they have QACA apply to just employees hired after a certain date or does QACA have to apply to everyone? They currently have a basic safe harbor match plan.   The QACA match differs from the SHM and having 2 different SHM formulas in the plan is not permitted (I think).  

The employer would prefer not to have existing employees have to go through any enrollment process or have anyone currently employed defaulted into the plan.  But if everyone currently employed has an affirmative election to participate or not in the plan, would those employees really need to complete anything for the QACA?  I would think not.

Thank you for replies

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Hello,

My employer has done quite a few layoffs this year and has offered those former employees COBRA subsidies as part of their severance agreement. My question is: if an employee is offered a COBRA Subsidy for a certain number of months, but does not actually elect COBRA, does that amount still need to be reported on their w2 for informational purposes? Or does it only need to be included if they elect COBRA?

We just received the 2025 SECURE 2.0 Amendment from ftWilliam. Most, if not all, of our clients will be going with the default selections in the amendment.

Out of curiosity, are firms having their clients formally adopt the amendment now, or are most waiting until the required deadline of December 31, 2026?

Thank you!

A few questions questions regarding SECURE Act amendments:

1. My understanding is that 401(k) plan documents have until December 31, 2026 to be amended for any secured act provisions, even if operationally implemented earlier (e,g, Roth catch-up elections implemented in 2025). Is this correct?

2. Are plan amendments required for:

      a. The annual paper statement requirement of Secure 2.0 Sec 338 - my inclination is that you wouldn't have to unless there were something in the plan document that suggested something to the contrary.

      b. The disclosures for eligible unenrolled participants requirements of Secure 2.0 Sec. 320 - again,  my inclination is that you wouldn't have to unless there were something in the plan document that suggested something to the contrary.

Thanks!

We have a small group of DB plans and work with an excellent actuary. Our plans are generally small but for one with several hundred participants.  The sponsor wishes to start a new DB plan but would like it to look like their 401(k) - online access to see balance, process distributions online, etc. 

Does anyone know if Ascensus has such a product.  I did a search on them and was directed to their subsidiary Future Plan.  Thank you for any comments.

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We are helping a takeover client with a DFVCP filing.  The EFAST site only goes back to 2009 filings which makes sense.  When going to the DFVCP payment web site, it lists Forms 5500 going back to 2004 as "late filings found in EFAST at this time."

Question is how are pre 2009 Forms showing up on the DFVCP site as being on the EFAST site, but they are not actually displayed on the EFAST site. Maybe the client filed electronically, but it is not displayed on the EFAST site?  In any case how do we amend those pre-2009 Forms and submit under DFVCP?  

Hope someone has experience with this.  Thank you!

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Safe harbor plan fails compensation ratio test for the match since bonuses are excluded. The plan document does not provide any type of correction method such as use total compensation. Does an 11(g) amendment correct this situation where compensation would be added back? I remember hearing in the past that if a safe harbor plan fails compensation tests it blows the safe harbor, unless the base document has a correction like the AQSC document does. This plan uses a pre-approved document but no correction language has been located. How do we proceed? Thanks!

Hi, I've worked on 401k plans for a while now, but encountered mega roth backdoor quite recently. I do understand that it has great tax saving for an individual but after digging deeper I read that ACP must be passed for the after tax voluntary contributions even if the plan is safe harbor and passed ADP and ACP for matching. Am I understanding this correctly? Also is there any way to bypass the testing for mega roth backdoor after tax contributions?

Thanks!

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